I tried to make the bluegill cover as protective as possible. Lots of hiding places catered to bluegill that are newborn up to 3 or 4 inches. I've got rock piles, old brick piles, cinder block stacks, Christmas trees attached to cinder blocks, brush piles, planted pickerel weed...etc...All of these are in shallow water less than 3 feet deep and the three bluegill gravel beds(16x16) are nearby some of them for safe travel routes. Now, that being said I only have a few of these(3% of total water) because I want the bass to be able to attack with little effort. I am adding more and more as I go, but I'm not going to enhance more than 10% of the total water. I'm sure nature will add some weeds too as our pond ages because we're relatively shallow. My goal from here on is to enhance the current piles/areas I have and make them more complex with rock/wood mixtures. I figure each Christmas I can easily add 3 trees attached to cinder blocks for less than 5 bucks each. Deeper, 5-8 foot water structure is probably what I am lacking. Our pond is roughly 2.5 acres and our deepest water is around 8 feet.
Bass wise, my structure is big, entire tree trunks that are anywhere from 10-15 feet long; some have extended branches and some are just the trunk with the root wad attached. There are also some contour changes in the pond that I'm sure the bass are using too. I probably need improvement in this area.
Strategy wise, I want lots of babies growing to 4-5 inches without getting eaten and I want bass to be able to ambush without using tons of energy. Our pond is only a year old predator wise so we still got work to do. Late October will make exactly one year; that'll be time to harvest some fish and let them tell us what we're doing right and wrong.
Your bluegill cover strategy seems to be pretty much the same as mine: Lots of more dense cover in shallow water. Also, like you mentioned, the bigger, "fluffier" cover is what I'd like to have for the bass.
My question was really moreso about WHERE to place the bigger, fluffier bass cover. Is it always best to have it separate from, but close to the dense cover?
A number of years ago ewest wrote how he drove a pipe into the pond, and used rope tied to the base of Christmas trees and looped the rope over the pipe. I did that in the deepest part of the pond, and add to it every few years. That holds fish every month of the year as they can pick what water depth they want to hold at. I use about a 3' long piece of paracord on the base of each Christmas tree and tie a loop to slide over the pipe.
This sounds really cool. Just to make sure I understand: You are basically just sliding the trees down the pipe and adding to it every year? Stacking them up horizontally up the pipe?
I have a lot of cedars that I use.
I am planning to go up this week and do nothing but hunt for cedars with the goal of getting them into the water.
To use the cedar trees as a good example for my question: Cedars make excellent bluegill cover because they are dense, right? Do you just put out bluegill cover and know that the bass will be attracted to the bluegill? Or, do you always want to add some bigger cover close to it for the bass?
Thanks to all.
