Structure question.

[usafret99]

Have been researching structure post and have seen a lot of options and opinions on what to use. Pvc works for some, not others etc...

Question: if you were going to Home Depot or lowes and buy everything you needed to make some structure to put out, what would you buy.

[RK1]

Buckets, quikcrete, and see if you can talk em out of a few pallets. Go to the garden center and ask, the ones they use on the lumber end are on credit and have to be returned to the manufacturer of whatever good was shipped in on them. The ones in the garden center that mulch, soil, etc comes on are not and they'll usually let you have a few. I make some cover out of PVC but only when I can get scrap for free, it's simply just too expensive to buy at the store. Also get a lid with your bucket, cut the bucket in half and you'll have 2 buckets. Tear the pallets apart, you can usually get 2-3 stake buckets with 6-8 slats each out of one pallet depending on the number of slats


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[RK1]

There's also many other places to get buckets for free. Bakeries, BBQ restaurants get sauce in them, i get mine from a hibachi food truck. Can usually get 2-3 stake buckets out of a 50lb bag quikcrete at about 1.85 a bag. Pretty economical when concrete is all ya pay for, also at lowes look for broken or busted bags....half off. Hope all that helps! Just remember the less you spend the more you can build!


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[usafret99]

Looks good. How many of those do you put in one area.

[Pantastic]

Free buckets are great when you find them but in times of need I have just used a cardboard box without any issues.
Think free when searching for condo items.
If I was set on buying pvc though it would be the thin wall stuff.

[RK1]

Usually put 5-6 in a spot


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[INTIMIDATOR]

Hey USAfret
Like RK1, I like 2x4's, BUT THEY HAVE TO BE UNTREATED...treated wood has arsenic and other poison...I get old oak from indoor builders. I also get buckets free from a local bakery. Lowe's makes deals on broken bags, or for community-based projects.

Crappie like thick dense cover, like trees etc, or big posts, stumps, poles, pilings, etc.
You can mix in huge pvc and wood limbs....look at pictures of Crappie in nature and what kind of cover they prefer. If you use only pvc in buckets, make it dense, and then put trees, wood, etc, around the pvc.
Cover that doesn't work, is the stuff that is too spread out, too much space between pieces, or stuff that is too thin. Crappie use cover for protection, to rest, for shade, and for ambush points...you can also make cover for feeding stations, to attract the entire food chain of Crappie.

[Countryboy N.C.]

wood or cane, pvc has not worked for me, if I could get it back out of the water, I could plumb a lot of houses with it!

[INTIMIDATOR]

There are normally 3 issues with PVC and all are manmade!
Most people who build or use PVC cover use small pipes and only add a few in a bucket, since the pipe is straight, it fans out causing large spaces and gaps...there is absolutely no surface area for the fish to use.
People who build dense PVC structures do not Sand the Plastic deeply with 60 grit sandpaper, so algae can really stick and build colonies.
And Then there's LOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATION...Straight PVC cannot compete with Natural wood...if you are putting PVC in areas with natural timber etc, fish will move to the Big wood or dense wood areas with other fish...protection in numbers! PVC is Great in areas void of cover, and to make the PVC even better, all you have to do is scatter or drop trees or laydowns among the PVC cover!

The Number 1 benefit of PVC, is if you use it correctly and put it in the Proper locations, you will NEVER have to replace it!

[skeetbum]

My opinion is that PVC, to whatever degree you want to make it, works better when a pile or two of natural cover is nearby. I did one in a line with plastic then branch then plastic etc. Had 7 in the cluster and it worked well and didn't adopt near as many jigs. Location is key, and part of that is depth. Fish move up and down as seasons change and if you can set cover say....Down a point from 12 to 25 fow it will produce more as they move through it and never really leave. Best I can tell you is to try everything and see what works best for you. Best ever for me was 10' bamboo spray in a 5 gallon bucket with 50lbs of crete, starting in 14fow and going deeper from there. Won my first tourney out of some like that.