Yes, I have tried it. When I built the main 3 acre pond, in the SE corner I carved out a shallow part specifically for a spawning area. Started out at the bank about a foot deep and sloped it out to about 3' deep before it dropped off to deeper water.

Lined the bottom of the area with various sizes of rock and gravel to give the fish choices.

The first year it grew the most wonderful mass of FA a person can imagine. I raked it out once and got so tired of it, took the backhoe and dug out as far as I could reach out around the bank and eliminated the 1' deep part. Now it is several feet deep near the bank then starts about 2' and goes out to 3' deep. It had FA again this spring, but went snorkeling later in the spring when the water warmed up and sure enough, there were solid BG nests. My largest 8" BG had fanned out nests in the nesting area I had made for them. They had swept away the FA and were using the area. I actually took some pretty good videos of their action, but have yet to edit them and post them somewhere where I can share them here on PBF. The go-pro videos actually turned out pretty good, although the ones I took of the BG were upside down (can easily turn pictures over so I thought why not video - wrong). The ones I took of the RES fortunately were right side up. But I digress.

The point is, yes the fish did use the gravel I provided to spawn in. As far as I could tell they did not the first year. The water was never clear enough for me to see the beds, and when I raked the FA out later in the year I saw no evidence of beds having been there. But this spring they used the area big time. And the water got clear enough I could actually see underwater and interact within the BG spawning community. They would try to run me off when I got too close, actually coming up and almost bumping the camera. Pretty cool stuff.

As far as it keeping the weeds out.......... in my opinion.... very unlikely. I suspect the deep rooted weeds will grow right up through it. If you want to get rid of the weeds, my best guess would be to treat them with herbicide then put the gravel down. You might be able to put landscape cloth down, then the gravel, and keep the weeds at bay at least for a while. That might be an alternative. This is all speculation on my part. I have no pond weeds, only way too much experience with FA.

But the BG will use the gravel to spawn IF it is in the area they decide they want to spawn in. The first year for me it was not. This year it was.

Last edited by snrub; 08/06/15 04:22 PM.
John

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