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!

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.

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.

From Ty:

Nomad I went to the river and I arrived at 4:21. I caught a dink right off the bat, first cast. I then caught three nice ones that are in the pics. I heard this loud thunder and was thinking about that lightning show you sent me of that guy fishing. Oh well, I continued to fish until hearing the heavy rain come across the river and guess what? It was a mad dash sprint to the chain to get into the truck. You guess it, I was soaking wet. At that time it was only 5:15, so I did pretty good for less than an hour and catching four fish at 92 degree weather. I wished it didn’t rain because it could have been a good evening of fishing.

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. 

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.

NEW TO FISHING IN KOREA??

If you answered YES to the question in the subject line, then read on.

We have members here from several different parts of the country from near the Seoul area, down to the very Southern parts and we get 5 -10 emails per week asking where to fish, how to fish and what to use.  Hopefully the following will answer some, if not all of the questions you may have.

SPECIES

Korea has multiple species of fish in both fresh and salt water.

Fresh water;
1. Bass
2. Bluegill
3. Snakehead
4. Crucian Carp (small)
5. Common and Mirror Carp (big)
6. Catfish
7. Various species of trout (mainly on the east coast, and in stocked pay ponds during the colder months.)
8. Freshwater Tarpon
9. Keuri, just to name a few of the most popular.

Salt water (mostly seasonal),
1. Sea bass
2. Flounder
3. Squid
4. Mackerel
5. Tuna

FISHING METHODS

Here on this site, we are mostly all bass fishermen chasing our quarry using artificial baits/lures. There are plenty of internet stores in Korea for buying fishing tackle, lures and baits. Or you can also order whatever you may need from the states. Just look at the list of tackle stores along the right hand side of this blog page. If ordering from one of the Korean sites, you will need the help of a Korean speaker to place an order as they have to input their Korean ID number etc. Also, all towns and cities have some kind of local fishing tackle stores and most of them sell a decent selection of all types of fishing equipment.  Whatever worked for you back home should work here just fine when it comes to the type equipment and lures, depending on what species you’ll be fishing for.  For example, for bass we use spinnerbaits, jigs, crankbaits, soft baits (worms, lizards etc), and finesse rigs like drop shot and shaky head rigs – all depending on water/weather conditions and what the fish will hit on that day.

Fly fishing is also a possible method here, however finding the equipment for this kind of fishing can be a little trickier, but possible.

PLACES TO FISH

If like us you are wanting catch bass, then just about any water around the country has bass in it, and if bass are present then bluegill are also usually present. The best way to find water near you is to use Google Earth or Google Maps to locate a river, stream or lake close to where you are, then go check it out.  Be aware that although there is no requirement to have a fishing license in Korea, some of the lakes do have people that come around to charge a “maintenance fee” which can range from 5,000 to 15,000 won PER DAY.  If you are asked to pay, you should also receive a ticket stub back indicating the date that you paid.

TIPS FOR FINDING BASS IN WATERS

If you find a nice looking lake, pond or river but you are not sure if there are any bass in there, first have a look around the shores of the water. Most bass anglers in Korea fish from the shore, and to be completely honest, they are not the tidiest or environmentally conscious of folks, and some of them leave their trash lying around the shores. This trash includes empty lure packets, hook packets etc. Also have a look in shoreline trees or overhead power cables for snagged lures.  If in doubt, then wet a line and find out the fun way.   

If after reading this you are still looking for help, please join our blog and feel free to ask any questions in the comments section of any post.

Tight lines!

Looks real bassy, doesn’t it?

Once again, Ty struck first while it was still dark out, catching a nice fish on an Ika.  I struck back with a green Bitsy Bug jig (thanks, Tex Mex).  That’s fish blood on the side of the boat…the fish was hooked through the tongue (or whatever it’s called) and was bleeding pretty good but swam off fine once I released it.  The fish in the third pic was caught on a regular, black Zoom U-tailed worm.  Then we both started catching a lot of dinks so we switched to jigs again and caught even more dinks …here are a few pics:

I’m learning the more I use jigs.  Patience, patience, patience.  I must have pitched that jig to the same spot near a submerged tree at least 7 or 8 times before that big bass took it and no one was more surprised than I was.  Another thing I’ve been learning and trying to improve on is the presentation, i.e. having the jig hit the water as softly and as quiet as possible.  It seems like if you can make that jig suddenly appear in front of the fish, you’re more likely to get a reaction bite, whereas a splash on the way in must spook the bass because with the exception of that big one, every one of the ones I caught today grabbed the jig on the first cast, as the jig was sinking, and when I had managed to make a nice, quiet presentation.  The more I fish jigs, the more I like it! Although it was short day, we had a great time and it felt really good to be out on the water again.  What made it even better was that we had cloud cover and a nice breeze most of the morning, and for a Saturday, there weren’t very many other fishermen out at all.  We saw Rob running up and down the river in his bass boat, and also ran into Mike, who was fishing with his friend, and also saw John out there (minus the wiener dog).  Aside from that, I think we only saw 3 or 4 other boats out today, which is rare for a weekend – although many Koreans are on vacation right now so maybe that had something to do with it.  All around, another nice and relaxing day and I can’t wait to do it again.

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.

From Ty:

I fished this lake Tuesday evening and Wednesday evening. I caught 16 on Tuesday, but only had two nice ones. I caught 24 on Wednesday with four
being nice and worthy of a camera shot. The first two pics are bass from Tuesday evening, the other ones are from Wednesday.