No-Hang Fish Habitats

[beagler]

=krappiekrazy]Here is a cheaper way to make crappie condos. Get a 12 qt. dish pan (from walley world $.97) 40 lb bag of qiikcrete ($1.97 at lowes) Go around town to construction sites and pick up discarded pvc (plumbers& electrical). Mix the concrete in the pans and put 5 to 9 pieces of pvc in at different angles. The pvc is hang proof. Then remove the pan for another time. Hope this helps.


I like your condo's How tall are they. And how many do you group together.

I have a small boat and it looks like they would be easier for me to load in it.

Beagler

[Eager Beaver]

you could use a union just like you would connect 2 pieces of PVC pipe.

[chef]

I have made several of the PVC tree's with the 4 inch sewer and 1/2 inch limbs. Anchored them in 5 gal bucket with cement Cost was around 10.00 a tree. Got some looks at the ramp with that stuff in the boat. The funniest I have seen was a guy who had an old spring matress and shoved lathes in the springs. I have not fished any yet so time will tell.

Ahhh creativity!!!

J&J Habitat is giving away free samples of fish attractors. No gimmick, get
their e-mail address off of their website and they will send you a sample.
I don't know how much longer they will be doding it, but they are now.
chef

[krappiekrazy]

Beaglel, the pvc is cut 2ft. tall with 5 to 9 in each pan. I drop 5 in a H pattern for vertical fishing. For casting or trolling I put them in a row of 10 plus along the top of the creek channel. These are hard to find on a depth finder so be sure to take your GPS.

=krappiekrazy]Here is a cheaper way to make crappie condos. Get a 12 qt. dish pan (from walley world $.97) 40 lb bag of qiikcrete ($1.97 at lowes) Go around town to construction sites and pick up discarded pvc (plumbers& electrical). Mix the concrete in the pans and put 5 to 9 pieces of pvc in at different angles. The pvc is hang proof. Then remove the pan for another time. Hope this helps.


I like your condo's How tall are they. And how many do you group together.

I have a small boat and it looks like they would be easier for me to load in it.

Beagler

[410MAN]

I have never tried to locate those things on my finder ya'll say they hard to find could ya put anything in the pan like a big hub cap that would show up more, Im gonna build me 3 this weakend maybe this eveniong.

[Moose1am]

What is needed is something that can reflect the sound waves off the tree and back up to the transducer.

These PVC surfaces are rounded and they sound waves will be reflecting off the round surface in all directions. Only those sound waves from the tranducer that hit the round surface at the right angle will be reflected back up to the transducer.

Are you guys familar with the new stealth jet fighters or Navy ships? They are being designed and built so that radar waves don't bounce straight off their surfaces back toward the radar receiver but instead are scattered away from the radar unit's radar wave receiver. This makes these new planes B2, F117A almost invisible to radar. Their radar signature is simlar to a small bird.

I would think that a hub cap that is positioned correctly to bounce the sound waves back up to the surface would make the PVC Crappie Tree visible or more visible to sonar units.

Remember that only the thin walls of the PVC pipes will be reflecting the sound waves. The inside of the pipe is filled with water and that water is the same density of the water outside the pipes. Water won't reflect the sound waves back to the surface. You need a solid material that can bounce the sound waves back toward the transducer of your boat at the surface.

Now the guide from the Ozarks said that after Algae started growing on the PVC pipes surfaces that it helped to find the pipes with his depth sounder. But he didn't say how deep he placed these pvc trees or pipes. The deeper you put them the harder it wil be to get the sound waves down to them and to bounce them off them and back up to the surface. So you may have to turn the gain up on the sonar unit to full strenght.

The good thing about putting them in deeper water is that the sound waves will cover more of the bottom in deeper water vs shallower water and that you may be able to find these trees if the sound can bounce off them in sufficent strength to reach the transducer.

Remember that the transducers are really just crystals covered with plastic and are shaped to send sound waves out. The crystals are shaped to help focus the sound waves out in a certain direction. Hopefully downward if you mounted the transducer right. LOL The crystals are feed an electrical current for a few micro seconds and that causes the sound waves to go out of the crystal or transducer. Then the same crystal has to receive the sound waves after they bounce back up off something. I am not sure but I don't think the crystal can both be putting out a signal and receiving the return echos at the very same time. So there may have to be a pause in the output signals so that the echos can be heard. But sound travels in water very very fast. So the sonar unit may be using a pulsed sound wave and there is a timing involved in the production of the sound waves. This is called the pulse width and it's very important in determining how close a fish can be to the bottom of the lake before it's seen on the sonar unit. Today with the use of microprocessors the pulse width has been shorten and we can see the fish on the bottom better.

I have never tried to locate those things on my finder ya'll say they hard to find could ya put anything in the pan like a big hub cap that would show up more, Im gonna build me 3 this weakend maybe this eveniong.

[Ranger690]

Maybe put a cap on a couple of the pipes to trap some air inside. That might help them to show up on the finder.

Dayton

[410MAN]

Mr. Moose I will take the info you provided under advisement, and will attach some type of devise to my setup which I intend to place in the lake this Sat
and will report back with my findings.

[slabbandit]

In reply to what BOB G asked about how to attach the 3 ft. piece of 4 inch pvc to the other piece of 4 inch pipe, What they are doing is cutting the 3 ft. piece off the end opposite the end that has the swell for joining the 10 ft. lengths. Once they fill the straight 3ft. piece with Quik-Crete and it has set up and hardened just use pvc cement and glue the 3 ft. piece into the bell or swelled end of the longer 4 inch pipe.


Hope this is helpful info. Good Luck!

CATCH A BIG-UN

[Moose1am]

I think I did it the other way around but your way sounds better to me. It really does not matter as long as you can put the end with the concrete onto the other longer pipe. The female end can be on either the short piece of 4" pipe or the longer piece of 4" pipe.

You way sounds better as I would not have to clean the inside of the expanded female end like I did when I cut the female end off for the short piece.

You way would just require tha the outside of the short 4" pipe be cleaned and that can easily be done once you get all the concrete inside the pipe. Just take a rag or even a hose and wash the outside of the pipe off. That way you won't be getting any more water inside the pipe than necessary.

When I put concrete on the inside of the female or expanded end I had to wash the concrete dust off the inside edges of the female expanded part to make sure that was smooth and clean. After the concrete dries it harder to get the inside of the pipe clean.

bottom line it's easier to clean the outside of the male end than the inside of the female end of the pipes.

In reply to what BOB G asked about how to attach the 3 ft. piece of 4 inch pvc to the other piece of 4 inch pipe, What they are doing is cutting the 3 ft. piece off the end opposite the end that has the swell for joining the 10 ft. lengths. Once they fill the straight 3ft. piece with Quik-Crete and it has set up and hardened just use pvc cement and glue the 3 ft. piece into the bell or swelled end of the longer 4 inch pipe.


Hope this is helpful info. Good Luck!

CATCH A BIG-UN