Pond Boss Forums Thread Like Summary - 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.

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.

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!

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.