Pond Boss Forums POND CONSTRUCTION Creating habitat Brush piles to help re-establish BG

Hi all, have been reading for awhile and have learned a lot. This place is a great resource. That said, I'm having trouble finding info on what I'm sure is a much discussed topic.

Background, a 6 acre lake in southern Mississippi belonging to elderly relatives showing the classic symptoms of bass overpopulation. Over about three years of fishing several of us we have removed hundreds of <12" very thin bass. They seem to be like zombies, zombies that love watermelon flukes. Over that time we've caught two above 5 lbs.

Bluegill in the pond are large, no giants, but what you would expect from a stunted bass population keeping numbers down. It would seem pretty obvious to me that if I could increase BG recruitment while continuing to remove as many small bass as possible, then I would see an increase in bass size (this is the goal).

My question to the board then is what's my best option as far as cover to specifically get BG recruitment up? Right now my plan is to add dense brushpiles near areas I have seen BG beds and hopefully protect them until the forage base is established. Cedar is not very common in my area, but water oak is. Seems to be some conflicting info here, so any thoughts on wood or other materials to use specifically to protect BG fry are welcome. Most of my searches on BG cover have turned up results on how to grow big BG by removing cover and stunting bass (you don't say).

I have no delusions of pulling out 10 lbers any time soon, it's just killing me to know there are BG on the beds right now and every fry hatched is a goner. Just looking for some strategies to help in the short term.

Do you have Osage Orange (Hedge Apple or Bois d'arc) in your area? Very brushy and bushy limbs that are somewhat thorny and one of the hardest and rot resistant wood types around. Although horrible to work with, once your done you'll be proud you lived through the process of cutting it, hauling it, binding it, sinking it, and securing it.

Something that works well as fry cover is rolled up, wadded up hog wire. If you don't mind some "trash" in your pond. I prefer to stay as natural as possible, but sometimes man-made is very effective.

I've had similar struggles with BG recruitment in my new BOW in east Texas. Newly hatched BG need plankton, so one thing you could do is fertilize until you get a bloom. Otherwise, they'll starve & cover won't help.

Assuming that's not an issue for you -- it was for me, but every BOW is different -- then cover becomes number one. Your idea of placing shallow cover adjacent to BG beds is right on, and something I'm trying to do as well.

In my case I had folks put certain plants in the pond that would help protect YOY BG, as my BOW was barren. This may or may not work out, as plants can sometimes get out of hand! Frankly I wouldn't recommend this approach unless you get a professional to check the situation out carefully.

Brush helps, and I've done it too. The only problem is that it doesn't last. If you don't mind doing & redoing it, that can be a good solution.

Artificial structure DOES last, which is it's great advantage. The disadvantage is cost, which can be considerable. If you want to help YOY BG, not every artificial structure is suitable. You'll want something dense & with small nooks & crannies where the little guys can hide.

Best of luck, sounds like you are already on the right track!

I forgot to mention Rock Piles. Good for fry to hide in, my FHM are in and out of the crevices as I walk by and rock piles should promote crawfish too.

I wouldn't be opposed to it but the piece to the puzzle I'm missing is what type of dense cover would be the most effective to protect young BG specifically. I've had to resist the urge to just fill shopping carts at the hardware store with pieces to make cover. I'd like to take a targeted approach with this as I feel it's the main issue in the pond, at least with regards to what my expectations are for it.

Rock piles and hog wire are definitely things I would consider, thanks.

I should have mentioned it but I felt like I was rambling enough, I plan to feed pellets. Depending on what that does to the visibility I may fertilize next year, but I didn't want to do both and cause some kind of crash.



I'm with you on the plants. It's tempting but the elderly family members primarily care about the aesthetics of the pond, so if I end up putting something in there that goes wild (and we have a long growing season) I'll be out of the job as volunteer pond manager.

What I don't mind is replenishing the brush piles periodically. My small bass population control associates also double as cheap manual labor. Thanks for the insight, this is exactly the kind of discussion I was looking for.

Something that I would think would work excellent is the plastic beer bottle disposible 24 case crates. They have a lattice work to keep the bottles from clanking together that makes for lots of spaces larger fish can't get in yet open enough for good water flow and O2 levels. Or any similar plastic lattice work. Bolt a bunch of the crates together in a large 3 or 4' square block and sink and keep in place with concrete blocks.

I am willing to bet that you have a lot of Yaupon plants (Shrubs) growing wild someplace around you. Get a bunch of those and place them into a bundle with a weight and throw them in. Also see if there is a Christmas tree farmer close to you and see if he is going to do any harvesting of old trees any time soon.

I just added a bunch of structure to my lake. I have a lot of cedar trees that are wide at the bottom. We took taller trees and cut the bottom sections off at about 4-5'. Sunk those in 3' water because lake is down. They stand up and the base is 10-15' across. These are all near feeders and in groups of 3 or 4.

In the past I have used cedars and just pushed them out in the lake on their sides with a cinder block or two. We still do that with the tops, but cutting of the bases sure seems to work better. We also ordered some Mossback dock kits for our large dock. This should be better than cedars to avoid the kiddos getting tangled up when fishing.

Now I need to fish a lot of the bass out so I can get some bigger fish in here. We just added Florida bass so now is the time to get rid of the old genes to prepare for the new. When I bought this place the bass were super skinny. We caught one that was 17" and weighed 1.3 lb. 4 years later and a lot of fish on the bank we are catching 12" that weigh 1.2lb.

Be careful about putting any structure near a dock . Don't put any hard objects within jumping distance of the dock if any swimming , kids etc. will be involved.

If I have done my figuring correct, they will be under the dock and 3' from the edge so if someone were to jump in they would miss them. A few adults have jumped in over the years, but the kids swim in the pool.

I removed some stuff the previous owners had put around the outside of the dock.

I have utilized many discarded old artificial Christmas trees by shoving the branches in drilled holes in 4 inch pvc pipe. Also plastic wreath garland works well packed into something like a milk crate or wire mesch. Place it near the shore where you can remove it if you ever need to. Garage sales,flea markets, and the trash are good places to get old Christmas decorations and trees for little of nothing. Most of mine have all been free. I catch fish by them all the time!!

Good idea, Flame! Periphyton should grow pretty quickly on the artificial tree, feeding small fish, and the branches give the little guys a place to hide.

Best of all, it's cheap and it won't rot!