Who ‘Da Thunk It?

Got Bass? Korea Does

By Mike Wallace

Superstition Search & Rescue

The striper bite is hot at Pleasant; the smallie fishing on the edge of exploding at Powell; Roosevelt is begging for my white spinner bait, and — I am in Korea, a bitter man!

Work has brought me here for a two-month stay.  Imagine the squeals and the noises that came from my mouth when I heard from a man who soon became a friend that he fished for bass in Korea!

It was only a few days later that I stood on the shore of the shallow Pyongteak River at Ansan Bay. I had no fishing tackle, but Tye told me he would supply it all. 

I waited for the punch line of this joke on me, fully anticipating Tye to break out the corn and cane poles to catch the large-lipped golden bass. 

When he broke out the black Secno worm, rigged weightless on one pole and black spinner bait on the other, I actually began to think all those Koreans hiding in the bushes waiting to laugh hysterically at me for believing this fish story were a figment of my imagination.

Still, I could not believe that there were really bass in Korea. Tye walked one way, and I walked the other. Soon I heard Tye laughing and calling my name. 

The thick vegetation blocked my view. I walked up onto a dirt berm and could see Tye with his pole bent over, and in front of him in the water, a large mouth breaking skyward to throw the black worm. 

I was finally a believer. What a fun surprise!

We fished for only few hours and caught only six bass, three each, but what an awesome surprise: largemouth bass in Korea —who ‘da thunk it?!