Fishing Korea

I started out with Senkos while it was dark because if there’s one thing I don’t feel comfortable with yet, it’s using a baitcaster in the dark.  I like to see where the lure is so I can start applying my thumb to slow it down before it hits the water which of course helps prevent overruns.  That’s a little hard to do in complete darkness when I’m lucky to see where I’m walking so Senkos it is.

As you can see, the dinks are still out there and that’s what I was catching on Senkos, both on the 5-inch and 4-inch sizes, both black and black with blue flakes.

As soon as it was light enough to see, I switched to a white/red Karu Lures Vibraschock for about 30 minutes, with no takers so I changed rods and started throwing my favorite, a white/red spinnerbait and after a few casts, I was rewarded with this bass.  If you look close, you can see that there’s no line attached to the lure and that’s because I violated one of the cardinal rules of fishing; you do NOT pick up the fish using the line.  You bring the fish close and then bend down and lip it.  I know this.  I’ve learned it the hard way in the past but in the excitement of bringing in a fish, I threw what I’ve learned out the window and grabbed the line and picked the fish up.  The bass shook itself and the line snapped, with the fish falling into the water.  Fortunately, I was able to grab it before it swam off with my spinnerbait in its mouth.  And, I guarantee you that in the not-too-distant future, in the heat of battle, I’ll forget and do the same thing again.

I wish I could start out every week like this:

46 centimeters, 3 pounds, 2 ounces.  Caught on a 5-inch Senko, black with blue flakes, about 25 yards out in pretty deep water.  I caught 6 others, but they were all like this one:

Pretty good way to start the week

Dinks continue too be the flavor of the day, and this morning was no different except that I caught one on a spinnerbait.  I went out the last 3 days; Monday I hit Idong lake and caught 5 dinks, yesterday morning I fished the river and caught 5 dinks and this morning I fished the river again and you guessed it, 5 dinks.  That beats getting skunked but where oh where are the bigger bass?  Still hanging out in deeper waters?

The bass must like Fridays as much as I do because they were definitely biting this morning; unfortunately six out of the seven fish I caught were dinks.

This one, caught on a black, 5-inch Senko, is a little better size than what I’ve been catching out there lately.  The fish hit so light though, that I thought I had yet another dink on, that is until I set the hook.  On another note, I can’t get enough of this weather; that in itself is worth getting up for and getting out there nice and early at every opportunity.  Now if we could just get some of those awesome sunrises in there, I’d be all set!

Someone asked me if I had stopped fishing and the answer is no, I haven’t.  It’s just been incredibly tough out there lately.  In between the rainy spells, windy days and stained water conditions, I’ve also had to put up with carp muttons being camped out in the spots I like to fish, complete with their arrays of 10 or more poles, spread out all over the place.  To top it all off, it’s been dink city out there the last few weeks.

Believe it or not, these two that I caught this morning (on black, 4-inch Senkos) are probably the biggest bass I’ve landed lately.  I’ve been going out every chance I have, but with the weather and fishing conditions being less than favorable, and the bass not being in a biting mood, I’ve been spending a lot of time practicing with my various baitcasters – to the point where it feels like I’m getting the dreaded fishing elbow in my right arm.  The good news is that the weather has been absolutely gorgeous the last few days; fall is in the air and hopefully, the bass will start returning to the shallows to feed in the near future.  I’ll be waiting for them.

I apologize for the lack of posts lately, but the fishing has been pretty sporadic; the rain, wind, heat and general disinterest the bass have shown when I did venture out haven’t given me much, if anything, to write about.  This morning was a little better, at least I had a couple of bites and the weather was also decent; cooler and finally, no wind!

The first fish was caught on a black, 5-inch Senko, the second on a white/red spinnerbait* and the last one on a black, 4-inch Senko.  As you can see, someone had a kimbab party over the weekend and left some of their lunch behind…I had a grapefruit in my bag for breakfast so I passed on the kimbab

*Steve, I already lost one of the spinnerbaits you made for me when I snagged it in the rocks, so I’m saving the rest for when I fish somewhere where I won’t have to worry about getting them snagged every cast.

I’ll let the pics speak for themselves:

Mother nature in all her glory.

Of course, I also go fishing to catch fish but being able to witness a sunrise like the one today absolutely makes my day complete.  As for the fishing, it was more dinks today as you can see by the pic on the left; that was the biggest one I landed.  Even though I had a stiff wind in my face, I also threw a spinnerbait for a while and managed to lose not one, but two bass when they jumped and threw the lure.  One was only about 1/2 a pound, and I must have hit the fish in the head because that one hit the lure the second it hit the water; I never even had a chance to start reeling.  The second fish was somewhere between 2 1/2 and 3 pounds, and when that one jumped and threw the lure, it irked me just a tad .  I know, I should be using a trailer hook but that river is so full of snags that I really don’t want to add yet another item that can get hung up on a rock, net or rope.  I lose enough lures out there as it is.  KMA claims we’re in for some heavy rain over the next day or two so I have a feeling it’ll be a few days before I get another chance to get back out there again.

I almost stayed in bed this morning because I’ve been pretty tired the last few days but hey, it’s Friday and what a better way to start the weekend than some EMB?  I started out by catching even more dinks, so I switched to a spinnerbait, determined to stick with it, bites or no.

Wise choice   That’s one of the nicer fish I’ve caught in a while and I’ll say it again; I love catching bass on spinnerbaits.  I also tried some chatterbaits and crankbaits, but no luck on those. If you want to catch your fill of dinks, this is the time to go…there are tons of dinks and baby bass all along the shore/rocks and  I was getting a hit on almost every cast with a Senko.

Before we get started, let’s do a couple of sunrise pics, which have been lacking lately; mainly because, well, there just haven’t been a lot of pic-worthy sunrises this year, unlike last year.

Now that we have that out of the way, let’s get to the fishing, as it were.  I went out both yesterday and today, and the total between the two days is 29 bass – but before you start applauding and asking for autographs, they were all dinks.  Every last one of them.

See what I mean?  I’m not sure what’s going on but suddenly, there are tons of dinks along the shore, hiding among the rocks.  As I’ve proven numerous times on this blog, I don’t have a clue when it comes to bass and their behavior, and what little I do know comes from what I hear, read, and half-ass theorize.  My best guess is that with the warm water temperatures, the bigger ones have all moved to deep water (except for the occasional one that comes into the shallows to feed at night, which is why I head out as early as I do), and with the big ones gone, the dinks feel safe to hang out in shallow water again.

I did manage to catch a slightly bigger one on a white, 3/8 oz spinnerbait while I was trying out my Quantum baitcaster, on which I had recently put some Stren Magnathin 10-pound line.  The water is really clear in the area I fish, so I was trying some thinner line along with a smaller lure to see if that would make a difference.

Well, because dinks deserve their release pics too.  This was actually my second attempt, the first one was gone by the time I pressed the button – those little guys can move 

There wasn’t even a hint of a breeze this morning so I thought it would be the perfect day to try some top water lures.  Maybe, maybe, it’s just me – I tried for about an hour with a couple different top water lures and had nothing to show for my efforts.  Good thing I had some Senkos along though

I ended up catching four; two dinks and the two above (last two pics are of the same fish).  The above were caught on black, 5-inch Senkos, and the dinks were caught on black, 4-inch Senkos.  For those of you that care, the water in the river is super high, but finally clear again.

As most of you know, we’ve received a lot of rain in the last few weeks, which had really put a damper on the fishing.  Not so much because of the rain, per say, but mainly because the river was super high and the muddiest I’ve ever seen it.  This morning I just couldn’t stand it anymore and I headed out, hoping that the water had cleared enough for the fish to bite.

Unfortunately, the area where I park still has some deep mud puddles and wouldn’t you know it, I managed to get my car stuck in one while I was trying to park in the dark.  It took me a while to rock the car out but as you can see, the car got covered with the mud that was flying from the tires as I was trying to get it unstuck.  The car was so bad that while he was checking my ID card, the gate guard said “whoa, what happened to your car?”  No worries, I headed straight to the car wash and got my baby presentable again.

The good news is that the water, although still pretty muddy, is clearing up some and I did catch some fish today (4, as a matter of fact.)  None were very big, but man, it sure felt good to be back out there, catching fish, and on a nice cool (and dry) morning at that.  I was hoping the bass would go after chatterbaits and spinnerbaits with the water so muddy, but all fish were caught on black, 4-inch Senkos.

I honestly didn’t expect to do too well out there this morning because historically, the bass haven’t been very active the day after a front comes through but this morning, those fish were determined to prove me wrong once again.

Just yesterday, I was telling Rob that during summer, I usually catch my biggest fish really early when it’s still dark out, and if I don’t get a bite by the 5th cast, I know it’s going to be a long morning.  This morning, I started out with a black, 5-inch Senko and caught this one on my 5th cast

Once it started getting light out, I switched over to black/blue chatterbaits, hoping that with the water being as stained as it is right now, the bass would be homing in on some noise and flash.

I caught two on a chatterbait and as you can see, didn’t quite manage to get my hand out of the way while shooting that release pic.

Before it was time to go to work, I threw a 4-inch Senko and caught this monster.  Rob showed up out there for a while and was throwing top water (hula poppers?) and had one come up and take the lure but he missed it, which is too bad.  Maybe I should give top water more of a chance out there…I’ve tried it a few times with buzz baits and jitterbugs but if I don’t get a bite within 5 minutes, it’s back to my trusty Senkos

KMA was calling for a lot of rain today, but this time of year, I usually have my best days right before or as a front is moving in and this morning was no exception.  So when I woke up and saw it wasn’t raining yet, I headed on out to the river to try my luck.  Of course it started raining shortly after I got out there

I ended up catching 6, but the other three were dinks, and once the rain started coming down hard and it got light out, only dinks were biting.  Most of my fish this morning were caught on black, 5-inch Senkos, on 30-pound braid.  I caught a couple of the dinks on 4-inch Senkos, and also tried spinnerbaits, with no takers.  The rain really started coming down hard around 6:30, which usually doesn’t bother me too much but the wind started picking up as well, so I headed in to work a bit early.  For this time of year, I call today a pretty good morning.

Yesterday, I had the privilege of accompanying John and Gochu, the wiener dog, in their boat out on the Anseong River for a morning of fishing.  The bass, for the most part, had lockjaw, but we did manage to catch either 12 or 13, with most of them in the 1-pound and under range.  Most of our catches came on wacky-rigged worms; I was using Senkos and I believe John was using cut-tails.  We did try just about everything else in our arsenal; spinnerbaits, chatterbaits, topwater lures, crankbaits and jigs.
Continue reading ‘Friday on the Anseong River’ »