Epic Afternoon at Salt Lick!

Nov 18 2023

Scott Quigley

Admin

Member Since :
2014
Number of Posts :
426

Went fishing with member Carl Sparks Friday afternoon and we definitely picked the right time and place.  Blue Rock and Long Lake have had good reports recently but Salt Lick hadn’t been fished in a month and wanted to see how that lake was doing.  We got on the water right at noon and caught a nice 4 lber right off the brush pile next to the ramp and that signaled how the day was going to go.  We caught fish steadily for the next 3 hours with pockets of incredible action as the bass were schooling up sporadically going after some of the threadfin Eric has stocked there.  The fish are fat and strong, even the culls put up a solid fight and the 3-5 lbers really got your full attention!

Caught fish all over the lake but most productive areas were the timber on the East side of the lake on the old pond dam and the SW corner and along the cliff wall.  We found them schooling up a couple of times in that SW corner and when you got into those you were guaranteed a few 4 lb+ fish, Carl doubled up with a 4 and a 3 on his A-rig!  For the day we lost track on total numbers but it was a lot, we took out 15 culls and had 6 over 4 and another 10 over 3 and plenty of strong overs.  Most effective lures were wacky senko, lipless crank and A-rig, did catch some on squarebill and medium depth crankbaits.

I did the initial test fish for Salt Lick when we signed it into the club and I am so impressed with what Eric has done with this lake!  He has created a lot of intersting structure around the banks with great brushpiles and his feeding program with bluegills and threadfin shad has built up a robust forage base that has really fattened up those bass.  He has also introduced some high end genetics and we caught a few that were clearly high end alpha fish.  Great success story for Salt Lick, we should definitely be getting more people out there.

One note on the ramp, the end has silted in some but there is still a good rock base under that so shouldn’t have an issue launching bigger boats.

Nov 18 2023

Mike Nicoloff

Slot Fish

Member Since :
2021
Number of Posts :
165

Sounds like a great day and Salt is one of my favorite lakes as I like all the different variations of depth, clarity, structure and what is usually a pretty heathy weed line.  Must have been a blast doubling up on the A rig with 3+ pounders 

Nov 20 2023

Scott Quigley

Admin

Member Since :
2014
Number of Posts :
426

Originaly Posted By Mike Nicoloff

Sounds like a great day and Salt is one of my favorite lakes as I like all the different variations of depth, clarity, structure and what is usually a pretty heathy weed line.  Must have been a blast doubling up on the A rig with 3+ pounders 

Definitely a great day.  Eric mentioned how much you have helped with all the planning and work on the structure, thank you so much for that, it has really helped take that lake to the next level!

Nov 21 2023

Ryan Sipe

Fingerling

Member Since :
2021
Number of Posts :
83

Originaly Posted By Scott Quigley

Definitely a great day.  Eric mentioned how much you have helped with all the planning and work on the structure, thank you so much for that, it has really helped take that lake to the next level!

Awesome report Scott and sounds like an amazing day.  Salt Lick is one of my top 3-4 places in the club for the exact reasons you specified.  Strong fish with copious amount of baitfish for them to continue to grow.  Lots of different options for structure, depth, technique.  Plus Eric is one of the nicest guys you will ever meet and he puts a ton of time, energy and money into making this a great fishery.

When you get into those baitfish frenzies, it’s so much fun at Salt Lick.  The three times I’ve been in bait fish frenzies there, they’ve all been in the SW corner like you described.  Interesting you caught good fish in the timber in the SW corner.  I’ve caught plenty of fish along the perimeter in the old pond damn especially on the North side of it, but never caught a single fish in the trees!