Post USA Trip and Final KSA Tournament
Well, it’s been a little while since the last time I got to update everyone on what is going on in my fishing world overseas. Recently, I had the treat of going back to the states for awhile. For my work detail, I was sent back over to do a couple trainings in D.C. and San Antonio. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to wet a line like I had hoped though.
I did meet up with a buddy of mine from Lake Amistad who invited me to go to a hunting expo with him while in San Antonio. Of course most everything was hunting related there, but I noticed one guy selling fishing rods so I went up to talk with him. He currently sells saltwater type fishing rods, but was looking to get in the bass game. It was nice to get to at least talk some serious fishing while in the States.
Now, I’m back in Korea and ready to get back after some largemouth bass! Currently, in the KSA (Korean Sportfishing Association) I’m in 6th place in the Angler of the Year standings with one regular season tournament left on October 26th. I’m really looking forward to the final tournament and hopefully staying high enough in the points to get a bid to the Classic which will be November 16th. They will take the top 20 in points from the AOY standings and the top 5 out of a couple different organizations and end up with about 40-45 participants. It’s a big event with big time sponsors from Korea like Blackhole and some more recognizable ones to Americans like Daiwa and Penn Reels.
As we talked about before, one of my biggest limiting factors was having a reliable boat to compete with. I voiced my concern to another angler and he must’ve passed the word along because I received a phone call from the President and Director of the KSA about it. Apparently, they spoke with the rental guy and he put a new motor and fixed some other things on the boat that had been an issue.
I’m headed up this weekend to scout for the upcoming tournament and see how the improved boat performs. I’ve got some things I want to look for on the lake and definitely am going to bust out some new techniques to try and get some bigger bites. The Korean’s are big into drop shotting, but many power fishing tactics are not used. I’ve used big crankbaits, like the 10XD with success and am thinking a lipless crankbait may be the ticket for this coming tournaments if that grass is up on some of my better areas. It’s going to be fun trying some more power fishing techniques here and hopefully it pays off big!
