Reservation Number : 31602
Property Name : Salt Lick Lake
Reservation Date : 03/19/2022 All Day -
Total Fish/Sizes : 12 to 14 all decent size
Lures Used : TRIG

Fished Salt Lick for the second time on Saturday and definitely a lake that is going to stay in the rotation.   39 degree temps in the morning, warming up to 60 by noon, blue sky and slight wind with gusts around 10mph.  The water had a hint of green with 3+ feet of visibility. 

In the morning I burnt too much daylight fishing in the deeper water, bouncing the bottom and rock piles with lipless, swimbait and TRIG.  I thought with the recent front and blue skies the fish would be deep but that wasn’t the case and didn’t land my first fish until close to 10.  Soon after I picked up a pattern of finding fish between a solid weedline and a steep drop-off. Below is a good picture of the type of weeds at Salt Lick and the weedline I was fishing.   TRIG caught most of the fish but I did catch a couple on Senko, Chatterbait and Jerkbait.  I boated 12 to 14 for the day and lost another 3 or 4 good bites.  I really wish I was able to fish the full evening but had obligations and had to leave.  The action picked up around 4 o’clock and saw a lot of baitfish moving to the shallows and felt like I was missing prime time.   Maybe next time.

All of the fish except one were over 3lbs, and the smallest was 1.5lbs so a really good day in terms of size.  I weighed every fish and aside from the 1.5 pounder all of the other bass ranged from 3.1lbs to 3.6lbs -- all healthy, chunky and strong fight.  You can tell in the third picture the bass looks like it is about to burst. 

The shoreline at Salt Lick is pretty steep so assume the bass will be spawning in deeper water around the structure.  I parked the boat for a couple of minutes and was talking to Eric and we happened to see a “courting ritual” I think.  Two decent-sized bass were 4ft from shore, right at the drop-off and were nose down and tail-fin up.  Not sure if they were doing the old belly rub and the male trying to court the female…...or if one was moving stones.  Either way, love was in the air.