Fishing Korea & Tennessee

Here are some great pics sent to me from my good friend Bill.  He and a bunch of guys decided to make the trek to Andong, and it looks like it paid off for them.  Wish I could have been there fellas!!   

Here’s Mike B. with a nice hawg: 

Mike B., TK and Rob, getting their groove on:

And last but not least, here’s Mr. Bill with a nice looking Andong bass:

I asked Bill if he had any pictures of the Bass Master Ron with any fish, and he said “nope, because he didn’t catch any.”    Just joking Ron!! 

I got the boat out finally after 2 weeks without any fishing. I went to the Nakdong river near Busan and found a river that would make Willy Wonky proud, it just looked like the chocolate river in those movies, lol.

I was on the chocolate, I mean water by 7:00am while it was still a little warm on a smaller feeder river. There was a good looking bank that was still grassy and shaded, but it was lined with carp fishermen all with at least 8 or 10 rods all spread out. I managed to find a small stretch of bank between carp fishermen and caught these 2 bass on a topwater stick bait (SureCatch Phantom) within 2 minutes of each other. The first one was about 10 inches and the second about 12 inches. The both it the lure hard as soon as it hit the water.

I could see the carp fishermen getting pi$$ed as I accidently dropped (released) these bass back into the river, so I went to the sunny side bank and caught another on the same lure.

After that I tried a few spots on the main river, but the water was in such bad condition with both, the recent rains and the river construction they are doing

I had a few more bites, but no more fish. So by 12 noon I had the boat back on the trailer and headed home. Man it was hot out there!!

This past weekend was the #3 tournament of the 2011 season. I arrived on Friday evening around dinner time and enjoyed some pork stew (that I made on the morning) and a little green bottle

Shortly after I had finished my meal, Mike, his wife and son, and Rob showed up at Halmony’s place, where we all spent the night finishing off those little green bottles

Saturday morning started off nice and warm with some cloud cover, but by the time the pro’s had left the ramp area the sun was breaking through and it became a HOT and sunny day. Mike and Rob had a good day on the water catching plenty of good bass on senkos, but I had a really tough morning with no fish. It wasn’t until after midday that I found a couple of bass which I caught on a jighead and ribbontail worm in deep water.

After I had caught these 2 bass I called it a day with a Sunday game plan.

Well, the weather on Sunday morning changed my plans a little as there was a pretty big storm passing through Andong around 4:30am. Then the rain just continued ALL day long. It was wet and humid all day, but the bass had come up shallow in the cooler water brought by the rain. I caught a bunch of bass during the day, most were small, but I did manage to weigh in a limit of one decent bass and 2 smaller ones. I did lose 2 nice bass at the side of the boat when they jumped and spat my hook back at me

I didn’t take my camera with me in the rain, so no pictures. Overall, it was another great Andong weekend with some great people and food!!

That was the color of the water in DaeHo on Saturday.  I had the strange hope that it would be clear and clean but with all the rains, I should have known better.

The water level wasn’t high and the temp was in the mid 70s but the bass weren’t biting that well. Everyone I spoke to complained that it was tough fishing. I caught about 8, all smaller fish in the 2lb class but they were on the Ribbit frog so it was more fun than usual.

It was windy and a little chilly so we took a shoreline lunch break and I noticed shells littered the shoreline. There must be active shell beds in the river and now will be on a quest to find them as they usually hold good bass.

I’m guessing that it may be at least 2-3 weeks before the water is clear again and then the fishing should pick back up. 

I hope all you guys up on the North and West areas are all safe in this typhoon!! Luckily we didn’t get hit too hard on this South East coast!!

Anyway, there was no chance I was going fishing this weekend so I got to play with some baits. I added some parts to my favorite SureCatch spinnerbaits. 1) a snap/swivel for fast blade changes on the water without having to retie on a new bait, and 2) an idea from a UB.com member, to add some thin wire to the “R” bend of the spinnerbait so I can use a snap with spinnerbaits for fast changing of the entire spinnerbait without having to retie every time.

Blade changing mod….

Line tie mod….

My wife, daughter and I visited the guys fishing the KSA team walking tournament at HapCheon Lake. We arrived there late and missed all the fish being weighed in, but we had just enough time for my wife and daughter to have a few casts before having some food with the KSA guys. Well, between my 2 girls my daughter caught the only fish and it wasn’t a bass and it was a first for me.

A freshwater tarpon (that she didn’t want to touch, lol).

After that we headed up to where all the KSA guys were and had dinner and watched the final ceremony and prize giving. There was a good turn out.

I hope I’ll be bass fishing next week…..it’s been tooooooo long!

Once in a while, if you’re lucky, the fishing gods will smile on you and you can have the kind of fishing trip that I had today. A conservative estimate would be over 40 bass with most over 2 lbs. Half of those were 3 –5 pounders! And on top of that, most were caught on a topwater frog –a Stanley Ribbit. The morning started with the trusty Senko until I had gone through all the green pumpkin with purple flake worms I had in the boat. Then it was on to the Storm Thin Fin crankbait.

Around 11 the wind picked up and I was thinking of calling it a day but I move to the opposite shore, 3-5 foot deep with isolated weedbeds and tied on the Ribbit. There was a large chop on the water but the Ribbit kicks up a lot of turbulence so I started running it right across the weeds and they were hammering it. I also had on a Stanley double hook frog rig so I lost few bass – not like the Spro type frogs where I lose more than half my hits.

Talk about exciting! The big ones were usually right in the middle of the weed bed and would blow through them to get to the frog. I released them all except for a few for my Korean neighbors, who have takin’ a liking to bass.  I bought a new camera to take fishing and later found out it was waterproof, hence the underwater release picture.

I called it a day at 2 ‘cause I was tired of catching bass!  What a great day.

After seeing Mike’s posts about DaeHo Man, I’d thought I’d give it a try as a change of pace from the Anseong River.  It’s a river system very similar to Anseong as it has a tidal lock at it’s terminus and is loaded with bass but the similarities pretty much end there. For one thing, the water is very clear. I could see 8 feet down to the bottom where I was fishing.

Another is that it’s covered in grass, maybe milfoil, in the shallows and that’s where I caught most of my 25 fish. Most were small, 1 -1.5 pounds but I did catch a few a little larger.

When I got there it was so foggy I couldn’t see 20 feet in front of me and the launch area was swarming with rental inflatable boats so I had to take it extremely slow. If you thought Anseong River was covered in nets, it was nothing compared to Dae Ho. There were untended nets everywhere, especially floating in the middle of the river. Dangerous. Took about 45 minutes to get to a place to start fishing – good thing my depth finder has a GPS.

I caught ‘em on topwaters, Senkos, and creature baits. All were around the grass in 5-10 feet of water, which was 70 degrees. By lunch the wind picked up and it got rough so we headed home. Definitely worth a revisit.