Fishing Korea

I fished from the bank on Thursday morning for about 6 hours and caught only these 2 small bass. The good news is I caught them from a lake I haven’t fished before.

We all know how hot it can be and how difficult the fishing is in August.

Well, that was what was on my mind early Friday morning as I was heading to the lake with my boat in tow. My plan was to fish a lake close to home, but when I arrived at the only boat ramp there was a carp fisherman sat on the ramp with his 10+ poles, rant!!

So with the best part of the morning wasted I drove another 1.5 hours to the next closest lake (just South of Daegu) with a slope. I arrived there at about 8:00am and found a jet ski and a ski boat sat on the slope (that’s when I thought this day was going to be crap).

There were 3 guys trying to get this ski boat on the trailer and out of the water and they were having a very hard time doing so, so I joined in and helped them get it out of the water so I could get my boat in. I finally got a float around 9:00am and knew that the best part of the day had gone.

I threw buzzbaits for a while with no luck so I switched over to a buzzing frog and started getting a few bites in the shallow grass. Then I boated these 2 nice bass.

Then about the same time I hooked into a very nice bass that jumped a few times before snapping my 50lb power pro braid right at the hook, sigh!! The frog bite slowed down after that so I moved to the opposite bank and caught a couple on a senko, the second one being a very nice fish indeed, which put up a very good fight on my 6lb spinning rig.

Then I fished a crankbait along the entire dam wall trolling as I fished and I was catching a dink bass on just about every cast. I did hook into what “would” of been the biggest bass of the day but as I gut it to the side of the boat she jumped and threw my crankbait, double sigh!!!!

Then I moved a another spot with a rocky bank and deeper water, so I put on a slightly deeper diving crankbait (Surecatch Mega Crank) and caught a few more dinks.

Just look how cute this little guy is..

I fished for only 6 hours and landed 21 bass with another 10+ missed or lost, a great day for August!

Nomad and I discussed the the weather reports from KMA versus the Weather Channel. One called for no rain, the other, showers all day. I made a decision to go out anyway – I could always bring an umbrella for the Wiener dog. I was greeted this morning to the most unbelievable sunrise I’ve seen in a long time but it reminded me of the sailor’s adage, “Red sky in the morning, sailors warning. Red sky at night, sailors delight”.

The fishing was good. I caught bass on the old balsa Big-O. You old timers will remember that bait as the one bass pros were paying $20 for back in the 70s and storing in egg cartons to keep safe. I still have some from that era and they still catch fish. I also caught a few on 6.5 inch black Senko Cuttails rigged wacky. The water temp was down by 6-7 degrees from last weekend. Overall, I brought 8 bass in with just one or two dinks.

It started raining about 10 am and the wind picked so we headed out. I’m sure glad I decided to go out. That sunrise will be etched in my memory for a long time.

I was able to include a saltwater fishing trip while TDY in the US and it was good to catch something other than largemouth bass for a change (not that I’m complainin’ about bass).

My son and I drove down to Apalachicola and fished with a friend who had a nice 26ft boat. He was able to put us on the seabass, snapper, grouper, and grunts. We also caught triggerfish, redfish, and croaker.

He had spots marked on the GPS that were so good, as soon as our bait hit bottom, we’d have a fish.

We were only able to fish on the boat for one day as my friend had to go back to Atlanta that evening. With the combination of beating sun and catching fish, we were dog tired by the time we headed in.

The next morning we fished off the beach and my son caught this nice redfish.

It was a fantastic trip! We had a big fish fry when we got back to ATL and I even brought back some fish to Korea.

The title pretty much sums up my day this past Saturday, but at least I got out on the water, something I haven’t been able to do much of this year unfortunately.  I got out there very early and was fishing by 5 AM, with the moon still high in the sky.  I thought that was pretty early, but Nomad and Ty were already out there and had probably caught a few by then too.  Animals!!  LOL 

I caught a whole bunch of small ones, but a couple of nice ones as well, all pretty much on a black/blue chatterbait with a blue craw trailer.  I caught a few on Senkos as well, but the main bait of the day was the ch-ch-ch-chatterbait. 

I also spent a lot of time in this area, which looked really bassy to me, but not even a hint of a bite.  In all I fished for about 11 hours, drank at least five bottles of water, and was dead to the world after I got back home around 5 PM.  I’d like to do it again this Saturday but it’s supposed to rain, plus these temperatures have just been brutal this week. 

I spent the day in Daegu (actually only until 13:00pm because it was just too hot out there). I meet KSA Pro Park MuSeok at the lake at 5:00am. We fished that lake until about 8:30am when it was decided that the water condition was not good, so it was time to move to a nearby river.

At the river (more of a shallow stream actually) I started catching dinks on just about every cast with a 4” wacky senko.

It was fun catching the dinks for a while, but I had to find something bigger to put a bend in my rod. I threw a buzz frog around some weeds and got a couple of better fish, the biggest going 45cm.

I tried fishing a jig in the shoreline grass for a while and had 3 bites, missed 2 of them and lost the other at the side of the boat.

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I did it again, I went fishing in heavy rain and strong winds yet again, but this time I took my new boat. I was just soooo keen on getting the boat in the water for the first time I didn’t care what the weather was doing.

Long story short, the boat performed great even in the crap weather, I caught a few fish, albeit dinks and I got drenched to the bone.

The weather man was right for a change. Saturday’s forecast was calling for heavy rain showers, and that’s exactly what we got. I drove one hour to another new pond that I read about in the Lure and Fly magazine. I arrived at the pond at exactly 5:00am and that’s when the first heavy shower came, so I put on my rain suit and went for it. I caught 3 small bass on a black and blue buzzbait almost right away by casting it along the shoreline, the bass were holding really close in.

The as it got a little lighter, I could see around this new pond and I could see that there was a lot of floating slop in 2 corners of the pond, so I tied on one of my new Surecatch frogs (Mr Frog) and started running it across the surface of the slop, that’s when this nice bass decided he really wanted frog for breakfast and he hurled himself completely out of the water to get it, exciting stuff as this is my first frog bass of the year.

After that fish, the very heavy rain seemed to stop the fish biting so I moved to another spot where I caught a small bass on the frog before heading home extremely wet. I did have a few more hits on the frog which I either missed or the fish got off.

I was looking through the PASSO website last week and came across a boat for sale for a decent price. It turns out it was being sold by the same people/company where John recently bought his new boat, but this one was an older model.

I mentioned to the wife that I wanted it, and surprisingly she said yes, so I quickly transferred the $$$ before she had chance to change her mind, and by 5:00pm the very next day the boat was delivered 

It is just a basic 12 foot fiberglass hull with a deck and fitted livewell, so I will have to transfer all my stuff from my Portabote onto my new boat, which will be fun. Here’s a few photos from the site;

More photos to come as I get all my stuff transferred.

Last weekend was yet another Andong tournament weekend. For the Pro’s it was a 2 day tournament sponsored by my sponsor, ‘Surecatch Korea’, and for the Challenger Pro’s it was a 1 day tournament sponsored by Lureman, owned by Park MuSeok (more on him later ).

This time I took my better half with me, which was a big mistake. We fished together on Saturday which was also my one and only practice day. The day started off well when I got a bite on almost my first cast of the day which ended up being this little dink;

That was the only fish I would land all day Saturday. The wife however didn’t disappoint as she always kicks my @$$, and today was no exception. She caught 3 keeper bass. Here’s 2 of them, with the last one being a very nice one indeed. It took her about 5 minutes to land.

Saturday’s weather was rather good, mostly cloudy with some sunshine mixed in (all the fish came during the cloudy times).

Then Sunday came, and the rain came down HEAVY all during the tournament, which I didn’t mind too much as it was better then blazing sunshine. I started the day throwing topwater baits and lost/missed 5 bass early on (at least 3 of them were decent keepers). That made me frustrated. A few hours went by without a single bite, then with 30 minutes or so to go until weigh in closed, I caught 2 nice bass and hurried to the weigh in.

Not good enough to win anything, but I came in 29th out of 69 boats and got some valuable points with these;

The winner of the Pro’s was Park MuSeok (Lureman Shop owner, FTV Bass fishing show host and my fellow Surecatch Korea Pro-staff). Here’s a couple of his very nice winning bass.

Pete and Ruben both caught fish during the tournament, but unfortunately Pete had to leave early on Sunday due to not feeling too good, but not before catching this nice big Andong bass on Saturday;

As hinted by Nomad in his post, I was the recipient of the emergency surgery this morning on the river. After catching a dink on a crankbait, I grabbed it to remove the hook but it started thrashing and the next thing I knew I had the hook buried in my thumb.  I knew how to remove it but was a two hand operation based on where the hook was but luckily Nomad and Ty were just packing up and still at the ramp. A quick trip over and with the skill of a surgeon, Ty snatched it right out.

Last week I kept the bass I caught because my neighbors wanted them for maewon-tong but they keep asking for carp. Now, I’m not a carp fisherman but today, after the hook snatching surgery, I noticed huge schools of carp on the surface of the river. Quickly removing two trebles from a crankbait and tying a sinker on the bottom, I had a drop shot rig for carp. Having some experience snagging salmon in Alaska (legal), I proceeded to snag up some carp. I had to admit it was pretty fun.

Today was not one of the most productive days on the river but probably one of the most interesting.