Thread: My first attempt at building bamboo brush piles.

My buckets about 1/3 full of rocks and then go for concrete.
Does anybody know how long the cane will last, i 've always used
plastic and just wondered about the cane, my daughter raises
it and i can always get her cutting at the end of the year.

Thanks
john b.

Well this weekend I was not able to go up to the lake to drop the brush piles I built last Sunday. Weather channel was calling for 80% rain, with tornado activity. I drove down to where I built the brush piles and the storm had knocked most all of them over. Also, the cane's leaves all were brown or dead and were falling off when I slightly pulled on them.

The cane was still solid of course, along with most of the twigs that branch off, but the leaves were all dead and coming off. 10 day forecast looks really good so I plan on going next weekend. I'm sure by then (which will be 2 weeks since cut) all leaves will be dead. I do plan on cutting fresh cane and putting some fresh green ones in the middle of the bucket where I can. Atleast minnows can get @ the green leaves and the BIG crappie can swim @ the solid pieces of cane.

Atleast thats the plan. I wish I would have been able to drop them while leaves were green and still in tact, but nature didn't allow it. Hope it works. Yalls thoughts?

Brian

Sank some hard wood limbs last summer with leaves on, a "Friend' and myself fished the same set in the early fall; caught several 12"- 14" crappies, as we were leaving hooked 1 of the "BB"s (brush blocks) with the anchor and had to bring it up to free it. The leaves that remained were covered with snails, algae, and slime, most were gone. What REALLY surprised us was the number of very small crayfish inside the block and tied branch ends! Musta been 2 dozen of them, from itty bitty to 1"- 1 1/2" long. Being omnivores (will eat ANYTHING ) they too were probabily eating the leaves, along with the snails...

They look great!!! Any idea where I can get cane like that around cen. IL??? I think those would work a whole lot better than a PVC Condo!

We started using mortar mix because it is easier to jab the boo into

Well guys this past weekend I made the 3.5 hour ride up to the lake. (Toledo Bend) in East Texas. We loaded the trailer with 12 buckets of cane and we cut some more cane and placed it in the back up the pickup truck for the pieces of cane the break before we drop them. On Saturday while bass fishing we were staking out a lot of places. I decided to drop (2) buckets of cane at each spot. We also were going to find a tree that had fallen over along the bank and drop a few of those.

The lake is currently 7.5' low due to repairs they had to make on the damn. That being said, I wanted most of my brush piles in 17-23' of water on a normal pool, with 1 being deeper than that for the super hot months or cold winter.

I dropped them in spots as shallow as 10' and as deep as 27'. Normal pool would be 17' and 34'. Most others were in 12-16'. I did it with myself along with 2 other buddies. We first started off putting just 2 buckets of cane in the boat and taking them out, but then decided we can carry 4-5 buckets.

As you see we did drop these at night. Being Spring break time there were just tooo many fisherman @. I didn't take pictures of my depthfinder (I was so focused on dropping them and dodging stumps) Next time I go up there I will take pictures.

I am new to the GPS/Depthfinder and once I dropped my first bucket of cane in about 16' of water it was not showing up on my sonar. I was like what is going on...... after going through my settings on the Sonar I realized it was set on 200 Frequency. Once I set it on 50 Frequency BAM!!!! The brush pile appeared. I have not had a chance to read the manual, but I assume the 50 Frequency setting is much more detailed and picks up a smaller radius???

Anyhow, here are a few pictures. I'm going back in a few weeks and will take pictures of the Sonar and hopefully show lots of crappie pics!

Brian

I'm dying to get back to the lake and try these out.... Been 3 weeks since I dropped them. I have a total of 7 spots anywhere from 12-26' Toledo Bend in about 7.5' low so ones that are in 12'16' of water were about 10' tall.

Do most of yall always seem to catch atleast a few on the bamboo even in your not-so good spots? Or do some just never hold crappie? I have put 2 brush piles in spots I have caught them before. I dropped a total of 7 bamboo piles with 2 at each spot.

Been almost a year since I dropped them. I was only able to fish (1) pile. Caught some nice crappie.Lake dropped another 5 ft' the end of last year so I'm not sure how my shallower piles held up. I plan on going in a few weeks. I'll see how they do.