After getting skunked at the river early yesterday morning I talked my wife into heading out to Idong for some bluegill fishing yesterday afternoon, which seemed like an excellent idea to me, but apparently somebody (Nomad??? / Hacker???) tipped the bluegill off before we arrived because we didn’t get a single bite. After thirty to forty five minutes of that, we both decided to switch over to bass fishing, and I’m thankful that we did. Before the wind and rain ultimately drove us away, we caught six in approximately an hour and a half of fishing, and I caught one that was a personal best out of Idong, a 3-10 pounder.
The water level was extremely low so I used my chest waders to get out as far as I possibly could, which was, I’m guessing at least 150′. Senkos and chatter baits are what we served up. Here are some pics:
Biggest catch of the day:
Here’s one to provide you with a reference for how far out in the water I was:
The title of this post should be “Frank’s walk” because this morning, I must have covered close to a mile of shoreline, looking for that elusive bite and let me tell you, when you’re wearing chest waders, walking over hill and dale isn’t exactly the easiest feat in the world. But hey, all in the name of bass fishing, right? I digress though…let’s start this post off with a couple of sunrise pics since it was such a beautiful morning out there, again (you know what to do):
As I said in my previous post(s), it’s getting tough out there and today was no exception…I walked and I walked, and not a single bite…until 10 minutes before I had to head off to work:
Patience, patience, patience 
. This time of year, from shore, I’m more than happy to catch anything out there and even if I only catch one of these per week, I’ll gladly take it without a single complaint. Oh, and that fish hit a 4-inch Senko, “mystery sparkle black,” fished parallel to the shore, about 5 feet out.
With summer here, the fishing is getting harder in the river…sometimes I feel like I should be getting up even earlier so I can fish while it’s dark out - but I do need some sleep . The water level is really low right now….I was walking the shore, looking for some of the numerous lures I’ve donated to that river but I think someone else already beat me to it.
This morning, I had one bite, and that was it. I was starting to get worried I was going to get skunked but this bass saved the day!
As I expected, the river is still really nasty from the rains we had the other day but hey, it’s Friday and what would Friday be without "Early Morning Bass?" Check out how muddy the river is:
My goal, despite the water condition, was to at least get a bite, or something that vaguely resembled a bite and much to my surprise, I had two bites out there this morning…I caught one (dink) and lost one which I’m sure was also a dink.
Unfortunately, more rain is forecast for tomorrow and Sunday so the river won’t be improving any time soon - but don’t let that stop you!
After reading Nomad’s bad news with his line breakages this morning, I thought I’d start this little topic. Below is a link to a great knot site.
http://www.animatedknots.com/indexfishing.php?LogoImage=LogoGrog.jpg
What knots do you use for a particular lure/technique and lure/line. I’ll go first.
For Flourocarbon line I tie a clinch knot 100% of the time and I can’t remember the last time I broke off at the knot, even with old line.
For braided line 30lb and over I tie a trilene knot….but with braid below 30lb (I have 11lb braid on my spinning reel) I find that the knot tends to slip, so I tie the same trilene knot as above but add an extra turn/loop and this has worked very well.
According to KMA (and the Korean news last night) today is the beginning of monsoon season so despite the clouds and light rain this morning, I headed out to the river - have to get it while the getting is good…if and when the rains start in earnest, it’ll be slim pickings, at best. Let’s start out with a couple of dawn pics from this morning…the sun managed to peek through the clouds just long enough to put on a pretty nice display (as always, click on the thumbnails to see the full-sized pics):
This morning, I used a 5 inch Senko, dragged super slow across the bottom…so slow it almost drove me nuts but guess what, the bass were interested.
I caught this one on a watermelon with black tail-colored Senko…not that I think the color really mattered since it was still pretty dark out when I caught it. One other thing I did different besides the lure size and presentation was that I sprayed on some of this scent (the combo craw/shad formula). Here’s the bad though…I lost three; not one, not two, but three nice bass to line breaks this morning. The last one I lost was tough to take…when that fish grabbed the worm and took off, it almost pulled the rod out of my hands and I got so excited that I set the hook too hard and the line just snapped. I definitely need to replace the line on that rod since it’s old, and I also need to follow the advice Rob gave me this morning on the way he ties his palomar knots - he carefully pulls both ends of the line so that the loop tightens equally from both sides; I had been pulling on the rod/line end to tighten the knot and that may also account for my line breaks this morning (and other mornings, 
).
I was just looking through some bass photos and I came accross the 3 photos below.
The 3 photos are of the same fish caught from the same 1 acre pond on 3 different days, using 3 different lures. Just curious to know if anyone else has caught the same fish before and do you think the bass stop biting the same lure after it has been caught, as the bass below was caught on different lures each time.
October 25th 2007 - drop shot
November 4th 2007 - rattle trap
March 26th 2008 - spinnerbait
I went out Saturday morning to catch some bream for my pond and met up with a friend, Alan, who had brought some Boy Scouts to try to earn a fishing badge. One of the boys had never caught a fish before so I was happy to help them catch some bream.
Some of the fish were on beds in 1-2 feet of water so the kids could see the fish they were fishing for. They were really excited.
They ended up practically filling my cooler up with fish. I did catch one monster bass.
Steve asked to see some pics of my pond so here they are.
The 3 pound bass that I had originally put in the pond had always stayed hidden when he was by himself but after adding the bream, started venturing out and was cruising around with the bream. The bream didn’t seem concerned that there was a bass hovering nearby. It will be interesting to watch how they interact.
I took yet another Friday off to do some fishing yesterday and had a great time. It didn’t start out so great though. The visibility on the water was extremely low due to dense fog and I started out the day by running the boat straight into a fishing net at full throttle. Ack! Then, shortly thereafter I got skunked at the first place I stopped to fish, which was at a place that has consistently produced bass for me in the past. At that point I was thinking “way to waste a vacation day Rob.” However, things quickly turned around and I had a great day. I fished for 11 hours straight, and averaged a little better than 2 fish per hour on the day. I caught all of them on numerous different colors of 5″ Senkos and 1/2 ounce Chatterbaits. I didn’t take a whole lot of pictures mainly because I can’t seem to find my Sony Cybershot anywhere, but I didn’t catch any monsters either. I caught five in the 2.5-3 pound range but all of the others were 1 to 2 pounds. These pics were taken with my cell phone so the quality isn’t all that great, but here they are nonetheless.
Senko Fish:
Chatterbait Fish:
Yes, it’s Friday and that means it’s time for another (and possibly the last) installment of "Early Morning Bass." You know, every time I’m about ready to give up getting up at 3:15 to go out fishing before work, the bass decide to cooperate a little, just enough to keep me interested…and sleep-deprived for another week 
. This morning was great, weather-wise; cool, foggy, and no wind at all.
I didn’t catch any monsters (the biggest three are above), but I did catch eight fish and lost a few as well. The highlight of the morning was when I was throwing a brown/green chatterbait and on one of the retrieves, a bass that was at least three pounds followed the lure all the way to the rocks, but then turned and swam off - so there’s hope…they’re still out there, now it’s just a matter of figuring out what they want, and how. I tried crank baits, spinner baits and rattle traps but no takers. Oh, and all my fish this morning were caught on, you guessed it, black 4-inch Senkos.
Made it out to the Anseong River on Saturday and had another great day bass fishing. I think I caught and released over 20 bass, from 1 to 3 pounds. They were hitting everything but the kitchen sink. Water temp was 68-70 degrees, so most lures were fished at a fair clip.
I was fishing my favorite spot on the river, a shelf bordering the river channel, and started tearing them up using Rattle Traps. Then, something that only happens when your extremely lucky occurred, I hooked what I thought was a sure 4 pounder. While playing it, it felt that the fish was pulling in two directions at once. Once I got it to the boat I could see why - it was two bass on the Trap!
About two casts later, I hooked another bass on the Trap, and as I was fumbling with the camera, another bass came up to the first and tried to hit the lure. I missed the picture by 2 seconds.
I brought a 3 pounder back to my house and put it in my pond. Its doing fine and I’ll be feeding it goldfish and frogs. I plan on studying its behavior to try to learn a little more about our finny friends. One of the first things I’m going to do is toss hookless Senko in to see how it reacts. I’ll keep you posted - when it gets to be 10 pounds I’ll be selling tickets to fish for it ; )
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