Great information and insight on cover. Bottom line we agree, all types of habitat help our fish and our fishing.
I have always felt a mixture of everything from big rock,rubble,stumps and brush along with artificial attractors in lots of various shapes, widths and sizes give the fish the best choices in preferred habitat.
Seems there's no reason to remove all wood cover, but to much small brush has numerous drawbacks. The large, coarse stumps and logs should stay and will decompose slowly, if much at all over time but the point about compaction around and under is certainly valid.
Benefits of artificial cover add everlasting variety that natural can't offer as mentioned, snag resistant, no decay or DO loss, as well as "on growing" bio film are just a few. Ease of installation is important to most of us, but not all. Cementing pipes, building from kits or bending and tossing are just a few of the available means of getting the job done.
The ability to move your cover around has been mentioned before but I don't see much advantage in this. Plan your attack ahead of time and put it in likely spots. If you don't catch fish on it, don't think it may still not be helping your pond in many different ways, because it surely is.
Inert substrates like PVC come in so many forms, if they didn't work well we wouldn't see them mentioned so often here and throughout the fishing/pond building communities as we do. Same goes for wood, rock and natural materials found in nature.
Wide limbs and profiles cast shade more than thin sticks and pipes. Some fish prefer this dense and dark cover, specifically bass and gills. Others like Crappie, choose the vertical sparse cover. Some of everything simply allows you to install habitat for your choice of fish and fishing style. Take a look at all the choices that are available before making conclusions on what is "best". We feel it's all good and variety again is the key to happy, healthy fish.
A recent project on a 6 acre lake in Nebraska allowed us to help the client achieve his goals by installing 350 artificial habitat structures. These will make up 25% of the needed cover. The remaining cover to be added in wood, rock and aquatic vegetation will make up Bob's recommended 20% of the surface area. Variety is the key, everything in moderation and your pond will be teaming with happy, healthy fish and fishing opportunities.
