1. Tournament name: 2012 International Bass Open Tournament
2. Organizer: Korea Sport-fishing Association (K.S.A)
3. Place: Andong Dam (Ju-Jin Bridge service area)
4. When: June 17th, 2012
    Practice: June 16th, 4:30am ~ 7:00pm
5. Schedule plan:
    5:00am – Reception and opening ceremony
    6:00am – Tournament start
    2:00pm – Weigh-in starts
    2:30pm – Weigh-in and tournament ends
    3:00pm – Closing ceremony
6. Tournament fee: 100,000won (foreigners/co-anglers)
    (Pro anglers score 100 points for participating)
7. Registration:
    a) Foreigners/co-anglers are to submit their name, social security number, date of
    birth and ID card copy.
    See below section 9 for more details.
    b) Deadline for registration is Tuesday June 5th. This is so that insurance can be
    organized.
8. Prizes (total amount for prizes will be announced ASAP)
    1st place: plaque and prizes (TBA)
    2nd place: plaque and prizes (TBA)
    3rd place: plaque and prizes (TBA)
    4th place: plaque and prizes (TBA)
    5th place: plaque and prizes (TBA)
9. Other information:
    a) Non-KSA Pro foreign anglers are welcome to participate in this Open Tournament in
    their own boats.
    b) All foreigners must register through KSA angler Steve Bell (only) by June 5th.
    Please contact Steve Bell by email at, stevenbell69@hotmail.com for payment
    method details, etc.
    c) This year, the entry fee MUST be paid upfront before June 5th (for insurance payment
    reasons).
    d) We are looking for 25 foreigner co-anglers to participate in this year’s event. The 25
    foreigners will each fish with a Korean Pro angler on a draw method basis. Non-Pro
    foreigners and their co-anglers fishing from their own boats are not included in the
    above 25.
    e) Foreigners that have participated in the past International Tournaments will have
    priority in the registration.
    f) After the registration closing date of June 5th, KSA will join all foreigners/co-anglers
    as a bulk insurance group.
    A copy of each foreigner’s ID card is required for insurance reasons. (The insurance
    fee is included in the entry fee).
10. Accommodation reservations:
      Andong hotel (formerly California hotel) 054-8540-6223

The weather seemed great, cloudy, warm with little wind and I expected the fishing to be great, but it was a little tough.

I was hoping we would catch a bunch early morning with topwater lures, but only one bass was caught on topwater, SureCatch Powershad buzzing worm in white. I was using the new SureCatch hook with the spring keeper. Worked great!!

A few of the bass fell for an all chartreuse colored spinnerbait close to the bank near over hanging trees, and the rest fell for 4" watermelon/red wacky rigged senkos.

Here’s 2 of the 5 bass we weighed in, nothing big all day, but at least we managed to weigh-in a full 5 bass limit.

12 foot FRP mini style bass boat with keel protection          2011 model 15hp Parsun 2 cycle motor       
55lb 12volt Minn Kota Powerdrive V2 tolling motor with Co Pilot add-on with wireless remote control
Two 12 volt 100 amp batteries          One 12 volt 7 amp battery          Minn Kota 25lb Deckhand electric anchor winch
Lowrance LCX-17M fish finder with GPS          Fully operational livewell with recirculation system
Manual/auto bilge pump system          Lure hanging racks in storage lids
Fully registered SOD 330 trailer with winch and fold away trailer jack and LED lights
Spare wheel/tyre          Trailer guide rollers          Boat bucket ratchet straps          Boat cover
Pedestal seat and post          Several bottles of 2 cycle oil

5,000,000 Korean won for all.

The early morning bite was on a SureCatch Phantom topwater lure in shallow grassy areas. Then as it warmed up a bit the bass stopped taking a topwater, so I moved into the middle of the lake and fished any and all cover (grass and old abandoned net) with a neko rig (SureCatch Sensor worm) and caught a bunch. I also caught a few along the shoreline grass with the Sniperspin spinnerbait in an all chartreuse color.

Then mid afternoon I headed back to the ramp area to head home and thought that I’d throw a shallow crank over the submersed grass. I threw a Norman’s fatboy but it was diving JUST a little too deep and I was bringing nothing but thick weeds back to the boat, so I switched to a SureCatch Megacrank TR. This little crankbait dives only about 6~8 inches below the surface, and that turned out to be just perfect to tick the top of the submersed grass. I caught another 7 or 8 bass on that crank and headed home.

I took a couple hours off on the 27th and hit a spot behind the base (Osan) and here are the results: these bass are pretty dark green and healthy. I caught the first one off the fat Ika and the other two off the trusty $1 Wal-mart special. White and Yellow. I know you remember that spinner.

Enjoy and post for me.

I went to Asan bay this morning and arrived at 0615. I had the first two by 0630 on the Fat Ika. I caught 1 more on the Fat Ika and the other six were on that trusty $1 Wal-mart special white and yellow spinner. I ended up with 9 in all and missed 4 but it was a good half day for me. I was back home by 1130am.

I wouldn’t mind owning a house like that, so nice and close to the water.

Three Black Vultures, watching us fish.

Here are the pics of our biggest fish.  Tom was tearing them up on the sexy shad rattle trap and later on the shaky head rig, while I caught them on 4”, black senkos, wacky-rigged and also on a shaky head rig (I also threw a spinnerbait, a Karu Vibraspin and my trusty jig with no results).  Tom caught a couple over 3 pounds today; he also hooked a really nice sauger which got off right at the boat and he also caught a catfish which hit his shakey head.  Tom is headed down to Pickwick Lake next week with his fishing club to compete in the state championship tournament – good luck, Tom!  And me, I’m going to keep looking at different boats, trying to decide which one I want to buy

Rob and I both took Friday off from work, knowing that it would be the nicest day of the weekend. His post speaks about Saturday and Sunday but Friday was truly beautiful.

I got on the water about 0930 with the water temp at 57 degrees. I caught this one on my second cast.

I fished the Strike King crank bait most of the day but ended up catch more Silvers than bass.

The water temp did get up to 60 in some coves but didn’t see any evidence of beds. I did catch one on the A-rig after Rob said he was catching all his on it.

After a long day we headed to Halmonee;s place and ended up eating and drinking. This is what most of the evening looked like to me.

The usual cast of characters.

I knew the forecast for the rest of the weekend and made a decision to leave Saturday morning and even though the guys caught fish both days, I was glad to be home – warm and comfortable. Must be gettin’ old.

I think we got well over 1” of rain.  The bilge pump on my boat doesn’t have an automatic float switch on it, so I spent the majority of Saturday and Saturday night walking down the hill from Halmoni’s house pumping my boat out.  If I hadn’t, I’m fairly certain that the four batteries that cost me $200 bucks each in the back of the boat would have been ruined.  In fact, I’m sure of it.  It rained that much.

I didn’t get to take a whole lot of pictures because of the torrential downpour, but here are a few.  That’s me, Ron, and Rob M. holding up Saturday’s catch in the first pic, and Ron holding up a nice one in the other.  As Ron mentioned in the comments section of another post, I caught all of mine on an a-rig with 5” shad colored paddle tail minnows on it.  Some of the other guys caught theirs on wacky-rigged Senkos.

I slept in the back of my car and therefore had a good read on what the weather was doing throughout the night.  When it stopped raining at 0200 on Sunday morning I decided to get up as early as I could and get out on the water.  Before that, I was content to sleep in, wake up whenever, drink coffee and wait for the rain to break.  I’m glad I decided to get up early because it allowed me to catch this gorgeous sunrise.

Here are some other random pics, all taken on Sunday after the rain had stopped.

Although we managed to catch some decent fish, I thought it was a pretty rough weekend fishing wise.  I think we were about two weeks early for the really good fishing. To those of you heading that way in a week or two, it should be gangbusters.  Good luck!!

The first thing I did was to grab my baitcaster and a sexy shad rattle trap and walked over to the dock and on the very first cast, I caught a bass about a pound (no pic, sorry – I left the camera in the bag, which was back in my car).  Never one to keep resolutions, I went back to the car, got all my gear, walked down to the rocks and threw out a 4”, black/blue Senko, wacky-rigged and caught the above.  After that I put the Senko rod down and picked up my ultralight rig.

I caught bluegill (all regular size, no pics), some white bass, and some other fish that I have no idea what they were…they looked like very long shad, about 8 inches long and very skinny (aha, I found out they were skipjack and they are used as live bait for striper fishing (check out this video) – learn something new every day  .  But the highlight was when I saw my bobber go down and my drag started going out like mad…I thought I had hooked into a decent bass but nope, it was this sheephead/freshwater drum which probably weighed between 3 and 4 pounds.  And on my ultralight, I have 4-pound test and yeah, I was sweating it.  I kept loosening the drag and just let the fish tire itself out and after about 5 minutes, I finally got it to shore.  Those things put up a pretty good fight.

And yet another water snake.

All bass except the last one were caught on 4” Senkos, black with blue flake, fished weightless or wacky.  The fish in the last pic was caught with a sexy shad rattle trap.  I had already packed everything in the car and then decided on a whim to grab my crankbait rod and walk down onto the dock and make a few casts and ended up catching that bass.

I also caught a bunch of bluegill on live minnows but they are all the size of the one above.  I’m having a hard time finding the bigger pan fish.  But, I’m finally back into the swing of things so I’m not complaining.