Some thoughts

[coyote]

I have been helping to build and place brush in Lake Oologah in Oklahoma for a couple of years at the annual brush pile day sponsored by the corps. I have been fishing the brush for the past three years and I have noticed that the bigger and taller and bushyer we build them that they hold a lot of smaller fish. When I first started fishing the older brush 3 years ago I could barely find it on my sonar because the brush pile had collapsed and that was before the corp started using 4 foot square boxes made from pallets. We can really load those up and make them big and bushy. The old and smaller piles were right down on the bottom and I caught some really nice fish and good numbers. Now with the new ones I catch mostly small ones. I have been thinking, most of the fish I catch are close to the bottom, 18" from the bottom in 15 to 20 foot of water. The brush is 4 foot off of the bottom and mushrooms like an upside down pyramid. A friend of mine sinks old bleached out cedars he finds on the bank right down on the bottom long ways, one per spot, about 8 to 10 feet long. These old trees only have the main branches left on them by now wich are only about 5 feet long at the most. An Old Timer taught him how to do this and he catches some really nice fish on Lake Keystone in Oklahoma. I think I will try some pvc laydown type structure since I already have the 4" pipe even though I am beginning to lean towards wood as a primary structure. Nimrod mentioned that he uses pallets with 2' to 4' stakes since he catches most of his fish "low" in a post labeled "real wood" and I think I agree with him based on my experince here in N. E. Ok. We have some pvc out and we cath a few now and then from it but wood is doing better. I will be finishing a pvc bed with the barrels spaced out and lots of structure inbetween as described in a previous post, time will tell.
Kenny

[bttmline]

Good info!!! Thanks for the post and I will be reading Nimrods next.