Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations Artificial fish habitat question

Ordered some American Fish Tree habitat. Hope to install a dock on my pond next week & plan to place the habitat under/around it.

Any suggestions about the best way to place it? Directly under the dock? Right on the edges? Out from it? Vertical? Horizontal?

Bass/bluegill main quarry, no Crappie. Dock goes out to about 10 - 12 feet depth, maybe 18 - 20 feet from shore.

If it were mine I would suspend it under the dock (so will not interfere with swimming or fishing straight down) so the top is under about a foot of water with the rest extenting down as far as it goes. Attach rope to/through dock. Then in the winter if you wanted deeper structure for the cold water, let the rope out till it rests on bottom.

Not saying that is the best way, just what I think would work well.

Thanks!

I've wondered about that. Does this type habitat, whether natural or artificial, placed in the sun attract different critters and behave differently as an environment than the same habitat placed in a shaded location?

I attached mine vertically on the inside legs of the dock.

I am just curious but I have hundreds of fish under my pontoon boat dock and don't have any cover at all. Just the shade of the dock. My feeder is mounted to my dock and when it goes off a solid black layer of fish come running out from under the dock. I placed my structure about 25 foot out from my dock to be able to cast to it. My question is do you really need structure under your dock? Seems like the dock itself would be plenty good. I have artificial cover all around one side and one end of my pond out in 5 ft of water and the boat dock still has plenty of fish.

The benefit of having something beneath your dock is providing cover for your forage fish to dodge predator fish, and providing structure for your predator fish to hang around and ambush forage fish. If there are only pilings (or in case of a floating dock nothing but the floats) then your predator fish have a field day advantage.

If it is a swimming pond/dock having CNBG hanging around the dock wouldn't be the best for swimmers. CNBG tend to nibble on swimmers. If you are not swimming around it it could make for a great fishing structure. Cover and shade!