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.

The as it got a little lighter, I could see around this new pond and I could see that there was a lot of floating slop in 2 corners of the pond, so I tied on one of my new Surecatch frogs (Mr Frog) and started running it across the surface of the slop, that’s when this nice bass decided he really wanted frog for breakfast and he hurled himself completely out of the water to get it, exciting stuff as this is my first frog bass of the year.

After that fish, the very heavy rain seemed to stop the fish biting so I moved to another spot where I caught a small bass on the frog before heading home extremely wet. I did have a few more hits on the frog which I either missed or the fish got off.

I mentioned to the wife that I wanted it, and surprisingly she said yes, so I quickly transferred the $$$ before she had chance to change her mind, and by 5:00pm the very next day the boat was delivered 

It is just a basic 12 foot fiberglass hull with a deck and fitted livewell, so I will have to transfer all my stuff from my Portabote onto my new boat, which will be fun. Here’s a few photos from the site;

More photos to come as I get all my stuff transferred.

This time I took my better half with me, which was a big mistake. We fished together on Saturday which was also my one and only practice day. The day started off well when I got a bite on almost my first cast of the day which ended up being this little dink;

That was the only fish I would land all day Saturday. The wife however didn’t disappoint as she always kicks my @$$, and today was no exception. She caught 3 keeper bass. Here’s 2 of them, with the last one being a very nice one indeed. It took her about 5 minutes to land.

Saturday’s weather was rather good, mostly cloudy with some sunshine mixed in (all the fish came during the cloudy times).

Then Sunday came, and the rain came down HEAVY all during the tournament, which I didn’t mind too much as it was better then blazing sunshine. I started the day throwing topwater baits and lost/missed 5 bass early on (at least 3 of them were decent keepers). That made me frustrated. A few hours went by without a single bite, then with 30 minutes or so to go until weigh in closed, I caught 2 nice bass and hurried to the weigh in.

Not good enough to win anything, but I came in 29th out of 69 boats and got some valuable points with these;

The winner of the Pro’s was Park MuSeok (Lureman Shop owner, FTV Bass fishing show host and my fellow Surecatch Korea Pro-staff). Here’s a couple of his very nice winning bass.

Pete and Ruben both caught fish during the tournament, but unfortunately Pete had to leave early on Sunday due to not feeling too good, but not before catching this nice big Andong bass on Saturday;

Last week I kept the bass I caught because my neighbors wanted them for maewon-tong but they keep asking for carp. Now, I’m not a carp fisherman but today, after the hook snatching surgery, I noticed huge schools of carp on the surface of the river. Quickly removing two trebles from a crankbait and tying a sinker on the bottom, I had a drop shot rig for carp. Having some experience snagging salmon in Alaska (legal), I proceeded to snag up some carp. I had to admit it was pretty fun.

Today was not one of the most productive days on the river but probably one of the most interesting.

We spent most of our time looking for and fishing areas like this; pretty much the same as our last trip out – rock walls with overhanging brush, areas with submerged or overhanging trees and also areas with thick vegetation/reeds.  You can see the green tint to the water from the algae that’s growing in the water which happens every summer.

These are the three biggest we caught this morning, and as you can see, Ty struck first shortly after we got to our first spot – with a well-placed senko at the end of a submerged tree.  And later, I caught a bass with one bad eye!  Once it got light and the sun started burning down on us, the bite slowed considerably but we still caught some dinks every now and then.  That’s when we discovered something – we were slowly drifting down a bank when I noticed that the water depth had changed from around 4 feet to 10, and we were only 4-5 feet from shore.  And since there were lots of reeds, weeds and some submerged trees, we both started flipping jigs right into the nastiest places we could.  And, we started catching fish!  Granted, all the ones we caught were small, but it was something new for the both of us and we spent the last 2 hours we had out there “jigging it.”  I told Ty that maybe the next time we go out, all I’m going to bring are jigs, just so I can learn how to fish them because that was a blast.  Now if we could only get a Big Momma on one   To end the day, Ty had to perform a little emergency surgery but that’ll be for another post, by another poster

I tried the big worms again this morning, and then the small worms but except for a few dinks, the fish had lockjaw so I switched to a spinnerbait and caught the above two.  I should have weighed the one in the second pic, that was a nice healthy fish and put up a good fight.  This will most likely be my last EMB outing for the next month or so; my wife and daughter are heading to the states next week to see family and friends – we have two dogs and I know there’s no way those two guys can hold it in for 12-13 hours so it’s either clean up dog pee every day or give up EMB.  Hard choice, actually