Thread: Dishpan stake beds

Originally Posted by sethpowell

Do you mean using PVC for the dish pan beds or wood? I have been sinking wood slats and tobacco sticks in mine. Do you think that I just stick to the pallet beds? I've been sinking several of those, it's just much more difficult! Thanks!

Stake beds have to be massive to provide enough cover for alot of fish....there just isn't enough surface area.
Look at Good Natural Cover...stumps, trees, posts, brush, etc.....that's what will hold Alot of fish....it either has to be big enough to offer ambush points and shade....or dense enough to offer protection and safety....PVC just offers the advantage of permanent cover, that you don't have to redo in a few years.
IMHO, stake beds offer neither....but they are better than nothing!

I tried pvc and it just didn't hold many crappie.

If you look at Bamboo, it allows dense hiding places for the Shad and a food source plankton. I believe once you have a stabile supply of baitfish, the Crappie just circle and wait for a meal.

Crappie magnets

During one of our last habitat days on 1 of the Big 4 Ms. lakes, we were instructed to add horizontal as well as vertical with combinations of materials such as small cedars, bamboo, vertical as well as leaning into the vertical.Also clusters of stakes were driven in and around the condos!Also it seems to me that smaller shoots of bamboo in some of those pipes might increase attraction. Just my .Those dishpans look great though!

We build bucket stakebeds using wood stakes . They are placed in 4 to 12' of water . Deeper water means you need taller beds . Try for min of 1/3 height of water depth . Place several to a spot . Bigger means more fish but we try for lots of small spots over a few big ones . We can catch a few off each spot then move to the next . Bigger spots will hold bigger numbers but easier for others to find .Most places we place min of 6 buckets per spot. Stakebeds built and sunk do work . We catch about as many limits jigging the lakes I fish as anyone and many of my spots are just stakebeds .