My observation is you can never put in to big of a tree. But I am fishing open lakes though. The bigger the better. Now I am going to make some of y'all mad but here goes. I HATE CEDAR AND WILL NEVER PLACE ANY FOR MY WOOD PERIOD. Reason behind that is if green it takes so long for them to be productive. When dry it takes so much weight to sink it. Another factor they are to tight and hard for the bigger fish to get in and chase the bait fish. They do hold a lot of small fish. Another reason is they are hard to fish with a jig period. There are only 2 trees that I will place for structure as a long term pile and those are Persimmon and Pecan. Here's a fact for you and that is that Beavers will not cut either of them under the water. Now for short term structure a willow or sycamore works well but will not last more than a year or two since Beavers love them. They are soft wood and will rot away very fast. A willow is very limber as well and getting hung up in one and shaking it around will also spook the fish. Pecan and Persimmon are loose enough with big limbs to fish it very easy and allows the big fish to get inside and hide and will also hold a lot of bait fish.....Ranger