Hi Folks,

I am going all out to create the best possible habitat in the 2-3 acre pond my wife and I are building in for an ideal, self-sustaining crappie and smallmouth fishery, and I have noticed some very interesting habitat structures from an apparently well-regarded place called The Pond Guy <https://www.thepondguy.com/>.

These are a collection of items that feature lots of snag-free limbs (called the Honey Hole Tree, Honey Hole Log, and Honey Hole Shrub), a core for inserting pvc pipes for making fish attractor hedgehogs, and 20" concave discs for encouraging spawning.

These look pretty solid and seem to be good permanent solutions to habitat that will be reliable and not break down, but I can't seem to find much in the way of reviews or discussion of them.

Anybody have any experience or opinion on these? They seem rather pricey, but I don't know whether it would end up costing about as much to make them myself, and given how demanding my job is (corporate attorney married to a private sector PhD economist), I am willing to pay a good premium to save the time it would take me to build these.

Thanks!

If I had the funds to buy all that prebuilt cover, I would have. Just having hook proof cover like that is worth it. My cedars have been on the bottom for three years now. I’m not sure what shape they are in, and they’ve grabbed more than a few hooks. I built four trees from left over five gallon buckets, and conduit. I could have used a dozen.
For a two or three acre pond, I’d consider getting one of the pros here to come in early and give you a plan. You’ll be making an awful lot of decisions pretty quickly. Getting as much right the first time will save you a lot of time. (still my most precious commodity)

I was looking into the cost of making the stuff myself, and even if I were to sink in the time, it doesn't look like I could reproduce any of the "The Pond Guy" habitat like the Honey Hole trees, logs, and shrubs at really any cheaper price than they charge. That polyethylene tubing gets expensive fast, and I wouldn't know where to look for the cast plastic frames.

I have these habitats and first they are not snag proof. They are less snaggy than soft wood in water, but I have moved the Honey Hole Tree about 20 feet from where I dropped it because the hook bit into an arm and that was that. So then I had to reposition it.

They are well made and come with clear instructions.

You can make your own trees, bushes and logs though. I utilized 5 gallon buckets, a 3" PVC pipe, and tubing to build my own tree. Oh and quikcrete to set the post in the bucket. But I also used traffic cones such as this one:

http://www.safetysign.com/products/8537/...BSABEgLJGvD_BwE

I used a 3" PVC pipe and tubing and quikcrete again to make my own logs. I started working with 12" PVC pipes to create my own "floating" and "submerged" logs as I don't like decaying wood and snagging sharp hooks into soft wood. lol

If I could figure out how to add pictures I could show you some unique stuff I made that combines spawning discs with cover. I will post them if some can guide me on how to add pics. Thanks

Here is a link to the archives that explains a few methods for adding photos to your post.

http://forums.pondboss.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=92443#Post92443

Good Luck!

Bill D.