Made this today to put in 8ft deep section of my pond close to a dropoff.

Love it. Nicely done SB.

I love this idea!

I got to looking and I've got some scrap pieces of 6" PVC pipe and a good bit of 2-2.5" ABS pipe laying around. I may just have to see about fixing up a couple of "trees"!

That is extreme structure.

You may never see your fish again. They are going to get lost in that thing and may not be able to find their way out. Actually, it looks great.

Nice - will add to structure archive.

Very nice. PVC is wonderful.

I just bought a dozen Porcupine fish attractor balls, and your pic gives me new ideas.

That sure is a nice piece of work SB!

I got this idea from a prev. post. It had a picture but didn't describe how he built it. The black pipe is 3/4 water line-100ft. at $20 bucks from Lowes. PVC is 2 inch. I tried to get a tight fit where the black pipe went through the PVC, but that was time consuming. So I bored the holes larger with a variable bit, slid the black pipe through and secured with some old galvinized deck screws I had. The PVC "branches" are 36 inch long, and the black water line is 40 inches. I ran threaded rod through the anchor bucket, and through a pc. of PVC with a coupling, filled with 1 1/2 bags of quikcrete. Let set up. The rods stick below the bucket 12 inches to stick in the pond bottom clay. The last picture is what tools I used. I have another place I want to add one that is 5 ft. deep and rocky that I will run the threaded rod through the bottom of the bucket horizontally in an X so it doesn't tip when on the bottom since theres no clay that the rods can stick in. This took about an hour, to figure out, and build. I used a couple trailer wheels to hold it in place while constructing it.

Looks like a fish magnet, get it in the drink!

Thanks for the comments.

First off I am new to this forum and have been looking around for a while now and think it is great with a lot of good information. As for your PVC tree it looks like a pond work of art. Thanks for providing pics of progress also, I've been putting some wood structures in my pond recently from 1"x4"s that are kinda embarrassing compared to this, nice work.

CA48, welcome. You'll be surprised at some the things these guys come
up with. There are some very creative people that check in every day.
Spinner, that is a nice piece of work - now I've got to get on mine!!!

This is similar to mine. Nice job. I see a duct jack in the background, Im assuming you do A/C work also.

David C.-I use the duct jacks for installing commercial exhaust hoods which is what I specialize in. Still a tin banger, but not A/C.

The PVC tree idea came from a prev. post. I sat down and had a corona and got to cyphering how to build one. Several coronas later thats what I came up with.

This site is a wealth of information. These guys are professionals light years ahead in pond management. I didn't know other folks had the same passion.

Very well thought out. Nice job.

That's a real work of art! I've been putting a few cedar trees, hardwood saplings, etc into my pond, but have been looking for some good PVC options too. This is very helpful. Thanks for posting.

I'm putting together some attractors that are a compromise of the PVC Trees and the Porcupine spheres.
I bought a 20 Ft. piece of schedule 40 PVC cut into 7 equal segments(2ft 10") and drilled 34- 5/8" holes randomly spaced into each of the 7 segments. One segment got an extra 2 holes. Next I took 60 10ft pcs of 1/2" hot water PVC and cut 4 2.5ft pcs. from each for a total of 240 pcs. THe 1/2" PVC fits tight in the 5/8" hole so that a good surface to glue exists.
Tomorrow I will take to the pond and glue each of the 240 pcs into the holes in the 3" PVC. This will make them 5 ft tall with the 3" segment running horizontal to the pond bottom. I plan to place them in 4.5ft. of water so they will be visible to cast to. Not sure of the cost for each but will be affordable.
Does anyone know if they will float or sink? I can add a weight to each if necessary.

They will sink if the ends are open. Be sure and take some pics, and post them.

Thanks, I was gonna leave the ends open in case some small ones needed extra hiding places. I'll try to take some pictures, not sure how to post em but I'll try.

What size PVC pipe does porcupine sphere take? Thanks.

Very nice work on the structures.
Good luck and good fishing,
Dan

Jwwann,
I used 1/2" pvc on the porcupine spheres.

Thanks

I finally figured out how to post a picture of my structures. I placed them with the 3" pipe horizontal in water deep enough that the tips were exposed so I could see to cast to them. A week after being in place I was catching bass around them.
The 55 gallon drum is a feeder my brother built.

Are you actually attaching the 1/2 PVC to the 3 inch? Or just sticking it through and glueing? I like this idea.

Not through. Just into app. 1/2" or so and gluing.

These are some really great projects. I was going to do something similar this season, but other projects and opportunities got in the way. My PVC won't go to waste. It will be used for garden "hoop houses" later this fall -- unless some other opportunity comes along. Actually, I did add some structure with some left over PVC and some plastic "chicken fencing." That was back in March. It didn't take long for them to become fish magnets.

We put in some new ponds this spring, which with left us with some big stumps. I added about a dozen big stumps to the main pond right after the bluegill and bass spawned. Within minutes of dropping these things in the water, they were saturated with with fish of all sizes and denominations. Typically, we placed three side-by-side, with a few feet of distance between each stump. They were placed in water, at full pool, that is about 4-foot deep, and real close to spawning grounds. I don't have a pictures, but we also put some 6 to to 8-foot lengths of 10-inch PVC pipe between/under some of the stumps for the catfish to have some "spring break" fun.





A friend also brought his excavator over pull out some stumps on the back side of the main pond, and to do a final positioning of the stumps we dumped in earlier as the new hiding places for fish.



So far, so good. The main pond is producing extremely well this season.

We lost a lot of fish and had a completely unbalanced pond as of about 14 months ago. This spring, we had a gazillion YOY bluegill and bass. Through fertilizing and daily feeding to satiation, we now have a gazillion 6-8 inch bluegill, and not quite as many 6-10 inch bass.

I don't know whether it was due to unauthorized poaching of big bass, too many big winter trout, a chemical imbalance due to some pond cleanup during the previous late summer, or a winter die-off. But last season was dismal.

We are still catching a number of trophy size bluegill in the 10-12 inch range. Most go right back in. Tonight, while feeding, I saw at least a dozen channel cats that need to come out, as they are all at least 24 inches, and a couple may be over 30 inches. Last week I took out several LMBs in the 17-21 inch category. I've never added feed trained bass, but each of these were full of pellets.

Structure may make it a little more difficult to fish, but it sure improves the fishery. As I've recently posted elsewhere, I've been using a fly rod a lot recently, because it lets me get into the structure where a spinning or bait-casting setup never would.

Good Fish'n
Ken

Nice root balls (fish attractors). Good thinking on the placement. Did they all stay put or float around.

6-10 inch LMB are now 12-14s. Time to eat a few 6 in BG and 12 in LMB plus the CC.

My own root ball.



Got the best of me.

Ooops!

I had the backhoe on the tractor, and the rear tires are loaded. So, that makes it fairly stable.

For the record, there's a truck not pictured to the left of the photo. I just happened to mistime it and tipped forward.

That is good as I first thought from the pic that you were attempting to become a groundhog or prairie dog.

Haha! Funniest thing, my dad's the one who took the photo, unconcerned about my safety and laughing hysterically.

This root ball was eventually loaded onto the truck bed and will be placed into the pond when finished.

Great post and habitat work. Love to hear all the positive results when giving our fish more habitat of any type. Careful there killer, maybe a little more firewood off that one before playing hoops with it!

We cut the stumps pretty close to the ground, so the majority of the root balls were just that, root balls. They came from a pretty wet area, so they were probably already waterlogged. There was a little rolling around the first day or two, but nothing moved more than a few inches.

For the most part, they are out just deep enough, and my general visibility during the warmer months is only about 15 inches, so they can't be seen. They may discourage the poachers we've dealt with in previous times. The friends who I allow to fish the pond know where not to put a hook or lure. (We still lose lunkers to the stumps now and then, but that is OK.)

We are culling regularly. This evening I've got several jug lines out with 3-4 inch bluegill, hooked near the tail, on #4 circle hooks.

The big fish I'm most currently concerned about are the HSB. I see them at the feeders every night. I haven't hooked one in over a year. I think they are now well in excess of 24 inches. I'm afraid that if I don't get some of them out of there, they will be slurping up the snapping turtles like oysters on the half-shell.