Is there a preferred way to anchor and orient Christmas trees as structure? Horizontal or vertical? Side by side or piled on top of each other? I am placing the trees on the pond bottom before the water fills up, so any configuration is possible. If the bottom of the tree trunk is anchored to a cinder block, I assume the tree will float up and stand upright in the water. Correct? The more vertical the cover the better, in my mind.

Ive tied 6 to one cinderblock in 4-5' of water, every 50' or so around a pond, made loops of paracord that were 4' long, tied one end to the base of the Christmas Tree and looped the other end over a 2" dia pipe that was driven into the bottom of the pond in the deepest part to make an underwater Christmas tree from the pond bottom to the surface. I don't think Christmas trees have enough flotation to turn a cinderblock upright to stand up.

Think that he was referring to the Christmas trees standing upright, rather than the cement blocks.

Yes. The trees are tethered to the concrete blocks with a foot or two of rope, like a buoy.

Now I am confused (more than usual).

Don't cedar/Christmas trees become water-logged and eventually sink? Depending on conditions, the trees only act like buoys for a limited period of time?

I thought that if you wanted them upright, you had to cement them standing up in a bucket (or some similar arrangement).

If you wanted a brush pile, you could tie several trees together and anchor them to the bottom where they would subsequently assume their final configuration.

I get kind of anal about this. I stand one tree straight up in the center, then angle 4 out around it (kind of like pedals around a flower). I wire them together with 9 wire pushed through holes drilled in the trunks. Then cement the trunks together. The 4 sticking out to the side keep it from rolling or tipping while in the water. If fishing from bank you can cast to the central upright tree and bring it back through trees that are facing you. Lessens snags. If fishing from a boat the structure gives a ton of pockets for vertical jigging.

I just make a triangle out of three trees. Tie them end to end, and then tie a brick to a rope lanyard about 1-2' longer than the depth I'm putting the trees in. Kind of like an anchor until the clump sinks.

Well, I am the laziest. Just throw them in or put on the ice. Let chance choose where they end up.

Rah is this pond your new catfish pond?

Hmm, good point. They will sink eventually. I think I will go with the configuration in Fig 3 shown here. Lashing the trunk in the hole of the cement block kinda forces the tree to stay upright.

https://www.finfarm.com/uncategorized/building-pond-structures/

It is my phantom 3rd catfish pond since I am at a loss to source blue catfish in Indiana...

Drive to texas…. We got them

They are available in the surrounding states, but they are more than he wants to spend.

I may have to take a road trip to Illinois if I can find the name of the place (I think near Peoria), get a permit, and they have blues available next Spring.

Get 8x8x16 inch cinder blocks, take Trunk of the xmas tree and stick it through one of the cinder block holes, then take a small piece of 2x4 maybe 12" inches long and nail it the the exposed trunk of the xmas tree. Now the xmas tree will not pull from block, easy peasy.

See the Structure archive for ideas. You can do this before the pond fills as well.

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.

^^^^ I did this except I used a 6"-8" diameter loop over the pipe, that way the rope can slide down the pipe as the Christmas trees get waterlogged and sink.

We're going to create more reefs this year versus placing trees in groups of 2 or 3, that way you are at least left with a nice pile of cement block boulders that can be used for years even after the trees have broken down. Thinking about 8-10 trees for each reef (lake is 67 acres).

We have 15 or so 4x4 posts scattered around the lake (50 acres). We rebrush them every couple of years. This past summer I towed 30' cedars out to most of them and tied them off. Green cedars will sink pretty quickly. Bone dry cedar will almost never sink on its own. 30' cedars over 6" at the base are all my boat will tow and those I have to tow backwards. I can take a couple of hours to tow them 1/4 mile.

Ross, glad you posted re cedars. Assuming that we get rain, I’ll restock again this year. Cormorants have hit me 2 years in a row. So has drought. I’ll add a lot more and larger cedars next month. About to put a couple of grown grandsons butts to work.

When I put in cedar trees (eastern red cedar) I cut them and let them dry, then I burn them but don't let them burn down... just enough to remove the brown foliage. Does anyone else do stuff like that, or am I crazy?

How do you put out the fire?

I just do one tree at a time. It flashes up and burns the brown off almost instantly. What's left is some small twigs on the ends that are starting to burn at that point but the meat of the wood hasn't caught yet because the foliage burns so quick. A hose and sprayer easily takes care of it at that point.

I like to do that, works better that way in my theory, Ive done it without but they just become a huge glob of moss.

Well if two of us do it, it must not be crazy! I've found that fish take to them really quickly when I do it like this.

It depends. The green needles add to the productive ability of the tree when in the water. The stuff you are calling moss is very productive for small creatures that the baby fish eat.

I’m going to have to load up my 2 acres with cedars. Cormorants have just about cleaned me out again. Never thought about cutting them, drying, and then getting rid of the “brown stuff”. Assume that’s dried needles, leaves, etc.

About to put some grown grandsons butts to work.

I hesitated to call them needles because what we call cedar here are actually a juniper. They aren't real cedars nor pines.

I need to get my own butt to work and get some stuff put together and sunk.

In fact I still have 20 or so concrete tubes that need placed...

It's much easier to sink cedars green than dry. Ours are most productive the first year they are down. I don't see any advantage to burning off the folage and small twigs.