Stumps are great they take decades to decompose. Christmas trees, maybe gone except for trunk which then lays flat after a couple of seasons. I uses a lot of stumps, and rockpiles deep. On the marginals I use creeping primrose, rushes and grasses. I take cattails out, I never put them in. Most of the forage fish I see now are in the shallows. Before there were none. If you have a lot of stumps pile them and decrease depths. To the point where some might stick out of water. The only thing I have to be careful of is willows. They have to be completely dead as every part of them contains rooting hormones. I had a 4 inch branch float up and root on my embankment. Won't make that mistake again. I also use old 15 gallon black nursery pots, with bottoms cut out, in clusters of three at different depths. I anchor them down by filling them with a couple of inches of mud or rocks. They last forever.
