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OK, here is the final product:

One HD 5 gal bucket, one 60# bag concrete mix, 4" x 5' length of non-perf drain pipe, 7-8 pc of DWV qual. 1/2" x 10' PVC pipe (cut in half at 5' sections). The holes in the 4" drain pipe are from a .875" spade bit in a power drill with vertical sliding stabilizer unit (for drilling thru the drain pipe at a 90 degree perpendicular angle). The hole locations are by eye...c'mon, like somebody is really gonna double check the accuracy of my work :rolleyes: . The pipes slide in nice and snug, but I will buzz 3/4" stainless screws into ea limb and ea side of the 4" drain pipe to permanently centralize them. Total cost per tree = $18
Now, my big question...
I will have 12 of these. I truly hope and plan to add 12 more. How would one arrange these things? At what depth(s)? A row of 6 would make a great reef x 30' long. The area of the pond where I will be working will have depth options up to 12 ft. One side of the pond in this area (about 3 ac) will be a fairly steep bank and the other will be rather gentle, running up to and adjoining a shallow wetland zone.

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One HD 5 gal bucket ($5), one 60# bag concrete mix ($4), 4" x 5' length of non-perf drain pipe ($3), 7-8 pc of DWV qual. 1/2" x 10' PVC pipe ($6), the look on that BG's face when he sees his new crib?.......priceless....

nice job Brettski....w/ no advice I'd put em at intermediate depths (spanning ~9 to 4'), but I'll let the experts chime in.


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Make sure they're where you will be able to cast to from shore. I know you can fish from a boat, but will you always want to?

So I'd put them close enough to shore to reach, and take clearance distance back to the trees into consideration (maybe you're clearing far enough back all the way around, if so, ignore that). Being able to cast with the prevailing wind is nice, too.


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Brettski :

It all depends on what type fish you decide on and goals plus the rest of the pond bottom and items to be added (ie tires). It all works together as a plan. Building the pond was that way (total plan) so wouldn't you know fish , structure and cover are also. I will try to find you a good link or two. Can you post a topo/drawing of the pond and bottom ? That would help.

Here are a couple.

http://mdc.mo.gov/documents/fish/aquaguides/barrel.pdf

http://msucares.com/pubs/infosheets/is1529.htm
















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Brettski, unlike the 16 lb. bowling ball spheres that are somewhat mobile, your 60 lb. tree magnet is a heavyweigh ! I think you should keep it somewhat shallow just in case a big LMB, Cat, or HSB hangs up in there ;\)

Nice job !

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Brettski, Ive got very similar material just waiting to be built and placed for when I get more rain water. The HD bucket and concrete will complete the project. Thanks for the idea.


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D.I.E.D....
Theo....excellent point; more of the stuff I have come to expect from you, thanks. The roadway that we built around the perimeter is fairly substantial; you should be able to whip that fly rod with no issue. ;\) The road, tho, is along the steep side of the pond where the shoreline is is 3:1. S'pose that this is still OK for a cluster of 3 trees? Maybe set the bottoms (5 ft tall) at about 8 ft deep?
Ewest...your Linkapalooza parties always deliver...and sell out! The topo map is pretty high on the priority list. Soon come.
Eastland...the bowling ball spheres continue to be the highest level of ingenuity I have seen, but this bucket thing whips together pretty quick and reasonably cheap, too. You're right, they are heavyweights...I think this is an advantage, along with the upright design. It will allow placement in a hole in the bottom, about 1/2 the height of the bucket...very stable. Then, every inch of the PVC limbs will be exposed, even after years of soil movement in the bottom as it may silt over somewhat.
Burgermeister...about a year ago, a new HD opened in an adjoining town and one of the promotions was these buckets for $1. I bought 10. I wish I had bought 30. Another thought: I have a pal in the building trades and he is good friends with the owner of a drywall taping business. He once told me that if I am ever looking for 5 gal buckets, well.... WRT the conc mix, I just poured the entire 60# into the bucket, threw in some water, mixed it with a spade shovel (narrow point to get in there), and then pushed the pre-drilled 4" tube straight down into the slurry. Level it by "eye" and let 'er dry.

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Anymore when I place structure, I'm marking it so I can find it and making it mobile so I can move it if I don't like where it is. I have found the 9' granite boulder that we placed before the pond filled is rather hard to reposition.


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Brettski, nice work.

If your pond turns out to be 5.5 acres, think about getting started on another 25-50 of those things!!!!.


Excerpt from Robert Crais' "The Monkey's Raincoat:"
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Hey Brettski, this is great. Do you think hanging some plastic snow fence (maybe 6-12" strips) from the 1/2" PVC would help even more, or would that get lures hung up on the structure?

I may try this when I build my new pond.


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NEDOC,
I think you are right on the lure hang-up. I like the idea that these things are virtually snag-free. I do plan, tho, to work the PVC trees into a zone or two of the truck-tire pyramids...kind of a playground...still workin' on the slide design :rolleyes:
The first link in Ewest's post above has a cool lookin' structure item using snowfence. I wonder if that would serve to entice a catfish to spawn if you only plugged up one end?

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interesting quote out of ewest's second link above......how closely do you guys follow this recommendation?


"Bream will be using gravel beds frequently throughout the spring and summer. Remember to keep all the bream you catch; never throw them back into the pond, no matter how small they may be, unless advised by a fisheries biologist."


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DIED an explanation is in order. That is from the Miss. Pond Manual written by Marty Brunson a top notch fisheries science professor and author of numerous BG and HBG studies. In Miss. (deep south) it is recommended that for every pound of LMB you harvest from a pond you should take out 10 lbs of BG. On average it is suggested that from a balanced fertile pond you should take out 6 to 8 lbs of LMB per acre. That means you need to harvest 60 to 80 lbs of BG. That is a huge chore. If they are each 1/2 lbs then 120 -160 per acre taken out (not caught). Given that one should not harvest just the big BG then the average weight of those taken out drops and the # goes up. Any how that is a bunch of BG to catch and keep. Most people won't do that so thus his statement don't throw them back. In context from the Manual :

http://msucares.com/pubs/publications/p1428.pdf

"Most of the fish harvested from the pond should be bluegill and redear sunfish. Bream reproduce
throughout the summer and are the most numerous fish in the pond. A general recommendation is to
harvest a minimum of 10 pounds of bream for every pound of bass. It is extremely important to keep the bream harvest in line with the bass harvest. Many Mississippi ponds are underfished for bream and can stand a much greater bream harvest. This should insure an adequate number of bass for reproduction as well as
control of the bream. When too many bass are removed, the remaining bass can no longer control the bream, and the bream become over crowded and stunted. Once bream become overcrowded, bass reproduction is reduced or stopped completely. "

Georgia Manual

http://warnell.forestry.uga.edu/warnell/service/library/index.php3?docID=41&docHistory%5B%5D=1

In succeeding years, a fertilized pond should produce 150 to 160 pounds of harvestable bream (600 to 700 fish) and 30 to 35 pounds of harvestable bass (25 to 30 fish) per surface acre per year. In fed ponds, up to 500 pounds of harvestable bream (about 2000 fish) can be removed, but do not remove bass at rates higher than those suggested for a fertilized pond

This is another one on building fish attractors. GA

http://warnell.forestry.uga.edu/warnell/service/library/index.php3?docID=184&docHistory%5B%5D=1


Here is Ohio. Remember ice fishing .

http://ohioline.osu.edu/a-fact/0001.html
















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 Quote:
Originally posted by dave in el dorado ca:
how closely do you guys follow this recommendation?
D.I.E.D,

Not at all...zero. I almost never remove a BG from my ponds...only to very rarely eat and/or use a fish that was dead from an angling event.

Personally, I think the recommendation to remove every BG that you catch in Southern ponds stinks. For my Southern ponds, that is probably one of the most absurd recommendations I have ever read. I catch thousands of BG year-after-year. Never have removed a single BG except as noted above.

I'm not bragging, just illustrating a point...but I'll put my BG size and distribution and health up against any pond, anywhere.

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Since I have a bass-crowded situation in both of my lakes (as do most people), I have never understood the idea of removing bream. My small bass do not have enough to eat and removing bream especially the small ones would seem rather stupid to me. The only fish I routinely harvest are the small bass and I take out all of them. Maybe I'm wrong, but it just seems like common sense to me.
Bill


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I pull out eating sized BG (6" - 7.5") when I have the time to clean them, and foul hooked BG & RES over about 5.5". I haven't actually removed any LMB yet, although I'm positive of a couple of C&R morts and of course have probably caused others. I will be cleaning any foul-hooked LMB this year, but do not plan on actively removing any LMB until at least next year when my first LMB spawn will be big enough to spawn on their own. First I will have to figure out what LMB size(s) I want to encourage or remove to further my big BG management goals, but that's an item for another thread.


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I never pull out BG either, if I need to pull out anything, I need to pull out more LMB than I do. Seems most ponds end up being bass on bass anyway. The idea of pulling out my BGs just doesn't sound logical.


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Brettski, that looks awesome. I'm gonna copy your design and make a few of my own.

Guess you could remove the bucket and save it for another day too.


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Viking,
Thanks, but it definitely is repeatedly stolen engineering. I think the only thing I added was the thicker 4" trunk and tried to apply branches at 1/8 turns or 45 degree increments (Lusk, I believe, said to use 2" PVC pipe and 1/4 turns of the trunk...?)
Yeah, I seriously considered spraying the inside of the bucket with form oil and seeing if I could shake 'em out. Then I thought about: a) the ease of shakin' out that bulky mass b) the cost of the $1 buckets c) is it worth the risk of failure or problems. I then carefully weighed the additional bucket costs against the cost to build the pond....
;\)

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Looks like GREAT cover Brettski! I have been planning to plant 1" Dia. PVC "Stick ups" in an array about 6'or 8' wide and 40' long. Now you've got me thinking. My plan simulates a bamboo thicket. Yours simulates trees. I guess I'll figure the material and go the cheapest way. Wonder if fish think in 3D? Maybe I worry too much...

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Just curious to know the pros and cons of these questions...

How far did you drop down from the previous hole? Looks to be about 4"? Would going closer, say, 2 inches make it tight enough, so that you wouldn't need the snow fence wrap for smaller fish cover? How about not using the bucket and just leaving 2.5 feet to drive into the bottom, leaving the first horizontal pipe 6" from the pond/lake bottom?


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BigMac,
Yep, the distance between hole-sets is about 4 - 5"...guesstimate, by eye. One of the reasons I went to the wider OD 4" drainage pipe is to allow closer spacing of these holes and still have a stable mass supporting them. One of the reasons I did NOT put them closer together was a trade-off on cost for the limbs. After seeing the sputnik sheres, I shifted gears to a less dense product knowing that it should still be suitable. You are right, though...you could surely put the limbs alot closer and denser if desired.
WRT pounding them into the bottom, I briefly consider that too, but dismissed it for the more stable 60# bucket design. Just a choice, but I felt it was worth the additional $4 per tree for long term stability.

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Brettski......you improved on a design I used last year. I used 10'lateral line with pre-punched holes that I had to widen to accomodate 1" pvc. Imagine your design with no bucket. They laid horizontially not vertically. The big mistake I made was not weighting them down. Our pond had a big rise in the early spring and most of them have moved. I like your idea much better and will be making some more in the near future while our pond is down during this drought.

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Brettski,
I just closed on 14.011 acres of land, near Coldspring, and think I have found a good dirt worker. Getting it brush hogged this weekend, then they get in their to do the engineering. It might be October, before the actual digging starts.

I am glad to see your post, because I plan to go with suitable channels and humps for structure, but want to use PVC for snagless fishing. I recently bought 12 of the plastic spheres to make my own sputniks. Your right! All that PVC pipe, even .5 inch, adds up! Cost me about $177.00, with cleaner and glue, but it will be worth it to not have to stop fishing to retrieve a $5.00 lure my Mom or Fiancee hung up.

Now, I'll go pick up some 4" PVC septic line and some more .5" PVC to build some of these trees. ; \:\)


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It's not about the stomach. It's about the fish. Take care of the fish and the stomach will be fine.
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Mega-congrats on the acquisition, BigMac!
As many of the pondmeisters have often noted herein, the journey is exciting. Stay as involved as possible and use...I mean USE that digital camera. Create a folder on the computer and each step will be a file full of pix. Even looking back now, only a year into development, I have kinda lost perspective for what it looked like before we started. When I go back and compare to today, the diff is astonishing...awesome. Also, do like Eddie Walker and establish a BigMac thread for continual updates on your trip to Pond-amania. We all dig when a comrade digs.

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