I made the first one out of a few parts I found around the home. It wasn’t the best looking thing I have made, but when I tested it in the water it acted and looked quite good. The baits in the first 2 photos are 76mm SureCatch Hyper Minnows on 1/4oz homemade football jigheads. The main head of the rig is 2 part epoxy putty.

Here’s a few photos.

I made a short video of the test, but I can’t figure out how to put it on the blog here 

Then, I found some better wire, ordered some parts from SureCatch and made a better version. Below is a photo by photo list of the build.

I‘m off all this week, so yesterday I bought myself a few Mepps inline spinners and some 6-pound line to put on my ultra-light rig and at 10 this morning I took a quick drive to try my luck.  We had some hard rain just the other day so I was worried that the river would be a little muddy and high; the streams around here tend to rise rather quick after any amount of rain.  Here are a few pics:

The water was higher than last Sunday, a bit on the stained side and the current was running pretty strong as well but it’s been so long since I wet a line, I just had to try my luck.  I walked a good bit of shore and threw some different colored inline spinners, and even tried a 4-inch Senko and a small jig near some downed trees where the current wasn’t so strong, but not a bite.  On the way back to the car, I saw a guy fishing with his two kids and when I asked him what kind of fish there were in this river, he told me that now is a bad time except for trout, and that during the warmer months, one can catch red-eye bass (no idea what those area), bluegill, crappie, large and small mouth bass, and catfish.  He also told me he’s out there at that park almost every other day no matter what.  I noticed he was using power bait and he said with the water as stained and the strong current, that was the best bet for trout right now so maybe I’ll have to stop by K-Mart this afternoon to pick some up and maybe give it another shot tomorrow since it’s supposed to get up to 60 tomorrow.  This is a possibility for EMB except I’m not so sure I want to walk around the local waters in the dark; they have some snakes here I’d rather not tangle with.

And here’s one for Rob:  On the way into the park, it’s about a 2-mile stretch of narrow road and on the way in, a car came from the other direction and the driver waved at me.  I thought, “Do I know that guy?” and then it hit me, people down south tend to wave at other drivers on the country roads and sure enough, on the way out a pickup truck came my way and the driver did the same thing but this time I was ready and gave him “the wave” and “the nod” back

It’s not even January yet and I’m already getting cabin fever!  I hope everyone had a Merry Christmas, and Happy New Year to you all!!   

In that same tournament somebody caught on heck of a nice bass. It was 59cm and was caught on a weighted wacky rigged worm. This guy only came in 2nd place even with a nice bass like this….

The following weekend I fished with a Korean buddy of mine. He wanted to show me some good fishing spots on the river, a river that I have only fished a few times, so I‘ll take all the help and pointers I can get! We headed out around 10:00am and it was mighty cold when driving a boat into a cold wind at over 55mph. We fished a few deep spots first with jigging spoons at fish we saw on the fish finder, but either they weren’t bass or they just were interested.

In the early afternoon the wind calmed down a little and it got a little warm, so we fished some shallow channels and started catching a few fish. Nothing huge, but it was fun. Here’s a series of photos my buddy took of my playing a bass.

That was the biggest of the day, but here’s a few small ones.

My dad and brother planned a Steelhead trip for me two days after I arrived. We woke up at 3:30 and I was jet-lagging a bit, but we hit the river hard, and boy, did it pay off! We had 22 fish between the three of us, and I was 9 for 11. I landed two at 11 pounds and 1 at ten. (5 kilos and 4.5 kilos) It was the best day of fishing ever and a great homecoming. Here’s a picture of the first dime-bright chromer that came to the boat. as well as a colored-up buck that came a few hours later!

Beyond that, I’ve been doing a lot of brown-trout chasing, both on fly and with spinners. This past week I got into 7, with this guy being the best. They’re super aggressive this time of year, as they’re getting ready for winter. Super fun to catch!

I’ve tried a couple times for largemouth, but they’re pretty quiet these days. Going for walleye and smallies this next week. Hope to get into some!

Hope with the weather, all of you are still able to get out and are still catching fish! I still stop by from time to time to check on how you guys are doing!

Good luck and tight lines!

-Scott

Anyway, despite going into the tournament totally clueless as to what the bass were doing, I managed to catch a bunch of bass, a few dinks, but mostly keeper size bass. My biggest 3 went 1,940g at the scales and was good enough for a top 10 place. I didn’t take many photos, but here’s a couple;

As you can see from the photos all my fish were caught on wacky 4” senkos or SureCatch Sniperspin spinnerbaits, either a chartreuse and black colored skirt, or on the one below;

I also won a waterproof bag in the random raffle drawing.

We hit Kunsan Saturday morning and fished all day and we only fished this reservoir but we caught fish all day. Only a couple big ones were landed with Jerry catching 8 and I caught at least 20 but lost count. It was a good day out there and believe it or not the Koreans are finding out about this place because there were probably 8 to 10 that I seen throughout the day.  Enjoy the pics

We visited the river on 4 November to find out it was hard to fish and Jerry was the only one to land this bass. Big enough for the only catch of the day.

I fished this reservoir at Kunsan on the 12th and only caught three bass. Only one was pic worthy and the water was way down just like everywhere else. The lake looked really good and had a track going over it which was really cool.

I fished a different reservoir on the 13th at Kunsan and caught about 30 Bass and 10 were in the same casting spot. It was fun! Here are a few pics.

Here are a few we pulled in at the 2nd Rest Stop. Frank you know this spot well. Pic 71 was a 3 pounder and after I landed this one I get a phone call from Jerry saying he needed some help, No help was needed he just wanted to show off his 4 pounder that he pulled in in pic 72.

I went to the 2nd rest stop this evening to try my skills out and low and behold I hooked this 5 pounder on a black and yellow spinner which has been my favorite spinner this year. I don’t have a fancy scale like you but I did put it on my tube scale but the pic didn’t turn out clear. I was able to run down a adoshi and have him take my pic though. If you remember right, last year on our last trip out I hooked a 4.4 on a jig head. I’m taking Friday off and going to try that rest stop again. Enjoy the pic Nomad!

As the sun came up, things started to pick up a little when the boat captain hooked into the first Amberjack of the day. Then, about 10 minutes later I hooked into one which put up an awesome fight!

It was about 25inches long and weighed in at 7lb / 3kg and was the last fish we caught until we packed up and headed home at 10:00am.

Once home I cleaned up and filleted the fish and put them in the freezer for another time.

This was the second time I went sea fishing for Amberjacks this year, and both times sucked…….I think I’ll stick with bass from now on, lol. TexMex, good luck to you guys when you go, I hope you have better luck than me!!

We found a pod of schooling River Tarpon two weeks ago while bass fishing under a dam with some moving water. They were scattered at times, but at other times, they schooled together and were chasing smaller fish down. This fish smacked a large, silver lead-head c-tail jig. Like has been said in the past, not an amazing fight – but when they get this large – the first 30 seconds are pretty intense. There was a heck of a lot of thrashing and splashing. After that, it just kinda laid there until I could bring it to a spot where we could land it. My buddy actually had one on that was at least a foot longer than this one, but it broke his line.

We’re headed out for them one more time Sunday evening, so if we hit them again, I’ll send you more pictures.