Thread: My little PVC Build

X2! you wont be the only one fishing that massive sonar condo! looks very good tho.

how much you got in that?

Good looking condo's. I might have to try my luck at it. I already have the pvc. Do you plan on making more?

Looks great!

Very nice piece of structure!!

Duky I have about $2 in each because I got the pipe from a sod farm gone out of business and this was a huge pile of scrap pipe. The only money I spent was for the concrete block and good rope to tie it with.
As far as other people fishing it. I am sure it will happen sooner or later but there are some tricks to make that less of a factor. (1) put the PVC on a large drop. The sonar shadow of a steep drop means you will have to side image from a certain direction to see. (2) Put it on a hard rock bottom. The hard rock bottom cause hard returns on SI and makes it very hard to detect the PVC unless you spend a good bit of time adjusting sensitivity. (3) Put it in water at least twice the depth of the height of the structure. This prevents those long sonar shadows created by anything more than 1/2 the total depth of the water. I have about 12 of these installed with those factors in mind and I have never seen another fisherman on one of them.
At the risk of sounding like a know it all I am just sharing my experience of building these things for about 4 years. I have materials to build about 6 more and plan on getting that done in the next 2 weeks.

IF you are looking for stealth here is another model I built that is pretty stealthy when it comes to SI. The 12 inch wide 8 foot long vinyl siding is split down the middle from both ends when I assemble on the lake I bend those pieces to make a more bushy tree. Each slot actually has 2 pieces of vinyl siding for a total of 8 pieces 8 feet long.
8 foot section of 6inch pipe. I used a circular saw to cut slots just wide enough to slide 2 pieces of siding through.. This PVC tree is much more impressive when the vinyl is bent out on the lake and ready for installation.
The really thin vinyl siding creates a bit of a sonar shadow but it much harder to detect that pipe.

Really appreciate all of your pictures and ideas. You have inspired me. The grandchildren and I will be busy this weekend making us some. Thanks again.

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