Hi Dana, November 6, 2008
How's everything in Nebraska? Sick of the election yet? How was Montana this
past summer? I made it up there for about 8 days, not nearly long enough, but I
did get to fish a lot when I was there.
Here in Korea I've just started tying my own flies. With only a book to help me,
I've still got some things to work out, but on my last trip I did manage to
catch all my fish on dries that I had tied.
There are two native trout in Korea: cherry trout and lenok. The lenok in Korea
are the southern most population of the species. I've caught a lot of cherries
since there is a stream that is barely 3 hours away by train that I can get to
quite easily. Two weeks ago my friend (and new fly fishing student) drove me to
a lenok stream north of here. The stream has the southern-most population of
lenok in the world. After coaching my friend to his first fly-caught fish (a
nice lenok), I caught a couple myself. In two weeks I'm going to head farther
north for to a stream that is known to have lenok bigger than 20''. we'll see
how it goes.
Cherry trout are actually a pacific salmon, and in some populations some
cherries will run to the sea and live for a year or two before returning to the
natal stream to spawn. in korea, this doesn't happen very often given the fact
that they've cut water flows for irrigation, built dams (some with fish ladders,
but with no water...),not to mention that korean fisheries biologists net
returning chum salmon (also native to korea) for spawning and fail to let the
returning cherries continue their journey. the fisheries management here is a
mess. there are literally zero fishing regulations minus a couple of fishing
bans on a couple of streams.
a couple of weeks ago a fly fishing friend in seoul and I headed to a stream
full of carp in the middle of seoul. not sure if we were supposed to be fishing
there or not, i say that because there were tons of fish, but no fisherman, hmm,
very strange in korea indeed. anyways, i caught my first fly-rod carp, in fact,
i caught 5. it was great, especially on a 5-wt. plus i caught them a fly that i
tied for specifically for korean nuchi (barbel steed) and carp. it's basically
an oversized prince nymph tied with cheap brown hen hackle for tail and collar,
peacock hearl body with gold ribbing, and any mottled feather for the wing. the
nuchi love it, and i caught all my carp on it.
well, i hope you're doing well. give me an update sometime.
Take care,
Josh