Many folks have had some ice this year and I was just wondering if anyone took advantage of the hard water to easily place unwanted stuff for the fishies to utilize? Lets see the pics if you got em. Pics from the past will work too.

I spent saturday making a line of trees over 500 feet long. My dad and I cut em down and dragged em out. We strategically are using these trees to make a highway connecting the deep water of the lake with my favorite fishing channel. Here are a couple pics:

No pics, but I did put structure into my pond this year using the ice. Not often we get cold enough long enough to get truly safe ice, but this year was an exception to the rule thankfully.

For anyone interested, here is a 3D lake map of the bottom of my lake. I placed the fish structure right along the drop off of the deep water over to the channel in the northeast portion of the lake.
Norris Lake Map

I have used ice to place my Christmas trees, but it still doesnt always go where you want it. Sometimes the ice will break up and the tree will float around on the ice flow blowing all over the pond before it sinks, even with a five gallon bucket of concrete holding it down.

I might use the idea of spreading lime on the ice this year, and a friend uses the ice to spread dye

Nate, like Rex, I'm wondering if they will sink right where you have them. Did you add weights?

You need to read Shawn's article from last pond boss issue on how to sink stuff! it wont move far.

I am going to anchor everything down on thursday, I didnt have time on Saturday.

Good Luck! It may go straight down to the bottom where you placed it. In my experience that is very unlikely.

WIth the method I described in the last PB, your brushpiles will go down very close to where you want them. The deciding factor is depth. The actual depth of the water for your brush becomes the maximum variance from the centerpoint of your placement. For example, if your brushpile is built on a certain spot on the ice over 10' of water, then your brushpile will be within 10' of the centerpoint. If you are over 6' of water, then your brushpile will be withn 6' of centerpoint. As long as you follow the steps outlined in the article and use quality materials, then this rule holds true. I've had success with this on large windswept lakes that are far more like likely to have ice shifts/drifting than a smaller pond. THe article is in the Jan/Feb 2010 issue and starts on page 26.

I was wondering if the ice flow will pull the anchors out when it moves. It will probably work on most ponds but my pond is big with 3-4 feet of ice. That stuff can float around alot in the spring.

Blair, you don't have a pond... You got a lake! I am waiting for you to post pics of polar bears on your ice drifts. HAHA

Blair, you can plop a duck decoy onto your pile of sinking junk to see where it does indeed end up?

Blair,

You pose a great question to which I don't have a great answer. I'm used to ice less than 21" and the method works great in these situations. Three to 4' is a different story. Man!! You have some serious ice. I would tend to say go ahead and try it on a couple of areas but use a few anchors per brushpile instead of just one. The anchors are dang near impossible to dislodge but you are talking about some serious forces with the amount of ice you have. I would tend to think the rope would break before the anchor became dislodged. In the past I've used rope and stainless wire rope with no problem, but never in a situation like yours.

The most common reason I've seen brushpiles not sink where they are supposed to has not been related to ice shifts. Rather, it's been from the lack of appropriate weight (cinder blocks). For example, the brushpiles may survive the thaw and ice shifting if it exists but then become bouyant and drift prior to becomming water logged and sinking. I've also seen the brushpiles drift across the ice prior to thaw due to high winds. This method solves both of these problems.

However, I think a pond with your size that has the capacity to form so much ice might be a limiting factor with this method. I don't know if this method is iceberg proof!! Let me know if you give it a try. You might get lucky. My only advice would be to use more anchors per brushpile but I think you're rolling the dice with your situation. Thanks for your comments/questions. If you try it, I would be very interested in your results.

It is not hard to move most added structure ( like pvc trees , xmas trees ) after it sinks from a boat. Tie a poly rope to it and put a float on the other end (leave plenty of slack). Then after ice out move them to where you want them (sub ice depth) permanently. Not sure you gain a lot by putting it in and moving it vs. waiting on summer to place it the first time.

Here are a couple I did last month. It sure made it easy to get it all out there. The one pic the ice is already melting and the trees fall in just right!!

RC its a little different when you have a foot of ice to melt vs 2-3 inches. Where your ice can melt in a day or two, ours is more likely to float all over the place in 45 degree temps for three weeks. Looks like your forage will be happy you made the effort though

This is what we did at Bremer Pond. Our best laid plans were for naught as the trees dropped off a floating ice pack pretty randomly around half the pond. The giant X's we did not have enough weight on and had to pull them from being beached with a boat, reload with more cement blocks, and drop them where Dwight wanted them.

http://www.pondboss.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Main=6639&Number=64829#Post64829

Hey REX,

Your right I didn't have long to do what I had to do. It was a little scary going out onto my ice like you said. The whole time is was cracking and making noise!! It was a little scary. I did have chest waiters on though so I did have a little bit of a safety net.

Chest waders and ice can be bad if the water is deeper than your chest... You bust through the ice, go in over your chest and the water gushes into your waders turning into a cold heavy weight holding you down and making it that much harder to get out... Not that I would know from first hand experience or anything, but when it comes to ice, PLEASE BE CAREFUL!

Anytime you're going into the water wearing chest waders it's a good idea to put one of those belts on the outside of the waders. It'll slow down the water getting inside of them, but it won't keep it all out.

Yeah thats what I do. I have a belt I put on that goes under my arms and around. It's tight enough to slow it down like you said. Plus I wasn't in water over my head only about 4 feet or so.

Lifejacet should be worn as vell.
I have been asisting in pulling up a guy that drownd do to the high boyance in his legs, he didn't manage to keep his head up above the water, for the time it took to safely help him.
He would much likely have surevived with water comming in.