Fishing Korea

With this amazing February weather we are having, I wanting to go fishing before this weekend’s rain got here (it’s actually raining and very windy as I type this!) so I went out yesterday (Wednesday). Everything was perfect; little or no wind, warm, rising water temperatures and sunny with some cloud. I thought I was in for a great day of fishing!

Obviously, the bass don’t read the same books and internet forums as we do.

I fished my favorite pond from 10:30am and never had a single bite in all the usual great spots. At 17:30pm as I was just about to call it a day I tried a spot that has never produced for me in the past and I caught this little fella on virtually my last cast of the day.

Day 1 of the 2010 Bassmaster Classic is over and KVD is sitting at the top of the table (no real surprises there).

http://sports.espn.go.com/outdoors/tournaments/classic/index

Here’s what I’ve been doing to keep myself busy whilst waiting for the lakes to melt.

Here’s some more that I have just poured with painting to follow.

I have seen this pond from the highway every time I go fishing, but I have never been to it. Last Saturday while I was on my way home from fishing I thought “what the heck” and stopped by this pond. It is a tiny little pond and I didn’t really think there could be any bass in it, so I parked the car and had a walk around. There was nobody fishing, but as I walked around the banks, I noticed one or two empty plastic worm and hook packets laying around along with some carp fisherman trash.

So Thursday, I went back to the pond to spend the day. My plan was to fish with several different techniques (one hour per each technique) that I don’t use regularly to try and learn new or better ways to catch bass.

Anyway, long story short, I was fishing a lipless crank slowly along the pond bottom when this nice 16 inch bass grabbed it and gave me a very nice fight. My first bass from this new pond!

Woohoo!!!!

With all the warm weather we had during the week, I took a chance and drove 1 hour to a small lake. The ice has melted (for now) and on about my 3rd or 4th cast I caught this little guy…

It’s only a little guy, but a bass is a bass

I took the family up to HwaCheon, GangWonDo for a long weekend to the ice festival. Man it was fun, cold, but fun. On the first morning there, Sunday, it was 5 degrees F.

The place was packed with people during the 3 days we were there and we had a hard time finding a spot to dig our 3 holes in the 10 inch thick ice. It wasn’t real fishing, everyone was using metal jigs with treble hooks and letting it sit on the bottom of the crystal clear, 8~10 foot deep water. When a poor trout swam by, they would rip these lures and hooks into the unsuspecting fish. It turned out that was the only way to catch a fish, so I joined in. Next time I will take some of my small trout flies and fish them on a drop shot style rig and try to catch them properly.

There are real people (somewhere) inside all those winter clothes.

My little girl with her first EVER fish.

Freshly caught lunch.

I just want to wish you guys a very happy New Year and I wish you all the best for 2010.

Here’s to more Lunkers in 2010!!!!

Most of my winter fishing spots down here are frozen over, but I found one that was still fishable. It is the main river down this way called Nam river and it was on the FTV show “The Hit” last week, so I decided to give it a go on Christmas Eve with my Codam inflatable boat. It was quite warm and there was little to no wind so it was fun. I caught 4 fish in total and missed and lost at least another 5 or 6 of which one of them was a good 3 pounder!!!!

Anyway, here’s the ones I did manage to land and photographs. The last 2 photos are of the same bass, the biggest of the day, at almost 17 inches.

We are getting some very low temps coming through down here this week and today was the last almost warm day according to the weather forecast, so I made the most of it this afternoon.

I fished from 1:00pm until 5:00pm (only bearable temperatures time frame) and managed 2 little bass, The water temps were down to the low 40’s today, and they are only going to get colder this week.

I got the first one on a drop shot rig, and the second on a Neko rig.

I went back to the lake I fished last Wednesday when I caught 9 nine bass. The weather forecast was showing an almost identical weather from last week, so I thought I’d take the boat out again. Well the weather forecast was slightly off — lol

The water temps had dropped about 4 degrees and the air temps were down a little. Needless to say with the water temps being lower, the fishing was tougher.

I only managed to land 3 bass all day, missed 1 or 2 bites from what I think were just dinks and lost one when my knot failed    2 of the 3 bass were nice 18 inch bass. The weird thing is, they were both the same length, but one was almost 1 pound heavier. One was caught on a hard jerkbait and the other on a shallow crank.

And last but not least, the little one caught on a 4” copy senko with a wacky jighead.

Well, I got the boat out again yesterday since the weather forecast was showing warm with little wind. I fished a lake a little closer to home this week which is a very tough lake to fish on a good day. I guess yesterday was a good day.

I fished from 10:00am (when it was a little warmer) until just before sun down and caught 9 bass, not bad for this particular lake in December. None of them were monsters, but I did catch my 2 smallest bass of the year.

I tried various techniques but only 2 of them worked. A 5” watermelon/red wacky rigged GY Senko and a drop shot rig with a GY 4” watermelon cut-tail worm.

And here’s the 2 dinks that were the same size as the lures, if not smaller, greedy little &*$#&*

And then to end a decent day, I snapped these shots as the sun was going down.

With this warm weather we are have down South, I decided to take the boat out on a road trip. I drove 3+ hours to the South West coast to the place where I caught 70 bass in one day last month. Well, I didn’t catch 70 bass this time, but I did manage 7 nice bass. All were caught on jigs or baby brush hogs pitched into the tall grass around the banks. All bass were around 14”~15” with great colorations, and they all fought hard in the sub-50 degree water temps.

What a weekend!!!!

I went to Andong this past weekend just to watch the 2 day tournament, the KSA Bass Master Classic and get a feel for how these kind of tournaments work. I ended up meeting 2 awesome guys (Pete and Ruben) that looked after me the whole weekend and put in me in contact with some very nice and influential folks in the Korean Bass fishing industry. Pete and Ruben took me to the Halmony place where we spent the night, had some good food and a few beverages 

I ended up entering into the Amateur tournament, bank fishing from 8:00am until 12 noon where we could weigh in up to 2 bass. I only managed one 12 inch bass, but it was good enough to get me 5th place and a spot on the podium, which was kinda cool. I won a plaque and a Surecatch baitcasting rod and reel worth 200,000won. I guess there was around 50 people fishing in the amateurs. I didn’t get any photos of my fish, but I caught it on a wacky rigged 5” watermelon/red senko.

Pete had a good weekend bringing in fish both days and he ended up in 8th place overall out of 50 or 60 boats, so congrats to Pete. Unfortunately, Ruben was having fish finder problems on both days. Pete, Ruben, if you guys see this, thank you for all you help and friendship over the weekend, I had a blast!

Here’s a few snaps from the weekend…

One of the pro’s big bass from the first day.

The boats were white on Sunday morning, man it was cold!

Here’s the top 5 Pro guys receiving their trophies and prices.

Early in the morning like I did today, take some advice and stay in bed .  I thought I’d give it one more try before winter sets in and last night, when my wife saw me getting my gear out, she didn’t say a word.  She just gave me “the look” and shook her head. LOL.  I didn’t get out to the river until around 6, but it was foggy, dark, and freezing cold.  How cold was it, you ask?  I was standing there, slowly reeling in when my line started feeling odd, like it was twisted around the tip or something…and when I checked, I saw that my rod guides at the tip were freezing shut!  And yep, I was in the car every 10 minutes to warm my hands up.  Not a single bite…so I think lunchtime will be a better bet this time of year.

What’s everyone doing this weekend??

November 21st and 22nd is the KSA Bass Master Classic weekend at Andong, and I am planning on driving up there on Saturday and staying overnight just as a spectator. I’ll probably take a couple of rods and do a bit of bank fishing while I am there. The weather forecast is supposed to be sunny and a little warmer than it has been this past week.

It would be great to see some of you guys over there if you have time.