Yes?

No?

If yes, best way to structure it? Ideal depth? Anything else?

Bham:

Been watching your posts for a while, congrats on your progress. Just a friendly suggestion moving forward - take a moment and THANK forum members for their time/effort to reply to your questions and provide direction in your efforts and you'll find the forum as a whole much more willing to help in the future. Reviewing your posts I don't believe I've seen an instance where you've done so. Hope you take this in the spirit intended, we're glad you're here, and excited to see how your project unfolds - it's just standard forum etiquette/manners I wanted to illuminate for you which should make your experience here more enjoyable, and will help allow the forum members who assist feel appreciated.

Thank you, TJ. Great post.

+1 on that TJ.

With that said yes I do use some tires not a bunch of them mind you but I have a couple single ones around the pond in a couple feet of water for smaller fish. I also have a pack of 4. 1 big one on the bottom and 3 leaners on it. I took an old paddle bit and drilled some holes in them to help them sink. Tied the leaners to the flat tire with some nylon rope with holes I drilled and then on the bottom side I put 5 or 6 bigger rocks in them to help hold them down as well I also did this in the one laying flat. This was all in about 5 to 6 feet. So once I was done so I knew where they were I pounded a half inch metal rod that was about 8 feet long into the middle of them so I could use it as a marker to know exactly where the middle tire was. Hope this helps and good luck.

RC

I have 4 tires of my truck that are worn out and had to be replaced. I asked the tire place if I could have them back (they took money off my bill for saving them the disposal cost).

I would like to turn them into spawning attractors for RES. I'm not sure I want to dig out holes to get them low enough in the ground to be natural spawning habitat. Should I try to cut them through the tread into two halves to make the height half height when laying on the bottom?

If I drill holes for water drainage can I just lay them on the bottom and fill them with gravel for spawning areas?

I think this will help the original poster as well to comment on how close to space them and what depth. I imagine if you had different sizes of tires it would be good to arrange them in a random size pattern too?

Tires are not much fun to cut in half down the middle of the tread, but it can be done. I would suggest taking a utility knife, cut around the tread edge on one side and remove the sidewall and seating bead. Then set tire in position and dump gravel until filled about 1/2 way up, being sure to work gravel into bottom tire sidewall so it doesn't move. Should make a nice hidey-hole with an open top and should contain the gravel nicely also. Worst come to worst if done in shallow water, you could always grab onto them and pull... just leaving a small gravel pile.

I can say the cutting the tires in half through the steel belting is a real chore. Be prepared to tear up some saws-all blades and spend some time grinding the frayed wires so that they are not so likely to stab yourself or the fish.

Maybe there is a better way to cut the belting, but they are not friendly to the blades, I would guess that they are some sort of hardened spring steel. If you could stomach the fumes from using a angle grinder and a cutoff wheel, you might make better better time and spend less on equipment.

My biggest concern for using tires in the pond is keeping them from wondering off. Drill plenty of holes in the side walls. If not, the natural production of gaseous bubbles will fill the sidewalls and they will want to float. Tires without trapped air will sink, but they will still have some buoyancy and will move around on you unless they are staked or heavily weighted with concrete or rocks.

If I lay a typical 1/2 ton truck tire on the bottom it will be about 10 or 11" up in the air. If I have the tire 3/4 full of gravel or so, will the bluegill still use that as a spawning bed or do they want the bed mostly BELOW grade of the surrounding pond?

I worked hard to try to seal the bottom of my pond, I don't look forward to digging holes in it just to help the bluegill out and bury tires

Great post. I definitely enjoy the feedback and appreciate all the input the forum members have to offer. I Read them all but normally only reply if I have more questions or something of value to add ( not that I have a lot of good info lol).

I will definitely try to keep the gratitude on high display !

Thanks again everyone for the info you all provide. I love seeing others with the same passions for the outdoors and sharing our experiences.

It's just my inexperienced opinion that a plain layer of gravel (3 to 6 inches deep) would suffice for panfish beds. Mine seem to like it fine. I put in creek gravel (from the creek) that consisted of fines all the way up to baseball size rubble. I had bedding activity the first year the fish were in the pond.

Tires might be better suited for hiding structure, especially when stacked, and maybe even channel cat hidey holes.

I have also read about folks using saucer sleds and satellite dishes to create individual beds. Maybe there is some advantage to making solitary areas, but I don't know how much better it would be compared to a large patch of gravel (or individual smaller patches). If I were to try and make tire beds, I would put enough sack-crete in them to fill up the side that would be down, drill several big holes in the up-side and completely fill the center with a gravel mix...maybe even stack rocks around the perimeter to add to the seclusion.

Just my two cents...

Good post Bham - forum is grateful for your acknowledgement. Remember guys - pay it forward, and express your gratitude for help provided...it keeps the forum humming along.

Best advice is use a torch to cut/burn holes in the tire so it will sink and stay down. Good for structure but I avoid them for spawning. Fish can be picky about spawning material - I never had luck using tires for that purpose.

I use tires to as FHM spawning structure set in 1-3' depths in a few ponds. PVC also works well for FHM spawns and both last forever vs. pallets or shake shingles.

TJ, explain how the FHM spawn in the tires please? Do you let them float to some degree so they can spawn on the underside of the bottom sidewall of the tire and on the inside of the top side wall of the tire? Or should I fasten it to the bottom and let them just use the under side of the top lip of the tire when laying horizontal on the bottom?

I'm planning some kind of forage pond (very small and shallow) and it would be a lot easier to place the tires in my new forage pond and be able to more them around or experiment with them rather than chasing them around in my main pond.

And on the PVC, I assume you use like 1" PVC? Do you make bundles or just a single layer, and do they use the INSIDE of the PVC tubes of do they work better on a horizonatal layer or a cluster of PVC tubes all in a bundle?

Female FHM adhere egg clusters to the underside of objects and males stick around and guard the clusters aggressively - in these cases inside the tire beneath the sidewall and inside the PVC section. I haven't needed to puncture my tires to get them to sink, I'm just really patient and make sure to get the air out as I'm setting them - I'm barefoot or in waders obviously and this helps. If they were floating I'd just pop a hole in the sidewall to allow air to escape. I use scrap PVC 3"+ diameter and drill a 1/2" hole one one side and use more scrap 1/2" PVC and push into the clay. I set the PVC section on top of the PVC stick [about 6"] to keep it off the bottom - otherwise the PVC condo will quickly fill with silt/organic material in a season or two. If the PVC section is too long I'll drill two holes equidistant in order to support the section somewhat level as it will tip forward or backward onto the pond bottom otherwise. I also save cracked 5G buckets, now useless for water hauling and fish transfer, and lay them on their side with a rock to weigh them down and keep them from rolling. I've had good success re-purposing these scrap materials for FHM spawning habitat.

From a spawning rack I built for fatheads for toxicology experiments.

Try to keep the PVC off of the mud if at all possible. They really like water flow too, and I often saw them use airlifts and other areas with current for nests. They will use vertical structures too if it is well protected/hidden.

Great shot!