NC Guy needs some Bugg's Island (Kerr Lake) advice

I went to Bugg's Island fishing for the first time ever on Saturday. I've fished a lot of the central NC lakes and have had good success crappie fishing. Over the past two months, I have had four 100+ days on Jordan Lake. I was planning to use the same type fishing on Bugg's, but it turned out to be a whole different type of fishing.

I'm going to post some pictures below and if some of you guys don't mind sending me a PM or post on here, I would appreciate it. The first three screenshots are typical of Jordan Lake this time of year. Massive amounts of shad (threadfin and gizzard) congregate in the old river channels. Obviously, all the predator fish are nearby. One day we caught largemouth bass, striped bass, white bass, white perch, yellow perch, catfish and crappie all near a channel.

I launched at Satterwhite Point and fished a number of coves and then the main channel. There were a number of guys out there catching lots of perch and we got our fair share as well. We never saw the kind of bait that we are accustomed to on Jordan. Maybe the area up towards Clarkesville has more bait in the water, but we definitely did not see it in the Nutbush arm of the lake. Here are the pictures with some comments about each one.

This is a typical Jordan shot with an old bridge that was dynamited when the lake was created. The bait is congregated over the old river channel.

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The crappie are easy to find. You can see several in this shot under the baitball. I looked and looked for this type of action on Bugg's, but never found it.

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Another shot of a river channel.

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This is from Bugg's last Saturday. This may be someone's crappie condo and the dropoff. There are zero baitfish and this puzzled me.

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This is the most fish we found the whole day on the radar and I think they are mostly perch. We definitely caught our fair share.

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What kind of electronics are you using? I can't help, but just wanted to say nice work with the screenshots. Best of luck.

BA

IN THE WRONG CREEK FOR CRAPPIE, GRASSY,RUDDS,EASTON,PANHANDLE,YOU WILL SEE A LOT OF SHAD AND CRAPPIE,HEADED THAT WAY TOMORROW.PM ME FOR MORE INFORMATION,WILL BE THERE 3 DAYS,I HOPE

The electronics are the new Humminbird Onix 8 with 2D, DI, and SI. I didn't post any shots, but we have the new 360 imaging as well. It is my partners boat and we've been using the new electronics since September. What a difference it has made, but not as you might expect. Just as we did on Bugg's, we were able to eliminate water that did not hold bait. Find the bait and you find the fish. The second screenshot above is a perfect example.

One of the hardest things to learn at Buggs is the progression of the bite. I usually start titelining in the upstream creeks in late Jan or Feb, Buffalo, Bluestone, Sandy, Orange, Aarons, an Peters. These are the first to warm an the first to get prespawn movements. The titelining bite will be best there til the water warms up into the mid 50's, then the dock shooting bite starts to be the best option. This will last til the end of May/first of June. The spawn is pretty much done in the creeks by then an they will start showing up on main lake stuctures from Buffalo down to Clarksville. Then ya have to follow the bite down the lake to the deeper water as it warms into the summer. At some point in late Summer they will start biting better on the main channel back up the lake. This is just general patterns. I usually fish an area til I quit catching fish then move an check the next best areas for the time of yr. If you continue to fish the Nutbush area, you will quit fishing Buggs thinking its a terrible crappie lake, IMHO. Theres bout 10 times better crappie population up the lake than it is down at Nutbush, in my limited experience. Hope this helps! Rite now we are doin best in Butchers an Panhandle castin an vertical jiggin brush.

Thanks a lot for the advice. We put in at Satterwhite just because it was closer to Raleigh. Definitely looks like we need to travel a little further to find the Bugg's crappie area.

JL Clarksville is a Easy Drive.. Prolly only a few minutes longer

we fished Butchers Thur an Fri. caught 36 Thur an 40 Fri. had a 1 lb 14 oz Thur an several from a pound to 1 1/2 pounds. 15-20ft deep over brush in 20-35fow, steep drops were best. all on jigs, released most of the bigguns. the ladies are gettin very fat!

KEITH,THAT WAS THE SAME PATTERN WE HAD ,WHEN WE FOUND BRUSH LOL,LOST WP,BO WHO, BO WHO