I've noticed that some of my best brushpiles don't produce as well as they did a few years ago. The main thing that I notice is when I go over them with my depthfinder they aren't near as tall as they used to be.
I've noticed the piles that have some height still produce better than the ones that are only a couple of feet tall now.
For this reason I think I am going to spend some time building stakebeds out of oak, cypress, and cedar slabs. NIMROD and I will post some pics of our stakebeds as we are building them and placing them out. He has had real good luck since switching from brushpiles to stakebeds.
I'm still not going to give up on my brushpiles but I will definately be adding more brush this year.
This slab came off one of my oak brushpiles that is about 4 years old but has maintained good height. We seem to always pick up a slab or two here. Its located on a 9 foot flat just a few yards from a main river channel.



These 2 lbers came from brush located in the same general area.