Pacemaker Fishing Forum

I just got back last night from a nice weekend with the fellas at Buggs Island(AKA Kerr for you North Carolinians). We all chipped in for a rental house this time on Bluestone Creek instead of the usual camping scenario.  A few of the guys had been down there fishing a couple weeks prior and had done real well, so we all had high hopes. Weather was great with sunny skies and highs in the 80’s. Main lake water temps were in the 60’s with the backs of creeks warming to almost 70 in the afternoons.  Water level was up around 303 so there were plenty of bushes in the water, especially in the back. The water was a bit stained in the creeks but not too muddy, so we decided to concentrate on uplake areas and try and find some early spawners.

We spent most of the first day in Grassy Creek. Drove straight to the back of the back and found plenty of giant carp splashing around, but no bedding bass. Worked our way out and caught most of our fish in little pockets and cuts next to points off the main creek channel. Bandit 200, 3/8oz spinnerbaits, 1/4oz ratltraps and texas-rigged brush hogs, beaverbaits and flukes worked well. We caught about a dozen small bass and plenty of white perch and crappie. Most of the fish came out of wood and bushes next to small dropoffs. Many of them would chase the bait out of the buckbrush and nail it right in front of the boat.  Headed back to Bluestone before dark and caught a few on topwater by the house. I caught a really nice white bass on the Sammy, over 16” long and close to 3 lbs. Probably would’ve been a citation, but there were so many fish busting on top we just put her back and kept casting.

We launched out of Okoneechee on Saturday and fished Buffalo Creek and a bunch of main lake coves in that area. There were a bunch of tournaments going on that day including a 2-day federation tourney, so there were tons of boats on the water and lots of wally-jackers on the boat ramps. We ran to the back of Buffalo and again found tons of frolicking carp and gar, but no bedding bass. Worked our way out of the creek and caught some nice crappie and a few short bass on the bandit. After that we fished some coves on the main lake with no luck so we headed back into Bluestone. Fished a point on the back side of an island and had a 5lber swipe at my crankbait but couldn’t connect. We ran up the creek a bit and finally found bait about ¾ of the way back. We marked giant balls of shad on the depth finder right where the last bit of deep water ran into the giant flats in the back, so we decided to hang out for a couple of hours until the sun crept below the trees. Around seven a couple big schools of bass and striper rolled in and pushed the bait onto the flat creating a topwater frenzy. At one point there were literally hundreds of fish eating all around us in 4 feet of water. Me and my partner both had several nice fish on but just couldn’t get those darn things in the boat. They were slashing around and hitting our spinnerbaits and flukes so fast that we just couldn’t get a good hookset in-pretty frustrating when they're swirling and jumping all around the boat. A couple of our friends showed up later in another boat and had no problem, catching about a dozen bass and small striper in about 10 minutes. It was definitely cool to see that kind of action, but a bit of a bummer that we couldn’t capitalize.

We fished for ½ day on Sunday in Bluestone. Ran to the back where we were the evening before and hooked up on a nice one that got off right at the boat. Worked our way out and found some good bait around the bridge and caught a bunch of shortys and white perch on the bandit. Lots of boat traffic on the water and some bad sunburn caused us to call it a day early.

All-in-all a very nice little trip to Buggs, but a bit disappointing that we couldn’t get into the larger ones. Some of the other guys we were staying with caught some nice fish, but for the most part we just couldn’t locate those larger females. I think this was the first time I’ve ever been down there that someone hasn’t caught a 4 or 5lber, but I guess that’s just the way it goes sometimes. I’m sure all the tournament pressure had something to do with it, but even the busiest day at Buggs beats any weekend at Anna or the Potomac.  If I had to do it again I would probably spend more time finding areas with good baitfish populations and less time looking for the beds. That place is so huge with such a big population of shad that you really have to run n gun and cover lots of water until you find productive areas. Wind is always key-most of the good places we found were points or pockets with the wind blowing directly in on them. We would work our way into a pocket and catch nothing, but as soon as we turned around and fished into the wind we would hook up. My camera ran out of batteries after the first day, but I did manage a few pics-hope you enjoy.

Mike

Last edited by purpleworm (Apr-27-09 10:56AM)