STAKE BEDS verses MEGA MATTS

[NIMROD]

Darryl I saw your post on Mega matts. Have you ever considered driving wood slabs in the bottom when the water is low? They last for years and hangups are not as bad when everything is verticle. I drove some in Nimrod Lake and plan more. Hopefully the lake will not get too high with all this rain.
Our stakebeds we built are great , but driving stakes in the bottom are much easier. Most small local sawmills give us all the scrap boards and slabs needed. They are eagar to furnish their scraps when we keep them in fillets.
The ones we drive in are spaced about 1' apart in lines of a dozen or more and put in several rows to make the size of your liking. Besides the wood ,all you need is a saw to cut correct lengths for depth and a sledge hammer. We even made long drivers to push stakes in deeper water so they would be under even in low water levels.. Sometimes we are lucky and the scrap boards are already 4' or less. With the lake down 3' we drive them in shallows down to belowthe waters surface. Next spring with 3' of water over them the crappie love them.:D In 3' to 5' water that extra 3' makes it the perfect depth in the spring and early summer.

[RIVERRATT]

I like them i drive mine 8 to 10 inches apart in circles of 3 to 20 feet

[Jerry Blake]

I've done a few stake beds and never seem to catch as many fish off of them as I do brushpiles or bamboo condos. I know stake beds work really well in lakes that have dingy water but I wonder if they work as well in fairly clear water.

One of the main reasons I like to put bamboo in the lake is for cover for crappie fry to have a chance to grow up so they can make more babies and be caught. I don't think stakes, pallets, tires, PVC, plastic barrels or much of anything else provides nearly as good of cover as bamboo and brush does.

A couple of advantages of using bamboo over brush is that we can put in about 10 times as much volume of cover using bamboo in the same amount of time and effort it takes to sink brush. And except possibly for cedar (which is a pain to fish around) I've not found any wood that will last nearly as long as bamboo - especially the small limbs that provide tight cover.

[Darryl Morris]

Stake beds are great for the adult crappie but where are the babies going to live and eat without threat of predators? Mature crappie will relate to dense cover as much if not more, plus there is a place to hide for the more vulnerable young crappies. I know the old saying is a bird in the hand is better than two in the bush. But, if crappie anglers will just think a few steps ahead they'll exert the same effort for more benefit and not find themselves playing catchup in the future. If you have great spawning and protective cover in your lake, you're lucky. Count your blessings now because it won't be there forever. The cover we are dropping now is for "all stages" of a crappie's life for the next 5 or more years, plus. Sorry for the sermon, but I am convinced by experience this is better and dedicated to spending my time to it. So much so that we will have built close to 100 this month alone. It's going to be a great spring!!!