Ice Fishing...

..at night. OK, maybe not, but it did remind me of this, from John Paul Jones' album The Thunderthief. The piano's nice, but the lyrics are truly awful. Sadly, this isn't even the worst offender on the album.

Moving on, we come to one of the things that defines my little town, the trout festival. I live in a town of around 10,000 people, but one that for two months in January and February attracts visitors from across Korea. The county of Pyeongchang is one of the only places where trout has been successfully farmed within Korea, and so to publicise this, they dam the river, wait for it to freeze over and then dump a whole load of trout in for the public to fish for.

The festival really transforms the lower part of town. A whole complex of buildings gets put up (seemingly just after they were finally taken down after last year's festival) and earth movers work for several months to completely block off the river, save for a small channel running down the side. Then everyone sits and waits for it to get freezing cold, the ice forms and everyone gets their festival on.

The main festival activity is of course, the ice fishing itself. Hundreds of holes are drilled in the ice, and individuals and families come to try their luck, either with their own equipment or the plastic sticks with a metal fish as a lure that are sold at the festival. I felt like the trout may have got wise to this by the time we started fishing, as they'd been swimming through a forest of jiggling golden lures for several weeks beforehand. While we did see some people get lucky, Linda and I's only fishing success was the ice that formed on our line.

Fisherman at work.

The equipment.

The lure. Good for luring, well, nothing.

Popular game, catching ice.

There's only so long you can stand on a freezing river in -20C weather with a very slim chance of catching anything. What the sensible festival goer does is head over to the side-event, the bare handed trout catching, instead. This takes place in a pool away from the river, which is kept slightly warmer (it's water, not ice, but barely). With around 30 others, I head into a warm changing room and change into fetching orange trousers, a grey T-shirt and rubber shoes. We then surround a pool, do some shouting in Korean (I'm not sure what I'm saying yes to here) and then, to the considerable annoyance of 100 or so trout, we leap into the water and try to pull them out with our hands.

Trout catching proves to be fiendishly difficult. The idea is to drive them to the edges and then flip them out on to the edge, where you can stuff your trout in a plastic bag to be carried away later. The trouble is, as soon as you locate one it's slipped through your grasp, and your legs, and headed back to the middle of the pool. The water is so cold it soon becomes painful to put my hands in, and I wonder whether I'll suffer the ignominy of failing to catch a single fish. Then, a gift. Like a big cat spotting one labouring wildebeest, I spot an easy target. One trout is trying to hide itself between two rocks at the edge of the pool, little realising that it's entire rear half is sticking out. Quick as a flash, I reach down, grasp it firmly and lift it out onto the side, to cheers from the crowd. I'm excited as I stuff it into my bag and leap back into the water. My enthusiasm is to no avail though, as the trout continue to evade me. When it's just me and some kids splashing in the pool, I accept defeat and head back to the warmth of the changing room, clutching Barry, my trout.

The pool.

The contestants.

"3...2...1..."

Missed.

"Bloody hell this is cold."

"There was one here a minute ago I swear."

"Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeees!"

"No."

The Korean's being a friendly people, my lack of fish is noted and an old man is dispatched to the pool to catch me another one. This is, of course, hideously embarrassing but it does give Linda and I the chance to try two different ways of eating trout. My gift trout is given to an old lady in one tent, and in a matter of seconds it's delicious pieces of sashimi. It's tender and delicious, especially dipped in a little hot sauce. Having eaten half of that, we then headed to the grill tent, where Barry is taken from me, wrapped in foil and plopped on the grill. It's not long before we're tucking in to an even more delicious trout, grilled to perfection, moist and succulent with the subtle flavour nicely preserved. The fact that it was my catch made it all the more tasty.

Where I failed, the old man with waders and a net succeeded.

On the cutting table.

Vicious.

Sashimi.

Barry and I.

Barry and I again.

Barry, you were too dumb to live, but you didn't die in vain.

OK, maybe feeling a little guilty now.

And with that, it was time to get out of the stinking cold, and head home for a hot chocolate. I'm spending the summer working on my trout grabbing technique.

A