Thread: what is the absolute best cover to drop

LYNYRD
Agree 'boo is easier to handle...it is also good for personal "honey holes" that you can easily refresh...but, there are 2 different purposes for cover...one is your own use and the other is restoration of ponds, lakes, and reservoirs...with this, you need something more substantial and long lasting...unless you want to continually replace stuff.
If you want to make a difference in an entire fishery, you have to provide cover for every facet of the ecosystem...this will continually replenish your honey holes with fish.

We have tried just about everything!!! Went to crappie camp!! Mr Nimrod!!! Showed us the Pallet stake beds!! With presimmon branches for stakes!!! Have about 100-150 out now they work Great!! Just kind of hard to locate!! Need to mark them good,GPS and land marks also if possible!!! They hold bass and catfish to!!! We caught fish(crappie) off of them in August never,never done that before!!! and in a super Clear lake!!!!

The couple dozen we did with the 14" blocks centered under the middle of each skid with the branches shoved and tied into them have produced just about every kind of fish in CJ...

Bodoc trees (tree that has the thorns)... Will last a very long time...have heard of folks fishing beds made dorm Bodoc trees for 15-20 years.

Know we have honey and black locust trees (15+ yrs underwater) as well as thorn tree (unknown, but HARD wood certainly !) both of which have thorns...

I would like to do this also but it seems like it would take many many trips. Pallets for me are easy to get but i need the lake here freeze over hard enough drag brush out and then let the thaw drop them. But by then everyone would see it. Soft wood pallets I doubt would last long

I only have 5 years experience at putting out some kinds of crappie beds, didn't figure Truman Lake needed any with all the trees left when it was filled up in 1980, but open area's will little no timber works great for crappie beds, and we have tried everything, stake buckets, stake beds, cedar trees, and brush piles...... the brush piles holds lot of fish both large and small, caught a lot of 1 1/2# fish off of them, cedars work also, but the only thing we put in anymore are pvc beds, they seem to hold the bigger fish just not as many smaller fish as brush and cedars..... we make our own and they cost us about $12 ea and we put 3 to a spot, they are 5' tall and 5' in dia... they are 3" dia. for trunks and 1/2" for the limbs, and put in a plastic bucket with 30# of cement.. we can haul the trunks laying down and slide the limbs in on the spot in just a few minutes and drop and mark with gps.... I feel they will last longer than any wood stuff we have out, our brush piles have fallen quite a bit in just 2 years....

Originally Posted by KAG

I would like to do this also but it seems like it would take many many trips. Pallets for me are easy to get but i need the lake here freeze over hard enough drag brush out and then let the thaw drop them. But by then everyone would see it. Soft wood pallets I doubt would last long

Use hardwood pallets with cedar or hardwood stakes, sink with rock like I showed many folks . They are cheap and hold plenty of good fish with fewer hang ups. Also harder to find unless you have gps coordinates.