Monday, April 16, 2012 at 9:32AM I took the kids down to Jhunan on Sunday and met up with GK (seen catching all the groupers in the video), Austin and a couple of their fishing friends for an afternoon of salt pond fishing. I didn't have much luck personally, but GK caught several groupers and other friends caught black porgy and a drum of some kind.
Friday, April 13, 2012 at 5:31PM 
Shoals of shovelmouth carp in the Danaiku Ecological Park.The Chiayi County township of Danaiku is expanding its successful local conservation program by boosting fish stocks in other area streams. The township banded together a few years ago and created a very successful grassroots program to protect the township's traditional fishing grounds from illegal electrical and cyanide fishing. The resulting Danaiku Ecological Park is now showcase program and the town's streams teem with fish--mostly striped dace and shoveljaw carp--which tour groups can tour and view. The township is now launching an combined tree planting and fish stocking program to improve conditions in other area streams within the Zengwen River drainage.
Tuesday, April 10, 2012 at 9:13PM 
Hualien rescue swimmer Du Jinfu. Images on right show him just before he was swept into the rocks during a rescue attempt on April 1.Fishing the rocks along Taiwan's coast is not without its hazards. Anglers are frequently swept into the water by unexpectedly large waves and often it is volunteer rescue swimmers who are called on pull them to safety. It was in just such a situation that took the life of a Hualien rescue swimmer on April 1. Du Jinfu attempting such a rescue when he he was suddenly swept into the rocks in heavy surf and drowned. You can find a full description of what happened here as well as background on the local hero who was responsible for saving many Hualien area anglers. Friends are seeking donations to help Du Jinfu's wife and elderly parents (see above link for info).
Tuesday, April 10, 2012 at 8:45PM 
Taiwan shovel jawcarp are common in the Pinglin drainage.The river through Pinglin will be open for fishing from May 1 through October 31. Anglers must apply for a fishing permit from the local tourism office in Pinglin. Most native species within the watershed may be taken on a catch and release basis. Common species in the river include Taiwan shoveljaw carp and ayu, among others. For more information, anglers can contact the Pinglin Tourism Office at 26658020. You can find the full article on the Taiwan Fishing Facebook pages (Chinese with Bing translation).
Tuesday, April 10, 2012 at 5:06PM Tuesday, April 10, 2012 at 10:43AM Spring is the perfect time of year to tie on a spinnerbait in Taiwan. The flashy blades are the perfect enticement for a strike when the water is stained or slightly off color from rain, as it often case during most times of the year. For bedding bass, the fluttering blades are particularly irritating and will usually trigger satisfyingly hard strikes.
I tend to be a creature of habit when it comes to bass, and lately I've been relying more heavily on finesse baits at local ponds, like shaky worms or Texas and wacky-rigged worms. I recently decided to give my spinnerbaits a workout and ended up using them all day long. The cast-to-strike ratio may not have been quite as high as with a worm, but because you tend to retrieve a spinnerbait more quickly, this didn’t affect the number of fish hauled in on this particular morning.
Some local anglers may not have spinner baits in their tackle boxes because they can be hard to find in local fishing shops and when they do turn up they are inexplicably pricey. I avoided this problem by picking up a few while back in the U.S. this winter.
The usefulness of a spinnerbait is not limited to the bass pond. They can be productive in canals, around heavy weeds and other cover, making them a nice change of pace for snakehead anglers tired of the ubiquitous topwater frog. You can also toss them in estuaries for barramundi and red drum.
One of the tricks to using a spinnerbait is tying them on correctly. Here is a simple knot I use that works great.
Monday, March 26, 2012 at 3:45PM 
I have made a lot of references to different ways to rig soft plastic baits for bass--Texas style, Carolina style, wacky style. I'm always on the lookout for a good guide that shows what these various rigs look like and how to tie them. I found a pretty good one on the Gary Yamamoto Web site. For those that don't know Yamamoto, he is a California-based angler and soft bait maker that revolutionized plastic worms with his much imitated Senko stick worms, that are the preferred style for wacky worming. I hope you find these useful.
Tuesday, February 21, 2012 at 4:58PM ...in case you needed another reason to like Lin.
