Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations Bluegill vs Bass Cover

I've read through a lot of the threads on here about cover for both forage species as well as LMB. My question is: What is the best combo/placement for both?

At this point, in my 3.5 acre pond, the CNBG cover is almost entirely laydown brush piles around the banks. On that same note, I was reading up on Cedars/Christmas trees and now I am wondering if I should have more vertical CNBG cover.

As for the cover for LMB, is the best bet to just place fluffier cover near the CNBG cover? I recently put out a 50 gallon drum with some 2.5' PVC pipe sticking out near one of the bigger shoreline cover areas. It's in about 6 feet of water and near a deeper dropoff. I haven't fished it since I put it out, but I was hoping it would make for a good fishing area.

Just wondering what is the best strategy for placing both CNBG and LMB cover.

Thanks all.

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.

I was listening to a podcast on fish cities recently where they were describing some underwater habitat, a combination of artificial and real materials. The cities were composed of both horizontal and vertical pieces. There is an area of the pond that I am planning to work on this winter that has some vertical based structure in currently off of our spawning flats. I'm thinking I will end up adding some cedars, and some PVC tube in this area. As it is in one of the deeper pools and vertically based, the fish could relate to it at different times of the year.

Will likely have to improve the shallow water refuges as well. Really hard to plan for water level changes and small footprints of tight fry protection.

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.

I have a lot of cedars that I use.

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?

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 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.

Correct. Basically making a huge Christmas tree underwater with the pipe as the central "trunk".

What is the pipe made out of and how did you drive it into the ground? Did you put it in before or after it was filled with water?

As per essup's comment above - from the structure archive.


From the Hands On Structure presentation during PB III.

A method of adding structure to a pond with water. This is an adaptation of the Ray Scott method from the Great Small Waters video. It can be done using xmas trees , buckets of limbs , pallets , or pvc structures. It involves driving a post into the pond bottom and using it to mark and hold the structure items. Using a boat (if unsteady you can use an A-frame ladder to drive the post) to drive the post ( using a shovel or fence post driver or hammer or ax) . After the post is in place tie the xmas trees to the post with small trot line string. Think about how you want the trees to hang in combination. Top up or down , horizontal . vertical and at what depth for each. You can also tie several trees together in squares to triangles (tree tops to bottoms to form and even structure). Then tie and place it over the post. Note after a year or so you can cut the string and allow them to fall to the bottom and tie on new ones. This will form a pile or cone of trees from bottom to top.

Post and trees





Tied to the post





Set to feed over



After they sink



Xmas trees work well for BG cover from predation.






A typical Ray Scott rendition of a pond with this method (pickle bucket method) and ridges , cuts and standing timber etc.

Thank you, ewest!

So, after cutting, wrestling with, and getting poked all over my arms and legs by 6-7 different cedar trees, I got a couple of spots set up LOL.

I did have some trouble getting the trees to sink with them looped over the post, so I ultimately just ended up using the posts as a marker and used cinder block pieces tied to the trees to sink them around the posts.

I plan to put out 5 or 6 more areas in no more than 8-10 ft of water and then maybe 2-3 spots spread out in the deeper 12-15 ft open area.

Really cool idea!

The great thing about cedars in the pond is that they "evolve" over time from BG cover to bass cover.

ewest has a great post documenting this effect. Click on the link below, and then scroll down to his post marked; 7/29/07 1:06PM.

There are photos showing the trees at 3 years, 5 years, and 10 years. The trees at 10 years are definitely bass ambush structure at that point.

Decay of Cedars - Pond Boss

If you have fields with cedars that you need to clear (lots of us do), then clear some every 3-4 years and add them to your pond. That will guarantee that your fish will always be able to select the density of cover that they actually prefer.

FishinRod or ewest,

In the decaying tree pics, is that a cedar tree or a Douglas fir (Christmas tree)? All of the Christmas trees around me in South AL are all Douglas firs. I don't know that it matters because I think they are both awesome for CNBG cover and I can't wait to round up a bunch of Christmas trees after the season this year.

IMO and experience the cedars will last longer in the water compared to softer pine and spruce.

I agree with Bill. The native cedars on my property seem much more decay resistant than the other types of evergreens that were planted in the 1930s.

Of course, tree names are VERY confusing, since humans have been naming trees long before we came up with taxonomic classification systems.

My trees are Eastern Redcedars. These are not a "true" cedar, but are actually a species in the juniper family.

They are very resistant to decay. I have places where I have cleared a patch, and start digging 10 years later in the moist soil and discover the roots are still in great shape and quite strong.

My Ponderosa Pines decay much faster both above ground and below ground. However, I have only put cedars in the ponds.

If you do not have an available tree species on your property that you periodically clear, then you can certainly go the Christmas tree route. In my area, they sell 6-7 different species as Christmas trees. We also have unmanned Christmas tree recycling centers where you drop your tree off. I suspect they would be just fine having people remove trees to be re-purposed for wildlife.

I also think you could try snapping a few branches to see which species are tough and which are very soft wood. Load up your truck or trailer with the tough ones and make your fish happy. I suspect some may not still have a solid trunk after 10 years. However, even with softer trees, I don't think you are adding a lot of "nutrients" to your pond. Cellulose is typically not that easy to break down in nature.

I don’t try to totally sink the cedars. I prefer them to be 6 to 7 ft tall. I’m butt deep in them. Some 8 ft.

I drag then about 6 to 7 ft from the dam. And place them with about 18 or so inches of slack. This allows them to float and also stay low in the water. Small bait fish stay there and the predators are never far away.,

In the future, there is no need to sink them. Let them float, they will sink on their own. I put I think 50 over a piece of pipe a few years ago and IIRC they all sunk in about a month. Time to add more next Spring. I just kept looping the trees over the pipe until I couldn't get close enough to loop any more.

Rod, we have eastern red cedars in NE TX by the thousands. There's a few behind the dam that are near 30 feet tall, and I learned when the electric company comes out to trim "potential hazard" cedar trees, I show up with a dozen fresh egss and a very cold glass bottle of lime Topo Chico for everybody on the boom trucks. I get way more trees trimmed that way. The berries are just now changing colors.

That's the plan. I wanted to go ahead and get them stacked up and sunk, but going forward, I will just loop them and let them fall naturally. The CNBG stocking is planned for next week so I wanted to get most, if not all of my additional cover taken care of before then. The existing BG are already loving this! I love the idea of covering the whole water column. I've got this setup in 4 different places right now in about 8 ft of water, primarily within proximity of known spawn areas. I also put out a few trees in what is now about 2 ft of water. Once Spring rolls around, those areas will be around 4-4.5 ft. I'd like to add this in a couple/few deep, open spots as well.

I have used both and underwater there is not much difference in longevity. By mixing up types (assuming you can get them free off the street after Christmas) you get better results IMO because they decay differently thus providing diverse cover (some very tight some a bit sparser).

Eastern Red Cedars here as well. I've found the 10-12 that I have used fairly easily, but they are not exactly all over the property. Going forward, I will probably just use the Christmas Trees on a yearly basis to keep the piles healthy.

Wanted to give esshup some props here...

I just had the annual electro evaluation on my pond. My pond guy LOVED these brush piles with the trees around the pole. Every one we shocked had bluegill and bass floating up all over the place. He said "Man, those brush piles around those posts are money."

If they try to start telling their customers about it, I will tell them to send the fees to esshup on Pond Boss Forum!

The idea wasn't mine, I shamelessly stole it from EWEST.

The over years time tree structure photo is curtesy of Dave Willis. The over the pole xmas tree structure concept is an adaptation of Ray Scott of Bassmaster fame. Both were huge supporters of Pond Boss.

We all learn along the pond pathway.

Well the Ray Scott/ewest convergence of ideas is obviously “money” according to today’s pond management experts.

By the way, @esshup, in the evaluation, you’d be proud to know that we captured multiple RES. Had no clue they were in there. One of them looked like it was a pound and a half lol. Maybe that’s why I don’t have any snail problems.