The Gold Bug is on Lardeau Creek, 100 metres upstream from the mouth Finkle (Seven-Mile) Creek. The showing is down-slope and upstream from the Florence [082KNW013] prospect. The Gold Bug tenure was once part of a cluster that included the Gold Bug, Rambler, Silver Star and Silver Spoon claims. The Rambler [082KNW019] showings are 610 metres to the east of the Gold Bug workings and are described separately.

The Gold Bug claim was owned by J.W. Livingstone in 1917. He worked the property through to around 1922. By then, there was considerable underground development. The claim was owned by Gold Bug Mining Syndicate in 1933 and by Nortran Resources Limited and Multiplex Resources Limited in the late 1980s. At that time, the adit area was on the Pit claims and was covered by an airborne geophysical survey. The adit was mapped and sampled and a limited amount of grid work done. This was followed by diamond drilling.

The Trout Lake area is underlain by a thick succession of sedimentary and volcanic rocks of the Badshot Formation and Lardeau Group near the northern end of the Kootenay arc, an arcuate, north to northwest trending belt of Paleozoic and Mesozoic strata that is now classified as a distinct, pericratonic, terrane. The arc rocks are bordered by Precambrian quartzite in the east and they young to the west, where they are bounded by Jurassic-age intrusive complexes. They were deformed during the Antler orogeny in Devonian-Mississippian time and were refolded and faulted during the Columbian orogeny, in the Middle Jurassic. A large panel, the "Selkirk allochthon", was later offset to the northeast by dip-slip motion along the Columbia River Fault.

The Badshot Formation is composed of a thick Cambrian limestone that is a distinctive marker horizon in the Trout Lake area. It is underlain by Hamill Group quartzite and it is overlain by a younger assemblage of limestone, calcareous, graphitic and siliceous argillite and siltstone, sandstone, quartzite and conglomerate, and also mafic volcanic flows, tuffs and breccias, all of which belong to the Lardeau Group. The rocks are isoclinally folded and intensely deformed, but only weakly metamorphosed. They occur as intercalated beds of marble, quartzite and grey, green and black phyllite and schist. Fyles and Eastwood (EMPR BULL 45) subdivided the group into six formations (Index, Triune, Ajax, Sharon Creek, Jowett and Broadview) of which the lowermost (Index) and uppermost (Broadview) are the most widespread. The Triune (siliceous argillite), Ajax (quartzite) and Sharon Creek (siliceous argillite) are restricted to the Trout Lake area. The Jowett is a mafic volcanic unit.

The Gold Bug area is underlain by black siliceous argillites and phyllites of the Triune Formation, Ajax Formation quartzite and black siliceous argillites and cherts of the Sharon Creek Formation. The rocks are isoclinally folded, highly deformed and locally intensely phyllitic. The rocks on the northeast limb of the Silver Cup anticline. They strike to the northwest and dip at a moderate to steep angle to the northeast. The workings are at creek level. In 1917, Mr. Livingstone drove 58 metres of crosscut through a band of massive slate and drifted for 30 metres along a quartz vein with an apparent northwest strike. The vein was deformed and crushed, and composed of a mixture of quartz, crushed slate and galena, pyrite and sphalerite. It contained pockets of high grade galena. A sample across 0.08 metres assayed 0.68 grams per tonne gold, 2468 grams per tonne silver, 57.5 per cent lead and 8 per cent zinc. The 1917 report also states that there is low-grade mineralization on the Rambler claim [082KNW019], approximately 610 metres east of the Gold Bug workings.

In 1989, the Gold Bug adit area was described in detail by C. von Einsiedel (EMPR ASS RPT 18816). He shows that the adit was driven into argillaceous metasediment in the north bank of the Lardeau River, approximately 100 metres upstream from its junction with Finkle Creek. Galena and pyrite occur in near concordant quartz veins developed at, and to the south of, an argillite-quartzite contact. The veins have been emplaced along northwest trending shears and bedding plane faults within black graphitic argillite. There are several parallel shears that dip between 60 and 80 degrees to the northeast. There are two principal vein systems. The easternmost lies at the contact of the quartzite and has been drifted on. It consists of several parallel band or ribbons of white quartz and graphite in a 0.80 metre zone concordant to bedding or foliation in the argillite. A 1.5 metres wide channel sample taken across the easternmost quartz vein at the south end of the opening assayed 0.38 grams per tonne gold, 12.0 grams per tonne silver, 0.89 per cent zinc and 0.54 per cent lead. The western vein system has seen more development. It is a 1-2 metres wide zone of fractured and brecciated argillite situated in the foot wall of a pyritic, graphitic shear. The shear has a more northwest strike (175 degrees) and shallower dip (60-70 degrees) than the foliation of the surrounding carbonaceous phyllite. The vein is comprised of narrow, parallel lenses of quartz, which range between 0.25 and 0.5 metre in width and up to 1.0 metre in length. Brecciated argillite is characterized by dense reticulating quartz veinlets. Quartz lenses, cross-cutting quartz veins and quartz filled tension gashes and shears developed almost perpendicular to the main hanging wall shear. The vein consists of quartz and siderite with irregular graphite ribbons and crenulations, scattered clusters of sphalerite and euhedral pyrite, traces of galena and, in places, traces of chalcopyrite. A 0.5 metre wide sample of the ribbon-quartz vein adjacent to the graphitic shear zone, which strikes 170 degrees and dip 60-70 degrees to the east assayed 0.86 grams per tonne gold, 882 grams per tonne silver, 1.82 per cent zinc and 25.03 per cent lead. Mapping suggests that the mineralized veins plunge eastward. A report filed in 1993 (EMPR ASS RPT 22681) shows that Nortran Resources Limited diamond drilled and intersected stockwork mineralization; including a 0.75 metre section which assayed 1.30 grams per tonne gold, 82.3 grams per tonne silver and 4.4 per cent combined base metals. Step outs from this intercept did not encounter anything significant.