Reservation Number : 36378
Property Name : Salt Lick Lake
Reservation Date : 05/23/2023 All Day -
Total Fish/Sizes : 16 LMB up to 4lbs and a Dozen Sunfish
Lures Used : Popper/Walking Baits, Buzzbait, Senko, T-Rig, A-Rig

Second time visiting Salt Lick, really like the property.  74 degrees with light to almost no breeze when i hit the water at 7am.  Cloud cover until around noon, then a chamber of commerce sunshine after that.

Started in the cove on the E side of the lake past the stick ups.  Really light take on the buzzbait near the fall down trees, never had it hooked well and it jumped/spit it.  Moved onto the popper and a few casts later had a nice 4+ lber on; then the story went sideways.  The bass had trebles in both sides of the mouth. Picked it up by the belly (why i dont know as I had my net right there). got the first hook out with pliers and went to lip it for a better grip. Mr. Bass was having no part of that and proceeded to shake his head and bury the hook and barb into my finger while it flailed around.  I was able to cut the line and get the hook from the bass to release it.  Never experinced this in my 30+ years of fishing, but glad many years of youtube watching had showed me the braided line trick to remove a hook.  Took three pulls, but finally got it.  As you can see, it left a nice little hole.  Lesson learned by dumb me!  Put pressure on it for a few minutes and went along with fishing.

Caught most of my fish on the East and South areas on topwater.  Once the sun came out an with zero wind, the fishing became really tough.  Moved to a 6^th Sense T-Rigged Ridgeworm and a shakey head.  Caught a few here and there.  Would swtich it up every now and them with a mini-A-rig.  Hooked into a nice one on my spinning rig, which likely had too light of line on it and busted the line on a fish for the first time this year. Bad knot tying likely the culprit.

All in all, still a fun day.  Caught at least a dozen sunfish who would whacking the popper all day long; some were smaller than the popper itself, but also caught a couple really nice ones.

Also, got to chat with Eric, the lake owner.  So cool to hear all that he’s doing to make this property a great one!