Thread: Shapes or strategy when placing brush buckets

Originally Posted by Zisaiahb

When you guys put out your buckets do you sink them in any kind of shape? I put some out Saturday. I tied a foam noodle to a weight for my target area. Loaded some buckets and dropped them around my noodle. Does anyone like certain shapes? Any one try an X or a line of buckets? Just wondering if anyone has a favorite way to arrange them.

Our Strategy during our 10+ year "Project", was that we found the need for "Stealth" and "Hiding" all the cover we could! Grouping was based on how many we could put in an area and "hide it"! We would go out with the Best Electronics made, and "Look" at an area and figure out if it was possible and how we were going to do it...then after we took more "pictures" to see how successful we were!
We were trying to improve the overall quality of the lake and help the fishery, instead of making Honey-holes to attract fish to be caught easily!
In a large highly pressured lake, if cover is found, it is just fished to death...which pretty much makes that area worthless for increasing the population, so it expands and replenishes.

We put spawning and baitfish cover shallow and away from bank fishing areas, so it couldn't be found with electronics or shore fishermen. We also put cover in drop-offs, creek beds, in Big Rocky areas. PVC becomes Invisible and was used in great numbers...laydowns are hard to detect in the right areas...and wood was used in areas that most fishermen wouldn't take their boats, or where electronics would bounce or skim over top of it!
Let me say...that if you want to "hide" cover from others, in certain lakes it is possible, no matter how good your electronics are. If you have water color and content, plus good structure, and natural rock, or rip-rap, etc, etc...content based on location, is better than a constant grouping!

We did make 2 HUGE Freshwater reefs on deep mud flats between drop-offs...we used broken concrete rubble as a base, then concrete blocks, then 10 hole bricks on top! We marked off the areas with bouys, and dropped everything between them...it worked perfectly and stacked up nice!

I place mine in rows most times .

In the "Project" we tended to place them shallow to deep with PVC on the deepest end. This tends to create a line of cover of varying depth so there would often be larger fish hanging on the deeper ends awaiting darkness... various species of juvenile fish used different parts and depths of the rows.

This is a private lake so I'm not real worried about stealth. I was just curious about shapes or how you put them out. Like I said we dropped them in a circle around the noodle. We were thinking about dropping a cedar dead in the middle with the thought that maybe it would help hold bait fish. My first set of drops were 9 buckets together. Then 2 other spots with 7. Do you think that is enough? Or would I be smarter doing 10 to 12 together?
Lowell you said you make a line from shallow to deep. Is the line 1 bucket wide or a few wide? Do you space them out much?

A crappie prefers medium dense cover...it wants to get in it and feel secure, but the cover will also be used as an ambush point or feeding station...Take a look at your cover, how many Crappie do you think it will hold?
One bucket with 6 or 7 pieces of 1.5 inch PVC may only hold 1 or 2 Crappie....that kinda gives you an idea of what it takes to build up an area!

More the better if possible have brood area and don't fish that area very often!!

Crappie like cover open enough to swim through . Some biologists recommend 8'' min spacing to allow this . Crappie also spend alot of their life suspended feeding in open water.

Another Guranteeed is to Cary 4-6 pounds of fathead minnows when possible go to your crappie areas and release those minnows 3-5 at a time over a few hours!!!! You will be amazed at how you fishing success increases!!! The crappie will acclamte the minnows to that specific spot!! Been doing it for years with great success in improving the weight of the crappie in the specific body of water!!