I was considering adding pea gravel for spawning habitat to a shoreline and I am wondering what might be the best location.
Has anyone noticed if bass or bluegill prefer a certain location in a pond to spawn. I have read alot of information about the depth that they prefer, but I have not seen any information about the north shore vs. the south shore, sunny vs. shady locations, or steep dam slopes vs shallow slopes.
Is the pea gravel even helpful at all?
My bluegill are only one year old, about 5" and I have not seen any nests, so I don't know what to expect.
Any observations or comments are appreciated.

Hey Jeff,

At my pond, I'd say 90% plus of all the bluegill spawing beds (that I can see) are along the eastern shore and the south eastern shore. I believe this is more due to the fact that my pond is the most shallow along the eastern shore and gets consistently deeper towards the western shore.

My blue gill spawning beds seem to be unrelated to shade from the sun.

As far as LMB spawning beds, I don't "see" them that often.

what i did was put 3 dump truck loads in my lake.i put 2 loads on the north side of the lake and put 1/4 loads in different locations.i cannot tell the difference in one spot vs the other.my gravel starts in about 1 foot or water and goes to about 5 feet.i have noticed the larger bass/bream use the 5 foot section more than the smaller fish.one other thought is i find the 1 foot water holds most of the smaller bream and no bass.

My bg seem to spawn at around 18" - 2' with the bass a bit deeper. Not to take away from the question at hand, but I just aquired a nice large hollow log and was wondering at what depth the channel cats would like it?

Jeff,
This past spring, I fished a couple crystal clear lakes in the Nebraska sandhills. From a standing position in my boat, I was able to observe LMB on their nests in 18" to 48" of water. Most of the nests on one lake were on the North shore, in flat bottom areas in the silt, close to or surrounded by reeds. Always the nests were in calm water. It appeared that they cleared away the silt to lay the eggs on the sand underneath.

In another lake most of the nests were on the South shore although similar cover existed on the North shore?

Both lakes contain huge bluegill, but I never saw one on a nest.

I had a ball dragging a jig through the nests, watching the bass pick it up to remove it, and then setting the hook. Caught and released over a hundred in two days, 2-1/2 to 5 pounds.

Hope this helps!

Brad B.

Thanks for the replies.
I still have not seen any nests in the shallow water but I did net some bluegill fry this weekend, so I guess things are working well!
One other thrilling observation. I put in 150 LMB this spring, all 1" to 2". I have not seen them until this weekend, in which I observed schools of bass 6" - 8" long chasing fathead minnows into the shallow coves. I have never seen large groups of bass, 20-30 in a group, gather together to chase down minnows. The water was boiling!

Jeff -- I call them "wolf packs" despite the fact that it is always the small ones. Aren't they fun to watch??

Dave

Dave, I also call them wolf packs and anybody who sees them will understand. I once stopped up a creek (didn't work) and added 50 one to two inch LMB and a pound of fatheads. The baby bass immediately cooperated and 'herded' the minnows into a tight ball. Then started taking turns rushing in and picking them off. I don't really understand how the baby bass lived through it. They had fish tails sticking out of their mouths from eating fish almost their size. At one point, I was watching 2 bass that were side by side. All at once, one of them ate the other and had a tail sticking out its mouth. Mean little mothers.

Ah Heck if you guys really want a thrill you should have feed trained bass you hand feed daily off the pier. My water has cleared considerably after the phytoplankton has been reduced due to a recent cold snap (relatively speaking for summer). Anyway, I have numerous 2 to 4 pound bass feeding just in front of me so close I can almost touch them when I throw out the pellets. Now that's a thrill! I brought customers out to see it and they can't believe it!

Cecil, That would be neat. I envy you.