Fishing Korea

Yesterday, I said that I was going to sleep in this morning.  Well, I sort of forgot to turn off the alarm and when it went off at 3:15, I laid there for a few seconds, thinking if I should go back to sleep or go fishing.  Pretty easy choice, actually .

I started out with the Zoom Ol’ Monster worms again.  I cast across the channel to a point on the other side, and before I could close the bail and start reeling, this fish had the worm in its mouth and almost tore the rod out of my hands.  That’s the way I like to start the day!  Once it started getting a bit lighter, I saw that the surface of the water was covered with the green algae stuff, so I thought “hey, how about a spinnerbait?”  So I kind of mixed it up out there today, Zoom Ol’ Monster and my trusty white/red spinnerbait.

It was quite the excellent morning again, all except for the fact that i lost 3 bass while using the spinnerbait.  One took me into the rocks and got tangled up; I could feel it tugging on the line and I sat there for about 10 minutes, hoping it would get free and swim out but in the end I had to break off .  The other two jumped and threw the lure and let me tell you, all that advice about keeping the rod tip low is for the birds because each time, I had the rod tip under the water, it was so low and they still jumped and threw the lure.  I don’t have an answer for that, not from shore, anyway.  I do have some KVD spinnerbaits which come with trailer hooks, but man, those things get snagged in the rocks pretty easy and they’re a little expensive to be donations to the river.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m not complaining about the lost fish (story of my life, right?); it was a great morning out there once again.  I’m not sure why the bass have been tearing it up out there this week, but I’ll take it as long as it lasts.

Ty went out yesterday afternoon (wish I had a job like that) and checked out the spot I’ve been fishing in the mornings.  He took Allen, who is back here from college for summer vacation:

Wow.  Freaking unbelievable.  That pretty much sums up this morning’s fishing trip.  After having some decent luck with the 10.5” Zoom Ol’ Monster worms yesterday, I started out with them this morning – and the bass were tearing them up!

As you can see, I caught some really decent fish out there this morning.  That one in the 2nd pic came in at 3 pounds, 5 ounces and now that I look at the pics, the fish in the first pic looks even bigger than the one in the 2nd one. What do you think? On top of these 5 fish, I also had two break my line right at shore, in the rocks.  One was at least 3 pounds, and the 2nd one was right around 4 and was taking drag out so hard that I couldn’t even reel it in.  It finally turned towards shore and took me in the rocks and broke the line.  I have 8-pound line on that rod, because I was going to only use it for the smaller Zoom U-tail worms but after this morning, I’m going to go up to either 10, 12 or some 30-pound braid.  I had the drag set a little loose since it’s only 8-pound line but that one really took me for a ride and there wasn’t much I could do to control it from shore, not with all those rocks.  From a boat, the lighter line would be no problem.  Wow, what an incredible morning it was, especially for this time of year!  Yeah, right now I’m still walking on air .   And check out that little guy in the last pic – what the heck was he thinking?

As you know, I’ve been off the Senkos for a few weeks now, with varying results.  This morning, I went for something completely different and decided to go retro, as in Texas-rigged Zoom blackberry colored U-tailed worms – which is where it all began when I first started fishing for bass here in Korea many moons ago.  I caught a couple of dinks and quickly found out that worms with any kind of weight will get snagged on the rocks and other trash in the river.  What to do, what to do…so I went completely crazy and tied on a 4/0 wide-gap hook and put on a Zoom 10.5” Monster worm, fished weightless.  Did I really expect to catch anything?  Honestly, nope.

Imagine my surprise when I caught not one, not two, but four fish!  Three of them were the size of the one in the first pic, and then I caught that nicer one in the second pic.  LOL, just goes to show you, or rather, goes to show me that it’s worth a shot to try things you haven’t tried in years or lures that you think the fish wouldn’t be interested in.  Heh, I need to dig through my bags to see what other goodies I have stored away   Old school, baby!

No, it’s not but I sure felt like it this morning.  I caught a fish on my first cast of the morning and  much to my surprise, I caught two more after that, one of them pretty nice, if I do say so myself.  And as you can see, I was using the old white/red spinnerbaits.

The only bad part of the morning was that I donated a spinnerbait to the river but I’ve learned to accept the occasional lost lure when fishing that river from shore.  Blah, it’s supposed to rain all weekend so the Saturday trip is looking really iffy.

I apologize for the light posting lately but it’s been a bit hard for me to get out of bed in the mornings for the last few weeks; partly because I have this cold that’s been like a pit bull, hanging in there and refusing to let go, and also partly because it’s summer and I know that the fish won’t be biting like they were not too long ago.  Excuses aside, I went out this morning and threw a spinnerbait for a while and just managed to avoid a skunk by catching one, and only one.

That has got to be the crappiest release pic I’ve taken to date…can you even tell that’s a fish?  The water is still pretty clear but the green algae is starting to grow and if this summer is like the last few, then the entire river will be a nice shade of green in about a month, if not sooner.  That’ll be spinnerbait and chatterbait time

Ty and I took the SS Netcutter out today despite KMA’s forecast for rain and strong winds.  It’s a good thing we didn’t trust KMA because there was only a bit of wind and no rain at all.

The heady days of spring are behind us and now that summer is here, fishing is a whole new ball game.  I love spring fishing but at times, it is a lot like shooting fish in a barrel.  For the most part, you basically tie something on your line and go catch fish and if you’re having a hard time catching bass in spring, then you may as well hang it up .  Now summer is completely different and although we don’t catch the quantity we catch in spring, the fishing is just as much fun, if not more so because you have to figure out where the bass are, what they want, and how they want it.  Without proper electronics, finding them is the hard part.  We did find a few and ended up catching 12 today, the only ones that were pic-worthy were the three above.  We tried everything, everywhere – crankbaits, spinnerbaits, buzzbaits, jigs and of course, wacky and Texas-rigged Senkos.  Even though someone didn’t bring the sandwiches, which adversely affected my ability to fish (just kidding, Ty ), it was another great day out on the water. and I hope we get a few more in before it gets too miserable out there.

I batted 500 this morning, which I was still happy with, considering how bleak it’s been the last few weeks and that we’re into the post-spawn and summer..

Today was combination day; I threw spinnerbaits, a jig and also a Karu Lures Vibrashock.  The morning started out quiet without a bite for the first hour so I was getting resigned for another skunk and standing there day dreaming while throwing a spinnerbait (white/red, of course) when a bass nailed the lure.  I was so surprised to have a fish on that I didn’t set the hook, didn’t lower the rod tip to keep the fish from jumping – so that’s exactly what it did, and threw the lure.  That got the juices flowing again and after 10 minutes or so, I caught the above.  Sorry for the crappy release pic but it’s been a while and I’m out of practice .

First, a few sunrise pics:

I decided to try something completely different this week, which was to leave the Senkos in the bag.  “Why the heck would you want to do that?” you ask.  Very good question, and one I asked myself all week .  But I proclaimed this week as “jig week” and jigs it was, for better or worse.  The week in review:

Tuesday, I tried a different spot than the one I usually fish in the morning.  This spot has rocks along the shore, but not so much in the water as my regular spot and since I was worried about getting snagged on every cast, I started jig week here and in about 1 1/2 hours worth of fishing, caught this one, the biggest of the week.

Wednesday was a Korean holiday so wisely, I stayed in bed to avoid the crowds; a wise decision indeed but I went back to my regular spot on Thursday.  A while ago I read an article on jig fishing which stated that although you’ll get much fewer bites on a jig than other lures, the size of the fish you catch makes up for the lack of bites.  Well, neither one of these two fellows have obviously ever read that or any other article on jig fishing.  When the dink on the right hit, I set the hook so hard that I completely pulled that fish out of the water and flipped him behind me on the shore – I bet that’s the last jig that bass ever hits.

Today, I was back at it bright and early and threw that jig for over two hours and this fish was my only reward, and I caught it pretty early.  Nothing at all after that, I’m sad to say.  I walked what felt like a mile, back and forth, covering every inch of that area but I couldn’t get another bite to save my life.  But hey, I’m not really complaining, I caught more bass on jigs these three days than I have in my entire life.  LOL

Now.  For those of you that like fishing jigs, my hat is off to you.  You’re better men than me.  It was killing me to think that my trusty Senkos were within reach and that I could possibly catch more fish if I just put that jig down but I was stubborn and determined to use nothing but a jig this week (it wouldn’t be “jig week” if I used something else, would it?).  The really great news is that I didn’t lose a single jig and I think that’s because I was using these new Zero Gravity jigs which have a very slow sink rate but are also pretty light which makes them a bit harder to cast any distance.  I don’t know, maybe I was fishing the jig wrong; I was basically casting it out and hopping it back, raising the rod tip then letting the jig sink, and sometimes giving small jerks while slowly reeling in.  If anyone can give me any tips, I’d appreciate it.  I was told that it’s more productive to flip and pitch vs. casting out and reeling in like I was.  Next time I go out in the boat, I’ll try that.  In a way, it was pretty interesting, trying to figure out how to make the bass bite on a lure I was really unfamiliar with (and still am, to be honest), and it was also a bit frustrating when I didn’t get any results.  Senkos have spoiled me!  So that was pretty much it for jig week… maybe next week will be “spinnerbait week”?