Pond Boss Forums Thread Like Summary - Rock piles as structure / cover

My new 1/4 acre pond is about 1/2 full, 6.5' deep on its way to 12-13'. I spent a few days lugging boulders/rocks from all over the property to build two nice rock piles. I followed instructions from different previous posts: in the shallow area, lots of larger rocks, ~6' x 6', 4-5' high. Lots of nooks and crannies for the GSH/FHM to hide in. I plan to add some nice extended brushy section a little ways away in med. depth water. I'd like to know how far away the brushy section should be from the rock piles, and also, what should I be considering for cover for the bass to ambush the little guys......striving for balance where it's not too easy for the bass, but not too difficult.

See pictures below (hopefully no one says Wrong! get rid of them and start over from scratch!) Any feedback suggestions appreciated.

https://photobucket.com/share/093ca0c2-6c98-41eb-907a-0b7802ac9314

Here's BJ's pictures.
Nice work BJ!!
I'll send you a Private Message how I post them tomorrow.

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Back to Rocky Habitat.
"""maybe a few of them start a foot shallower down to current depth in the pics."
Are you saying "shallow" in terms of closer to shore as it slopes up? For the one on the right (shallower location) it's already within a few feet of shore.

Always remember shallow water is a type of refuge and security of small fish especially when other habitat is lacking. Bigger predators cannot get into the shallowest 1"-2" deep water. This is why minnows often hang out in the beach areas.

IMO ponds for fisheries cannot have to many rocks. I love rocky habitat. Rocks and logs are natural good shoreline habitat in many lakes. Thus I like to see rock piles extend from 3ft to 6ft deep up the shore to the waters edge. Although some pond owners might not like this type of pattern. When using rocky habitat, I like to see one entire shoreline have rocks. This makes lots hard surface structural areas for invertebrate colonization. One pond that I am helping with is impressive and extreme. It has all of the entire shoreline lined with rip-rap down to 6 - 7ft deep he used 6"-12" and 12"-18" rocks. Plus he created two impressive corner areas that have 30-40 ft long areas with 24"-30" big rocks down to 8 ft deep. Smallmouth love this rocky shoreline. Lots of rocks mean lots of habitat that helps produce lots of natural foods and refugia for small fish.

One thing you might try is pile your rocks onto some pallets as one to two layers or rocks held up off the bottom by the pallet/s. This would have a similar configuration of your current rocks piled on the narrow building blocks in your pictures. Small fish could get underneath the rock pile until the pallets rot and decompose - what maybe in 10 -15 years and then sludge/muck fills in underneath the pallets. Brush rows as various sizes of trees or tree tops on each end of long rocky areas would be beneficial.

Pond liner and crayfish. This is an unknown to me. To be on the safe side I think I would not stock crays if I had a pond liner. Some crayfish species might try and dig into the liner while other species would not try to dig through it. If you have a stream within around 0.5 mile of the pond, I think you would get some rainy night natural migration of crays into the pond from the stream. With good rocky and tree top habitats you should be able to get a decent fishery without crayfish.

On that smaller rock pile, consider lifting it on top of cinder blocks and spread out the size or area that it covers or on top of several pallets. Almost every manufacturer or small company has many pallets for free. Just as for permission for getting them. Tree tops could be laid horizontal on the bottoms of the rocks to hold the brush down to keep the brush in place from floating lose in the pond. IMO you want the rock piles to sort of serve as weed beds or large dense structures as refugia areas and not to serve as small fish attractor structures. Small structures actually concentrate predators who eat many of the fish that come close to it for protection. Refugia are large expansive areas such as lake weed beds that provide protection for thousands & thousands of small fish.

If you are using FHM I would lay those flat pieces of concrete on top of one layer of rocks spread out among 5 -10+ pallets so the concrete pieces have lots of various types of elevated angled pieces; some even vertical. Lots of jagged pieces angling upwards; a city of upward angling irregularities. Be creative.

Search this topic in In-Fisherman website:
Habitat and the Importance of Structure By Dr. Hal Schramm
April 15, 2021

I totally agree. Amen. Amen. It is why I don't post pics here. As an example go back several years ago and look at those "scarred up" - defaced Photo-Bucket pictures that were very often used back then. IMO all those old pics are basically worthless today.

Rock Piles - IMO it would be more beneficial if those piles were at least 3 times longer and maybe a few of them start a foot shallower down to current depth in the pics. IMO Each of those current sizes of rock piles will not support very many crayfish. Depth placement is pretty good. One has to remember rock piles are primarily for small fish habitat as feeding areas (colonizing invertebrates) and refuge spaces. For better rocky habitat one whole shoreline should have a continuous rock pile although the height of the pile would not need to be as tall as those in the picture. IMO Two to three rock layers of height would be adequate.
Adding tree top brush between the current rock piles would improve the habitat complexity.

I'm no professional by no means except when it comes to eating fish, I am a professional at that, but its been my experience that your crayfish and smaller fry fish are going to stay in pretty shallow water along the shoreline.
If you do have some really good cover further out they will congregate there as long as it is shallow enough.

That is some great looking structure you have going there! good looking pond.

Obviously if the rock bar was extended out 40 ft out would be great, but that would be a pretty big project involving a ton of work and money, if it was me I would concentrate on more rock in shallower areas, to benefit your small fry.

When your rock is more then 6 ft deep it will hold fewer small fish and therefore will not be as big a benefit to you. return on investment, if you will.


That's just my opinion tho. Good Luck and lots of great fishing!

Your timeline on this is backwards. Theo won the 2004 and 2007 World Series as the Boston GM then 2016 World Series as the Cubs GM.

I like rock piles but my primary interest is about 10 ft cedars close to the shorelines. It covers a lot of growing fish and larger fish orient on them.

I would think since concrete is got a lot of lime in it it would be great for ponds

I wouldn't worry about the harmful chemical composition of construction / demolition of waste concrete when it is added to the pond. Air pollution striped out of the air during rains probably adds more contaminants to the pond compared to discarded concrete. If waste concrete is so bad why do municipalities add concrete from demolition projects to the drinking water supply reservoirs as shoreline stabilization?

As the pond is managed and if one is concerned about contaminants in the pond remember that the algaecide copper sulfate is heavy metal based product and the copper byproduct is stable in the environment and never rots up or goes away. The more copper based product that is added to the pond the more the copper residue that builds up in the sediments. The copper can under certain bottom sediment chemical conditions be dissolved into the overlying water layer. This IMO does more harm to the pond ecosystem compared to adding construction waste concrete pieces to the pond.