Thread: Help with brushing a dock??

I am new to the brush dropping game. I went to the Rush for Brush last weekend and ended up with 80 spider blocks and a sore back. The problem is, I'm not really sure what to do with them all. I have a 2 slip dock to put some under but not real sure how many to put there. Should I pack it to the rafters or clump some blocks, leave a small space and clump some more? Is there such thing as too much brush under your dock? Any help from you fine folks would be greatly appreciated.

Old Christmas trees work well, but you don't sink them to the bottom, you suspend them alongside the interior of the dock. And you want to tie onto the tops of the tree, not the base. The reason you shouldn't just drop them and let them sink to the bottom is because they decay and eventually rot into a pile of garbage. Several years of this and the bottom is covered with silt, gets higher and higher, and you lose some of the depth beneath your dock. If you can find a cane thicket, you can cut cane and make stake beds all alongside the walkway (the ramp to your dock) and this will bring in crappie too. Crappie are pretty stupid, if they get an eye behind something, they think they are totally hid. They sit there waiting to ambush something and they're not even hidden. Hope this helps.

Thank you for the suspended christmas tree idea. I have a rock bottom under the dock so the stake beds won't cotton too well to that.

I have found using cedars or christmas trees are hard to fish. It is hard to get a jig or hook and minnow thru them without a hang up. Cedars do attract bait fish cause they are so dense it doesn't allow a bigger fish to get at them somewhat. They are really diffucult to fish at times when they are pretty new.
To try something different in a tree, I would suggust Persimmon or Pecan....First of all Beavers will leae them alone due to acid content on the wood. Second they are bushy enough to attract bait fish but allow bigger fish to get inside their braches and hide. They are easy to fish due to their limbs being further apart. They will last 5 to 7 yrs as long as they remain under the water.
Either of those trees is all I use while building wood piles in any lake.
Ranger

Originally Posted by callmecamo

I am new to the brush dropping game. I went to the Rush for Brush last weekend and ended up with 80 spider blocks and a sore back. The problem is, I'm not really sure what to do with them all. I have a 2 slip dock to put some under but not real sure how many to put there. Should I pack it to the rafters or clump some blocks, leave a small space and clump some more? Is there such thing as too much brush under your dock? Any help from you fine folks would be greatly appreciated.

Callmecamo, if I were you, I would drop about half those spider blocks under your dock, then bring the rest of them to my dock! LOL.
I think you can get too much under the dock. We have a 6 stall dock, I dropped about 10 PVC pipe buckets under the dock, around the outside. In the middle, I dropped some willow trees I had growing close to the walkway. I agree with Stink and Ranger. Ceders are good, and nobody will mind of you cut some down. We hang them from the dock, upside down with the truck on top. It is best if you cut them and let them turn brown, let the sap or turpentine dry out. But I have dropped green ceders and caught fish from them in a couple of days. Ceder lasts a long time, but they are mighty dense for the first year or so. Willows only seem to last a year or 2, but they were easy to get. Hard wood, like oak, pecan, or persimmon are great attractors, and they do last a long time.
As far as how much, the fish need some room to swim into and around. Don't know how deep your water is, but you can add some now, and save some of them to drop in later if needed.
I like the mix of the PVC buckets and wood, seems to work best at our dock. Anything you add will increase your catching chances, so good luck.
Bob

I've got a neighbor that is 87 that told me to burn the needles of of Christmas trees before sinking them. Spread some of those spider buckets out on the shallow side of the dock heading towards the bank in all depths. You'll create a nice little rest area for them as they are on the move. There will be those that will make your dock their home, so having something for them to hide in from shallow to deep with help keep them there. Then make sure you invite me down to inspect all you hard work free of charge!

Anything beats Nothing at All....Good Luck and be sure to post the results of BRUSHING YOU DOCK....Ranger

Thanks all for your input. The front of the dock sits in ~16 FOW and the rear is over ~30 FOW. I recently discovered another potential problem. I spoke with the neighbor and he said that he dropped a ton of spider blocks below his dock last year. Then a good strong current came along and washed them all out....... I can verify the current getting up in that area so I'm not really sure what to do for them. I may just have to make about 15 - 20 secret spots on the lake and suspend those Christmas trees in the manner that has been suggested already. I also have 3 of those pvc trees that were raffled off at the Rush for Brush to hang out there too. Once again, thank you guys for your input! If I have success at any of my attempts, I'll be sure to post.

I dropped some brush in lake near me 2 years ago. The next season I went to fish them and most were gone (9 out of 15). The ones that were missing were along the channel edge, the ones that stayed were back in a cove without much flow. Incidentally, I found what I think are some my trees farther down lake in the channel half a mile away at the next bend. I wont be wasting my time dropping brush in those types of areas anymore. If I had to because of a docks location, I would go with a low profile and very heavy weight design. But no matter what you have, when the current is carrying huge trees through the lake, it will grab your stuff and take it.

Thank for the info Fishers. I have been kind of leaning away from the bottom-bound brush approach since that dock gets hammered with current. I'll drop a cluster of 10 or so to see what happens to them. If they can hang on I'll drop more.