I fished with my bass club at JangSung Dam on Sunday. It was the first time I have ever fished that lake and the first time I have my boat in the water since March. I had added a new livewell system to my boat so I was hoping it wouldn’t sink :lol: 
:lol:
It was a tough day. First off, it was damn cold, then my Suzuki motor wouldn’t start and I noticed a lot of fuel leaking everytime I tried to start her up, so I gave up and just used my trolling motor. Then things seemed to pick up….I caught a nice 15 inch bass almost straight away, but that was it for a while. The water level was wayyyyy down but the water was still upto 30 foot deep. (This lake is like a smaller version of Andong). Long story short…..I caught a few fish, mostly dinks. Some of the guys from my club caught some very bass. Once the water levels come back up, this lake will be an awesome place to fish, and it may be as good as Andong.
Here is the smallest fish of the day……I won a prize for this
The good news about the low water levels is, someone has built an awesome boat ramp, the best I’ve ever seen in Korea.
And finally, a couple of shots of my little ex-foldy boat
Well, I was off work yesterday and a coworker of mine had been wanting to go try out Daeho resovoir which is about 50 miles southwest of Songtan towards Dangjin. So we packed up and left out at about 5 a.m. and battled the fog and crazy drivers the entire way there (met a car head-on on a two-lane road that was passing other cars in the fog…I took the shoulder, he took the “middle” lane).
By the time we got there and got the boat launched it was around 7 a.m. It turned out to be an interesting day. We caught somewhere around 150 bass. That’s not a typo. I quit counting after I reached about 60. Now, to be honest, 95% of them were easily under 1/2 pound but I did manage to pull in one that weighed in just shy of 2 1/4 lbs. Although it was a fun change of pace, if bass fishing were always that easy or the fish always that small, I would quit! There was no challenge whatsoever. I told my friend that if I could find a lure in my bag that would not catch a fish there, I would throw it away and never purchase another like it. Anyway, here’s a couple of photos….
Here is the largest fish of the day...2lbs 3 oz. caught on a chatterbait.
This fish is smaller than it appears in the photo. (Now there's a claim you don't hear every day!)
This photo is a better representation of the day's average catch.
It’d be a great place to take a kid fishing, although you would run the risk of spoiling them since it would be difficult to duplicate the results ever again.
My original plan was to stop the EMB™ fishing until next spring due to the colder weather in the mornings but like a lot of my plans, this one also went by the wayside and I headed on out to Idong lake this morning to catch me one more EMB™ bass or two. This plan, unfortunately, also fell by the wayside. For some reason (fall turnover?), the water in Idong is pretty murky - at least in the area where I was fishing so I opted to go with a spinner bait.
Shortly after it got light, I felt a fish hit and I set the hook and started reeling in. I could feel a weight on the line, but there was absolutely no fight whatsoever. “Dink? Weeds? WTF!”, I thought to myself. Even a dink will put up some kind of fight so I thought for sure I had missed the bass and was reeling in some weeds.
Well, it wasn’t weeds, and it wasn’t a bass, either. I’m not even 100% sure what kind of fish this is - a freshwater tarpon? If anyone knows, feel free to enlighten me…and does anyone know how common they are over here, and how big they can get?
Busan Offshore Amberjack Report
After what seemed like an eternity since the last time I was able to wet a line (my broken foot and my daughter’s broken wrist) we finally made our way to Busan for the amberjack migration. I have been planning this trip for an entire year since TexMex made his post last October. A group of 5 of us hooked up with the guide that Tex recommended. The guide wanted us to be there at 0245 for an 0330 departure. The captain made our way over to the harbormaster’s office and we were cleared to leave the port at 0400 sharp. Weather was perfect and seas were fairly smooth. However we all made use of the seasickness patch behind the ear just in case. We arrive at the spot at about 0440. They fire up the lights and start chumming. Within a few minutes we were under siege by huge schools of 8-12 inch jack mackerel. We could see that there were a few larger fish underneath, but we couldn’t get our bait down past the mackerel before they would pick it clean or hook themselves. This went on for about an hour and a half until it got light out. We only managed two amberjack during this time but landed about 40 mackerel. If we were specifically targeting them we could have easily caught hundreds if not thousands of them but we were doing our best to avoid them. They disappeared as it got light and the fishing kind of slowed down. After a while the captain gets word that the fish are biting well a couple hundred yards away (there were about 20 boats in the general vicinity) so we move a little ways and the fishing really picked up. We landed some more amberjack, a few more mackerel, and a few odd green colored fish that the captain said didn’t taste very good. They were still fun to catch because they would readily go airborne. All in all we had a good time. We didn’t get the numbers compared to some of the other boats, but it was a good trip. Me and my daughter Rene were the only experienced anglers on the trip though. Total tally was 20 amberjack and about 50 mackerel. I want to give a special thanks to Tex for setting us up with the guide. I have also included the obligatory sunrise picture. 
Sorry for the delay in posting this Tex.
Went to pick up my car shipped from Korea in LA, so decided to do some more deep sea fishing with my friend Tony Rodriguez, who used to work in Korea and fished several of the Andong tournaments with me. Over all it was a great trip as there were only four customers (Tony, my son another man and I) in the entire boat along with the four man crew. We caught all kinds of sand bass, sculpin, and some small grouper. I am holding some of the grouper that were caught at a very deep depth. I caught these two at the same time on live sardines and let me tell you, it wore me out trying to bring them in from the deep water. As you can see their eyes are bulging from being brought in from the deep water. The other one that Tony is holding is a nice and good eating whitefish. Notice how he holds the fish way out to try and make it look big :) After the trip we took all the fish home and prepared them in a beer batter.Let me tell you, beer batter fish and beer go very well together. Hope you all keep catching em.
Me, my wife and our daughter went to Jinju on Saturday to attend the festival that was going on on the river (Nam Gang). We met up with another family that are originally from Jinju but now live in Ulsan. Here some shots of the River on Saturday night.
After the river festival, we all headed back to near our friends Mother’s home and proceeded to drink excessive amounts of alcohol and we all ended up sleeping at his Mother’s home and drinking a little more 
(OK, I’ll get to the point!!!!)
It turns out that our friends Mother lives right beside my favorite lake, so whilst my wife recovered from her hangover, I went to the lake and had a few casts. Well, the fishing was slow to say the least, I only had one bite, and here is the result…..
A nice fat, healthy 54cm lunker at last. Unfortunately in my excitement, I completely forgot to weigh her but have calculated from one the online bass weight convertors that she was around 5lb 10oz.
Since today is a Korean holiday, I knew that my regular spots would be crowded with carp fishermen so I went back to that big rocky area where I got skunked twice in a row earlier this spring. However, Rob and I did really well in that area right around the same time last year so I thought I’d give it a shot.
The bass wouldn’t touch anything while it was still dark but got active after it got light. I caught 4 dinks plus the one above (on 5-inch, black Senkos) and wish I could have stayed out longer since the action was picking up but it was time to head on to work. For those of you heading out this weekend, good luck 
The fishing is tough out there right now and I don’t know why. Could it be the cooler weather? The high pressure system? The unusually clear water? Do they get active a little later in the day this time of year? Heh, I don’t have the slightest idea. I did, however, manage to catch one on a 4-inch Senko and another one on a Karu Lures Vibraspin (which is a combination spinner bait/chatter bait), and that was all for this morning.
To start things out, I caught my first-ever bass on a shaky head rig this morning - to be fair, I hadn’t fished shaky head rigs all that much in the past but on the occasions I tried them, I had no luck at all. But this morning, I thought that since I’ve been on a mission to, ahem, expand my angling horizons beyond the Senko, I’d tie on one of these to see what would happen.
I also tried a chartreuse spinner bait (I’m all out of the white/red) for about 30 minutes without any luck but for whatever reason, the fish were liking my Senkos today.
I caught the above on my second cast and although I usually bag and tag them as fast as possible so they can get back in the water, I had to weigh this one - 2 pounds, 11 ounces (I thought it was at least 3 pounds…not even close).
That fish in the last pic would not stop flopping around…I was trying to get a shot with him hanging there with the Senko and hook showing and out of 5 attempts at a picture, that was the best one. LOL. Once again, a good start to the week
Nomad has graciously given me access to post pics etc. here. Here’s my first attempt, so if I screw it up too badly, I apologize in advance.
Well, any day spent fishing is a good day, however, the fishing itself could have been better on Saturday. It was a bit chilly early, but ended up being great weather. It was somewhat windy at times but overall not bad in that regard either. All that green stuff is gone from the water and it wasn’t too murky. But the fish were really difficult to find! We fished all day and only caught 16, which is actually a lot better than I thought it was going to be for a while. The bite did pick up a bit around 4 p.m. and afterwards, but most of the fish we caught were really small. We caught a couple that went around 1 1/2 pounds but most of the others would have been lucky to break a pound. I threw a little bit of everything at them. Crankbaits weren’t happening at all. I caught one on a tube, one on an in-line spinnerbait, a couple on a jighead worm and the rest came off of dropshot rigs. No one else we talked to on the water was having much luck either. It was good to be out there though and we had a good time. Here’s some pictures, but nothing special really.
I did catch one pig! Well, actually it was a plastic pig(gy bank).
We wanted cooler temperatures, well, we got them and how. When I got to the river this morning, the wind was blowing hard, it was raining and, it was cold enough for me to need a windbreaker. The cold front has definitely affected the fish, because I didn’t have one single bite on a Senko out there. Not even a dink!
So I put on the last white/red spinner bait I have, and ended up catching three total. Two of them were a pound or less (may have even been the same fish), and just as the rain really started coming down and I thought about going to work a little early, this bass nailed the lure and made my morning.
I almost slept in this morning because I figured that after those hard rains we had on Saturday, the river would be high and stained - and I was correct on both counts. The water level is so high that I couldn’t get down to the spots I usually fish, and the water was the color of chocolate milk. On top of that, there was a brisk breeze blowing in my face. However, the bass didn’t seem to mind the conditions too much.
The fish on the left was caught on a 5-inch Senko, black with blue flakes, and the one on the right was caught on a white/red spinner bait. I also caught two dinks, and had one bass on a spinner bait that jumped and threw the lure about 2 feet from shore, just as I was about to reach down to grab it. Unfortunately, it’s supposed to rain again today, tonight and on Thursday which will put a damper on my fishing activities but the good news is that these fronts will bring some nice cool weather, which I’m sure we’re all looking forward to.
My upstairs neighbor Mike took me out in his boat today (thanks, Mike!). I got to check out his boat since I’m thinking of buying one, and I also got to enjoy a heck of a good day out on the river. Well, more like a half day, since we were chased off by the torrential downpours (which didn’t bother us too much since the fish were biting) and the lightning and thunder.
Mike fished mainly deep-diving crank baits along with some drop shots, and I tried a little of everything; spinner baits, chatter baits, wacky-rigged Senkos, 4 and 5-inch Senkos (with not much luck, I might add), and once I saw how Mike was tearing them up again, I also tried crank baits. We ended up catching 18 bass, and I’m sure we would have caught a lot more had the weather not turned ugly. Here are some of the pics from today:
I had a blast and learned a few things as well. Thanks a lot, Mike, for taking me out there. Hopefully the weather will cooperate better next time
Friday; the last day of the work week (for most of us) and the beginning of the weekend. And, it’s a good day to catch fish, I always say . But before we get to that, there was no fog out there for once and I actually saw a sunrise:
But way before all that started happening, I was out there in the dark, chucking Senkos and spinner baits. I ended up catching 8 bass out there this morning which I must admit, made my day (even though 5 of them were dinks).
On my very first cast with a black, 5-inch Senko, I caught this fish but unlike a lot of the hits I got in the dark the last few weeks, this one nailed it hard and also put on one heck of a good fight. A while later, I switched to a spinner bait.
The above was the only one I did manage to catch on a spinner bait and once again he was hooked really good so despite all his aerial acrobatics, he stayed on till the end to pose for this shot.
I caught this one on a black 4-inch Senko about 10 minutes before it was time to pack it in and head to work. Today was definitely one of the better days I’ve had in quite the while and it’s days like today why I keep getting up early 
.
Recent Comments