I live in Iowa and have seen many types of pallet structures sunk in my local lakes. I am amazed by how many are over 20 years old and still hold together and attract fish. But there does seem to be one layout that seems to work the best in my area. (more on that later)
I do alot of ice fishing and have an underwater camera to see what is actually down there. The pallet structures sunk in 8 to 12 feet of water hold fish at all times of the year in my area. I have caught bluegill, bass, crappie, walleye, yellow perch, and northern pike from these pallet structures.

Most people can make a 4'x4'x4' pallet structure for less than $10. They are most easily constructed on the ice or on the bottom of a new filling pond.

Materials needed.

4 - 4'x4' pallets (spaces between boards no less than 4")

8 - 2x4"s cut into 4' pieces

4 - cinderblocks (8x8" for new ponds that are filling and 8x16" for sinking in existing ponds)

16 - 2.5" stainless or galvanized wood screws

Here's a rough sketch of what it looks like.

http://img91.imageshack.us/my.php?image=scanzv5.jpg

I have found that these work best in groups of four placed about 4 feet apart. A new method which I will try when I build my pond will be to create a 4'x4' large rock or rubble pile about 2 feet tall and put 4 of these pallet structures on each corner of the pile. Similar to the overhead view below.


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Welcome to the forum, IowaNate!

I like the drawing--I don't think I've ever seen pallet structure quite like that.

Thank you for the welcome! The crude drawing I made is of the basic pallet structures in a few of Iowa's local lakes. It seems to attract all species and lasts a L O N G time. I am still fishing a few that were placed on the lake's bottom in 1978!

welcome nate i too am a true iowan, but are forced to live and work outside iowa, i have some land in southern iowa with 5-6 acre pond i am currently managing

what lakes do you fish alot?

i fish 3 mile 12 mile near ceston quite a bit

welcome to pond boss, youll get lots of help here these guys are smart!!!!!

I am in Cedar Rapids and fish Pleasant Creek, Lake Macbride, and the Cedar, Iowa, and Wapsi rivers.

Welcome IowaNate

Great work. There is a lot of good information here and it comes from guys like you that are willing to share it with us.

Thanks.

Otto

If fish like them, apparently the treated lumber that pallets are made out of don't give off any negative gases when they are underwater. They do when you burn them.

Have fun reading here on the PBF. It is a great place.

Live long, and prosper,
the stick

Welcome to Pond Boss, IowaNate, as others have said.

I have been surprised by how much weight it takes to sink down and hold down pallets when they are first placed in the water.

Does your sketch have two or four cinderblocks?

I even wonder if four cinderblocks would hold down that many pallets right away.

What I've tried to do is also use and anchor & rope type of extra cinderblock to minimize drift if the cluster does not sink right away; the lead between the anchor and cluster has to be long enough to compensate for varying water levels if that happens in your pond.

Structure is a labor of love.

A minimum of 4 cinderblocks are used, but this design leaves enough room to attach 8 blocks for those difficult to sink pallets.

Of course the dimensions can be expanded. If you used 16' 2x4s for connecting the pallets, you would end up with a 4'x4'x16' piece of structure.

In my area it is easy to get non-treated pallets for free from construction sites or lumberyards. And sometimes cinderblocks can be found for free.

This cost effective structure could end up costing less than $5 for the person that has their eyes open for free stuff.

For a pond that's only an acre approximately should I even concern myself with fish structures like this? I'd love to build a few of these to add to the bottom before I fill.

A modest area of various structures is a great concentrator of fish for angling purposes in ponds on the order of an acre.