Thread: Put in charge of 210 Acre Lake- I know nothing about Crappie- Need your Magical Minds

Well

Many of you have asked me to keep you informed as to my progress with our 210 Acre Lake, so here's what's happen in the last 40 Days.

I also have more questions for all you great people on this forum. My newest concern is being sure that I create an enviroment where the the Fat Head Minnows can spawn and keep spawning as this is what the Crappie will be feeding on.


- I created 6 Pallet Pyramids with 2 foot long legs on them so they would not sink once they hit the bottom. These were stuffed with Bamboo and sunk in water anywhere from 10 feet of water to 25 feet of water, all around the lake. These things are very heavy and I think I will not be building anymore of these because they are just too heavy to handle.

- A neighbor was trimming their Pine Trees so I took all the Limbs that were cut. I bundled 6 limbs together that were 4-6 inches around and 15-20 feet long and tied Cinder Blocks to the Bundles. We ended up making one HUGE brush file in 20 feet of water, using 7 bundles of these Pine Tree Limbs. We checked this Brush pile on the Fish Finder and it is HUGE. Two days later we checked it and the fish finder showed some type of fish on and around it already.

- I nailed 1"x6" boards to pallets ( 3.5 feet long) to make a Crappie Bed sructures that I saw on this forum. I may make more of these as these are not as bulky as the Pyramids. Question - How deep should I sink these knowing the lake gets dropped 2 feet every year?

I nailed 1/4 " fencing/wire to the tops of 4 pallets and sunk them in 1-2 feet of water thinking the 300,000 Fat Head Minnows we stocked would lay their eggs under them. Questions- Should I make more of these and is 1-2 feet deep enough for them to use?

- We built 2 PVC trees - 4 feet wide and 6 feet tall. These were sunk 30 feet from the huge brush pile in 18 feet of water

- I have now sunk 5 Bamboo Condos on a drop-off starting in in 15 feet of water down to 26 Feet of water. I have done this on 2 drop-offs thus a total of 10 Bamboo condos


-I have laid down three bundles of bamboo stuck through the Cinder Blocks in 3 feet of water. The bamboo lays horizontal and I figured this would be great for in the Shallows.

- I am in the process of building 25 more Bamboo Condos as have a great souce of bamboo and it's easy to build and sink these. Question- Should these Bamboo Condos be placed individually or in clumps of 2-4 so the pile is very large? Also what should be my plan to lay these Bamboo condos out (Where, how close together, How Deep, Ect,)

We just finished picking up 60 large left-over Christmas Trees for free. We are going to tie an empty plastic bottle to the tops of these so they stand upright rather than laying them down Question- Is it Best to sink these CTs in groups of 3-5 trees or individual? What should be the plan to lay these out- again how close together, how deep, individual or bundled together.....



Does anyone see anything I am doing wrong so far? Please be honest.

After these Christmas trees are sunk I think I need to take a bit of a rest because I am tired.

Thanks again everyone.

Sure sounds like you need the rest after all you have done. You are doing a great job!

We normally place the "C" trees in rows shallow to deep often with 4-6 brush blocks shallow in 4-6 fow and the PVC attractors on the deeper end at 18 fow which is as deep as ODNR will currently allow us to go-(evil laughter sound effect) basically find the thermocline and end the line there...BTW, how`s your "experiment" coming along ? 2 lines of multiple types of natural and artificial attractors shallow to deep with a rubble pile in the center is going to be a HOLY COW spot once you complete it...take your time and might be tempted to tell NO ONE about that 1...kinda like our little `secret`...are you still hoping to put shad into the lake? If possible do it during the winter but keep in mind the water temperature they are in and the temperature of the lake MUST be within 6 degrees or they WILL all go belly up immediately, and become chum...

Thanks for updating. Sounds like you are creating a fine fishery. I am a rookie with no practical advice on this topic. I do have a cabin on a 320 acre lake that needs some help with structure. Keep up the good work, it will pay off in the near future.