Pond Boss Forums POND CONSTRUCTION Creating habitat Its time for structure. UPDATE 1/31/2011

This is what I would do assuming the red brush piles go back toward the island in deep water.

Yes, they would go into deeper water before rising up the slope to the island. Do you think that the 3 I have placed are close enough together? They are about 10' apart if I had to guess. The next set I will make will look like these:

One other question, If I place the structure any deeper than it is now, It will be in the 18-20' of water range. Will this bee too deep to be beneficial? The pond will be stocked with LMB, BG, and Red Ear. I do plan on a vortex aeration system if that helps.

IMO the three already in are good given the other stuff there.

Make the new ones a little taller - say 6 ft. Add about 3 or 4 pieces of pvc sticking out of the top to get it up to about 10 feet of total height. If you do that and put them where the red markers are how deep will the water be?

I always want some structure to cover from bottom in a deep area to within 3 ft of the surface (unless it is a swimming area). Most of the year (Oct to May/June) fish will use deep water structure. With aeration they will use it all year. Bigger fish like to be able to go up and down the water column near structure to feed and or escape.

Contrary to popular slogans there are MANY ABSOLUTES in life and this is one of them.

If you look at this picture, you can see darker water at the base of the big logs, that will be 18-20' at full pool, the 3 pvc bushes that i placed are on the flat area that is shallow water in this picture. They stop at the edge of the deep cut.
The angled log between the concrete cylinder and the pvc bushes is now placed on the drop off at the left of the picture.


I have a lot of free 5 gal buckets and was given a lot of scrap pvc the other day. It looks like I have enough supplies to make 6-8 more trees. I have 3" and 2" to make the trunks that range from 6' to 12' tall and enough 3/8" and 1/2" for the branches on the 2" trunks and 3/4" and 1" for branches on the 3" trunks.

Here is what am thinking:



This would come from the front corner, down into the deepest cut of the pond, passing by the ends of 3 large (24"-36" diameter 15-25' long) submerged logs that are on the slope, also passing by the end of the line of pvc bushes. The line will rise up and end at the mouth of the cut between the island and the north bank in 8'-10' of water.

This deep water line of trees should tie in all the shallow-to-deep routes in the larger end of the pond.

Sounds like a good plan. You are catching on fast - good thought processes. One thing I keep in mind is the 3-D concept. Most people think in a plane - do I have all the locations covered but don't think about water depth. With that in mind think about what height and configuration you want each piece of structure given where it will be placed. Some of the pvc trees may need to be 4 ft while another may work best at 14 ft. All identified locations need to be covered and with the right depth/size of structure. Distance is hard to tell on a pic sometimes. IMO the deeper water trees should be about 30 feet + apart (edge to edge 30 feet between edges). You may not need as many trees as you have dots but may want the limbs of some trees wider.

The distance from the far corner in the picture to the edge of the island which is to the left of the picture is about 230'. I was going to make the lower branches longer, about 3'-4' from trunk and have them get shorter as they go up, for stability. Why place them so far apart? Will the fish still use them as a 'path way' being so far apart?

Yes they can easily see 30 ft and move that far in one flip of the tail. There is a balance between too much structure and not enough for fishing purposes. Too many and the fish will be scattered. You want enough to do the job (achieve the purpose - place to feed , hide and move around) but not so many that the fish are not concentrated.

IMO the top of the structure for deep water should be at least 4 feet wide. You don't want most all of the structure bulk in one depth zone.

I didnt realize they could see that far. 4'-6' wide at the top is around what I was planning (2'-3' branches). The bottom will have 3'-4' branches. I may make some sort of stabilizers coming out the sides of the bottom of the bucket on the taller ones to make sure they stay upright since I am placing them in standing water and can not dig and bury the bucket. I guess fewer buckets with more branches is what I need to make so I do not have too much structure.

Here are the three trees I made last night. The first is 4" with 1 1/2" branches and is 9' tall. I put extra holes in the trunk for small fish cover. The second two are made from 2" with 1/2" PVC branches and are 10 and 12' tall. I have material for 2 more with 3" trunks and 1" branches and will be 6-7' tall. All the PVC and buckets I am using was free scrap. They will be planted in 5 gal buckets with one sack of concrete each.

Beautiful.

Look good ! Be sure to rough them up a little so stuff will attach and grow on them quicker.

Great use of old reclaimed materials. These are going to work perfect!

Use structurespot to place structure if the lake/pond is already full. Home For spot on accuracy of placement.I like Ewest' suggestion with the triangles. Creating a spot on the spot for fish to key on.

Don't forget the shallow fine cover for the fry to grow and hide in. Make sure a path of structure is created to "walk" the babies out to school in deeper water.