Pond Boss Forums POND CONSTRUCTION Creating habitat Bucket Bushes

Stopped at Lowes and picked up a some materials to make some bushes for some structure in 5 ft of water next to a dropoff.Didn't want to spend much so I got a couple 100 ft. rolls of 1/2 water pipe ($20ea.), a couple buckets ($4 ea.), a couple 80 lb. bags of quikrete($4 ea.)I used a varible bit to bore holes, cut the pipe in 4 ft. lengths, put them through the holes. Poured in cement. Stuck a few pcs. of pipe in the top. Took about 3 beers to complete these 2 bushes! I am gonna make 2 more and add to the pond.

Neat. And only 3 beers?

Spinner, cool idea. I might give that a try myself. Thanks for sharing.
Dan

Figured I could get 4 bushes done and use only 1 carton of Bud!

Well done. Get em' in and let us know how they work for you and how soon fish find and hold on them.
When I was still drinking, three beers would have been a pretty quick project.........but the next units might have had the pipe sticking out of the sakrete bag and I'd be sittin on the buckets.

Will do. I try to limit consumption. You ever thought of putting together a kit for DIYers? Might work.

We do offer our material shipped loose for the DIY'ers. Provide your own bucket/container, cement and labor to create your own twist on custom arrangements. Have had quite a few guys buy different types and mix them all together. Some fine strands for the little guys and some wide, tall limbs for the predators. Watch for the two new models coming soon with a mixture of various textures, widths and height material for an all around fish holding structure.

build your own

I like this DIY section. I can hardly buy the materials my self and do it as cheap as you sell these. Check your PM.

Good idea - creative. IMO a whole lot better than an evergreen tree that decays in several years. Do you think you actually need all that cement in a bucket? It it overly heavy? Maybe too heavy? If they don't sit fairly flat I envision them tipping over? one could also add some PVC pipe with a few 1/2" tubes in the center for a little more height? More dense cover below and a little taller fluffy. Puty a hole in the upright pipe for a rope for lowering it into the water.

Bill-Interesting using the rope to lower in, I like that. I kept the handle up so I could hold them. A rope would be perfect.
I used all the cement to keep the "limbs" from turning down. But half a bag would be more than sufficient. "Overly heavy" is an understatement. I tossed them over the side of the boat. I will go out and check them to make sure they didn't tip over. These are shallow water structure. I want to make 2 more and space them out in a 6X6 area.

In the future, put rebar or pipe through the bottom of the bucket and extend it out a little wider than the "tree limbs". Use 2 and make an X out of them.

Once you lower it, it can't tip over.

Not a big deal if the units tip over, fish don't care. We have some clients who purposely lay our units down, pointing towards shore. That way, they feel your offerings with hooks will pull through the cover even better when fishing from the bank.

As we all know, rope and hooks are a difficult combination to fish around. It never fails, if I drop a marker buoy on a fishy looking spot and get bit, the fish takes me into the line of the buoy and the mess begins.

It also should be mentioned that the amount of limbs you put in each bucket can vary. We try to cram as much surface area of substrate in each unit for maximum coverage.

Each unit we offer can make 2-3 good sized units, or all can be put in a single container to match our completed models.

The Keeper model contains 62 square feet of surface area, plenty to make more than one unit and spread the group out more. Mix and match varieties to create your own custom habitat. Add wood, pipe or anything else to the mix and offer the variety fish prefer on a given day/time.

Here's my revised "Cody" bucket bush. I used 6 ft sections of 1/2" black water line and came up with this. Thanks for the input Bill.
I used the one on the stainless table in the back ground for some structure on the dam. I turned the bucket upside down and put in a few noodles to make it float up right. Attached a small length of chain and chunked it in the pond.

Spinner, those look great. Do you put any of the bucket bushes in the deepest area of the pond? Or do you arrange them in shallower water so that the tops of the bush are just below the surface of the water? My banks are so steep that it's difficult to set them anywhere but on the bottom in the deep. I have thought about driving 2" pipe into the steep slopes and making a hole through the center of the bushes to slide over to keep them from tumbling "down the hill".

The variable bit is the key.....I was try a hole saw and spending all my time cleaning out the bit. My mama never accused me of being to smart! Looks great! I bought 200 feet of pipe yesterday to start on copy cat project.

Do you oil the hole saw while using? That would help sosme. Certain materials such as plastics and aluminum cog them up very fast.

I have an area that drops from 4 ft. to 10 ft of water that I put some on close to the drop off. I have a vertex aerator so the fish can use deep water, and I made some pvc trees about 6 ft. tall for deep water. The dam area really had no cover and very steep banks. So I made the upside down buckets bushes, and used noodles to suspend it. I used a cinder block to weight it down. My thoughts are in 5-6 years I don't want to be renewing structure, as cedars will deteriorate over time.
The archives on here are a wealth of information. I owe every bit of pond success I have to this forum, and the folks that contribute to it, because I had an extremely rocky beginning starting with the first grading contractor.
For those who don't have access to the tools to make these, there's some good folks that advertise on here that sell the finished product, and the kits to build your own.

The variable bit is easy to use on these. I built two bushes in about 45 minutes.

Those things are really handy. I take a Sharpie marker and mark the step just above the finished size step. Easy to drill the correct sized hole that way.
http://www.irwin.com/tools/drill-bits/high-speed-steel-fractional-self-starting