I have felled a pine tree into the pond that, unfortunately, didn't reach all the way into deep water. Normal pool depth only 18 inches at the end, too shallow for anything other than small fish.

My thought is to dredge or scoop the area around the tree to a depth of maybe six feet or so, allowing larger LMB to use it as cover & creating an instant hot fishing spot.

Q: How deep is sufficient for this purpose? Should I create a channel that reaches out to deeper water, or would simply dredging around the tree suffice to draw in larger LMB?

Any input would be appreciated!

Frank I would imagine anything you can do to get the LMB close enough to ambush would work fine . If nuthin else it might give baby BG a chance to get a lil bigger til they got et.might have to add more branches to draw them out to deeper water to be ambushed. I catch most fish in shallow water 3’ or less

The dredging plan sounds like a lot of work.

Any chance you can tie a barrel to one end (to serve as a float) and drag the big pine tree to an optimal place using your boat?

OTOH, I have caught plenty of bass in water shallower than 18".

Another option would be to place some smaller trees (that are easier to move) in the deeper water past this tree. You could make a nice range of cover from deeper water all of the way up to 18".

Thanks for the great ideas, guys! Anybody else with thoughts?

Is the pond small enough to run a rope from the tree to the far shore, and pull the tree where you want/deeper with a tractor/truck/team of small children?

See, why does the kids got to be small??? Can't a fat kid help???!!!

I dont know what kind of equipment you might have or have access too - I had some big cedars that I wanted deeper and further off the banks. I "pushed" them out with another tree using my skid steer and grapple. The "push" tree was a 20 ft pecan, straight trunk only w/ all branches cut off. It worked well enough. Maybe tying a barrel onto the end of your pine out in the water will help it float and allow to push out further.

How big a tree we talking bout? The "needles" wont last long anyway and you will be left with just a few small limbs for cover or "ambush" points for lmb. Horizontal cover is nice but the larger limbs and trunk are probably going to serve the most good over the tree "tops" itself when laying down. Just my opinion.

Pictures or it didn't happen.

How fast will the hole you dig around the tree fill in with more sediment? Can the tree be pushed out deeper with the piece of equipment that you will be using to dig around the tree?

I agree with the other guys, I catch most LMB in shallow water but a lot of times the shallow water is close to deeper water, an escape rt if you will. If I was digging a moat around it I would tend to connect it to the deeper water further out. but obviously that would be a lot easier said then done.

Easiest & cheapest to simply move tree to deeper water, I think. Loved idea of deep water channel into wood & weeds, but expensive & probably would silt in within a few years!

Pond too wide to pull from other shore, I probably will end up pushing it out with rented equipment. Needs another 30 to 40 feet for top to rest in deep water.

Can you tie a rope to tree top and pull it with tractor? Two to three hundred feet of rope is cheaper than renting equipment. Probably 1/2” rope would do it, depending on how big tree is. Once it will float it’s easy to pull with a tractor

Good idea, Pat. My problem is that the nearest land is an island at least 100 yards away.

Why didn't I think of that?