While the choices of materials used to make crappie beds are many I think one of the common and most important things to remember is proper spacing between your materials.

There should be a minimum of about 8 inches of space between your limbs or PVC for the crappie to get in and move around in the structure. Take a look at most PVC beds that people build. I'm guilty too of building them in tall buckets forcing the PVC to be too close together.

Try to use short containers such as cut off buckets or wash pans so you can get the maximum spread on the PVC arms or whatever material that you are using.

The best beds that I have built or found all have two things in common.

(1) The brushpile has some height to it. Coming up a minimum of 4 to 6 feet off of the bottom.

(2) They all have good spacing between the limbs for the bigger crappie to move in and around.