So I finally got a little time to work at the lake this weekend. I had a few guys over to help and we placed about 10 Christmas trees in 5 gallon buckets and put around 30 pounds of concrete in each bucket. We took two of the larger trees out to sink on a test run and figured out that dropping them individually is not going to work so well. We had one tree to fall over immediately and the other seemed to move around while remaining upright. It was crazy to mark the tree with my gps and come back 30 minutes later to find it 20 yards away! The only thing I can think is that the tree was just buoyant enough to stay upright and skip along the bottom with any current. The wind was blowing pretty hard and we dropped these in the open part of the lake. We either need to add more weight or come up with another option. My current thought is to screw two rows of 3 or 4 trees together using 2x4s and sink them as a unit. The weather took a turn for the worse this week so this will have to wait. Hopefully it will stick with the weatherman’s forecast and get back in the upper 60’s by this weekend!
We also worked on another idea I have been brewing on. After reading here and listening to Mr. Lusk’s recommendations on protecting the fry from bedding to deep cover, I’ve been trying to think to a permanent way to accomplish this. Trees and natural structure break down with time and I’ve seen that even adding this natural structure requires a lot of work. I would like to figure out something that once in place would last a lifetime. I have access to some plastic containers at no cost. They require some elbow grease to add the holes for small fish access, but you can’t beat free! My plan is to create these “fry highways” from 3’ water close to bedding areas out to the Christmas tree clusters we will sink in 10’-12’. My first thought was to sink these “highways” to sit directly on the lake bottom. After cementing the trees into buckets I realized that the dense cover starts about 2’ from the bottom in the deeper water – above the bucket and tree trunk. Now I am thinking to add a few pvc legs to the “deep” end of the highway and keep it elevated where the exit would be in the brushy area of the trees.
What’s your thoughts on this? How deep will the fry go when retreating from the bedding area to deep water cover? Would I be better to sink the trees in 6’-8’ of water and have the tips close to breaking the surface?
This project also give me another idea for “logs” as bass structure. I’m imagining the same stack of containers without all of the holes but with addition of a few pvc “limbs”. While working on the fry highways, I made this for show-n-tale. I’m thinking the final “log” will have less limbs per container and the limbs will vary in length.
So guys and gals, sound off and let me know what you think! Am I wasting my time and making this too complicated? Does my plan need some tweaking to make it better? All comments are welcome. Just take it easy on me, ya’ll know us Engineers like to overdesign stuff and we wear our hearts on our sleeves :-)
