Guides
What’s been happening on the water, and why.
Lake reports built from what state agencies found, with every source linked, and the local places worth knowing. More guides are being written.
Lake Greenwood after the spring fish kill
What SCDNR and SCDES tested, what they ruled out, and where the lake stands now.
Read the report
Local shop
Why we chose Lake Greenwood Bait & Tackle
Live bait in the tanks, lures to the ceiling, and people behind the counter who know the lake.
Read whyLake Greenwood spring game plan
Wind, shad movement and the first warming pockets, and how they set up a spring morning.
In the worksWhy the first hour matters on the flats
Low light, cool water and bait on the move — what changes as the sun climbs.
In the worksMatching the setup to the water
How depth, cover and clarity change what a rod, line and lure have to do.
In the worksLocal shop · Lake Greenwood
Why we chose Lake Greenwood Bait & Tackle.
Some tackle shops still feel like the ones a lot of us grew up in. This is one of them.
Walk in and it could be the late ’80s. There are live-bait tanks — herring, shad and minnows, dipped out for you — and walls packed floor to ceiling with hooks, jigs and lures, with none of the big-box aisles in between. The doors open early, in time for the people who launch before daylight.
The counter is the reason to stop. The folks behind it know this lake, and they will tell you straight what has been biting and where. On Greenwood that matters, because the fish follow the bait: our own Lake Greenwood write-up has winter crappie holding deep and following the shad. A shop that sells that bait live, and knows where it has been working, is a real head start on the day.
That is why we chose it: live bait, local knowledge, and the time to share it. It is the kind of shop we would want to find on any lake.
- Live bait
- Herring, shad, minnows
- Address
- 166 Fishing Village Rd
Lake Greenwood Bait & Tackle is a Buzzard Gear vendor and carries Buzzard Gear’s products.
Lake report · Updated September 18, 2026
Lake Greenwood after the spring fish kill.
The lake is open and fishing normally. If you were put off by the spring headlines, here is the short version and where things actually stand.
Over about a week in April 2026, dead fish turned up in the lower lake near Cross Hill. SCDNR and SCDES tested the water and the fish. They ruled out the common causes — low oxygen, algal blooms, heat — and never announced a cause. Fish tissue came back below limits for arsenic, cadmium, lead, selenium, pesticides, PCBs and PAHs. Mercury ran high in some samples, which matches what earlier monitoring on Greenwood has always shown, so the state’s standing fish consumption advisories are the ones to follow, same as before.
On May 21 officials said plainly that nothing prevented eating fish from the lake or using it for recreation, and neither of the lake’s drinking-water intakes was in the affected area. The die-off tapered off on its own within roughly a week and we have seen nothing since. It was a bad spring week on one end of an 11,400-acre lake, not a verdict on the fishery.
Sources: SCDNR, Apr 26, Spectrum News, May 21 and FOX Carolina, Jun 5. See dead or struggling fish on any South Carolina water? Call SCDNR’s 24-hour line at 1-800-922-5431.