Performance Testing of Natural Brush Pile, Bamboo, and PVC Condo's
Just thought i would post what I have been running as a TEST for a little over a year.
The test has been about the perforance of Natural Brush Piles (Sunk'n Tree's) vs Bamboo vs PVC (Plastic Tubing of various kinds). Basicly testing which structure holds more fish, and the winner by a large margin was Natural Brush Piles. I have about 20-25 locations of Bamboo, 8-10 PVC, and 15-20 Natural Tree's Structures. Although I caught fish on ALL of these types of Structure, after a little over a year of testing in Texas, the Bamboo and PVC would only hold 1-3 fish per structure. On the Natural Tree Brush Piles, I could pull up and catch 20-25 Crappie from a nive brush pile. There is a major difference in these piles, in the ability to hold fish. So I have been testing for over a year, wanting to concentrate my efforts to producing the best quality brush piles that would hold the most crappie.
The results does NOT go along with my wishing which structure would test the best. PVC and Bamboo for both easier to work with, get to the lake and sunk. Both are much harder to find, with PVC being net to impossible to find after a couple of months in the water. I really like the idea of these being harder to find.
PVC & Plastic Condo's
PVC and Plastics basically go stealth after being in the water for a couple months and getting a good growth of alge on them. I could not get a reading on the PVC or Plastic Condos after sinking them for some months. I have a HDS-10 with Side Scan, and Down Scan, and they just disappeared to my SI, DI, and Sonar. Would MARK them when I put them out, go back and look for the firsst coupe weeks, and could see them, but after they grew Alge, they were gone. Took a Grappling Hook to the location and was able to fish them out, showing that they were there, but invisable. Again, the waas Ok, because I like the fact that once they were in the water for a couple of months, NOBODY was going to find my structure. Plus, after dragging a few up with the Grappling Hook, I attached a plasticainted bootle on to a few of the PVC Structures and I could see them. So in testing I loved the ease of building PVC Structures and putting them out. Even made thm eaasier to find, and the painted bottle just looked like a smale wad of bait fish in the water. But the bottom line was they just didn't hold enough fish to make it worth while. I have NEVER caught more than 2-3 crappie off of my PVC Structures.
Bamboo Structures
The Bamboo Structure was the most depressing of all. After hearing that Bamboo would hold up in the water as much as twice as long as natural Strucutures, and having a plentiful supply of Bamboo, I thought I had the ticket to holding crappie. Bamboo is harder to see with SI than Natural Structures. They can be found, but are harder to see anything but a faint shadow on SI. Now, once found DI and Sonar will light up the structure, and allow you to see clearly. It is also very easy to work wit, get to the lake, and sunk. But as with the PVC, it just doesn't hold fish as good as Natural Structures. We started out putting bamboo stalks in buckets very thick, and making them 10'-15' tall, but these were hard to fish. To thick to fish down inside the structure, and if you ever got in the boo, you couldn't get fissh out without them wrapping you around other branches. So we decide to cut back on the amount of Bamboo in a bucket, and went to using 5 - 6'-7' pieces of Boo per bucket. This worked out very well. We could ange the stacks outward, and create a 1' diameter bucket. We also put 3 buckets out per location, creating about a 25' diameter. We were REAL excited about the idea, and worked out very well for being able to fish the structure. But still the same problem as the PVC. Crappie just didn't take to the Bamboo. We would catch a 2-3 off of a structure, but no more. Then we would only catch the 2-3 crappie off of every 2-3 Boo Piles. Again very depressing.
Natural Brush Piles (Cedar, Oaks, and Willows)
These were the hardest by far to put out and sink. I don't really like the christmas trees due to having to add to them every year or two, due to rotting so quickly. I like the Oak best, but willow is pretty good. Basically any kind of natural tree works. I trim my trees every year, and hauling them to the lake to sink. I have also got to asking people with lake frony property, when I see them fishing from their docks, and working in their year. To same trees and limbs they cut, giv them my Cell # for a call when they need a pile cleaned up. Just stack it up by the lake. I have had a couple of people want to cut down a tree, so I will cut it for them. I really like this. I have cut a couple of nice trees down, cut the top out of it (top 15' of the tree), slip a rope around a lower brach, and drag it out into the water. Pull the Tree Top to the location (15'-20' of water), let one end of the rope go, and down she goes. This type of structure, I can pull up to, on many occasions, and catch my limit without move to another spot. Smaller Brush Piles like limbs and such, I keep adding to them until I can build a 5'-6' high Brush Pile about 10'-15' in diameter. Can put up to a Brush Pile like this, and catch 8-10 crappie, plus these types of Brush Piles, always have a few on them even if I fish them the day before and pul good numbers off of them. They are easily found and basically Glow In The Dark on any Sonar, SI or DI units around. I will pull up to them every now and then and someone will be fishing it. But such is Public Lake Fishing.
During the next winter, I will be going back to ALL my locations with PVC, and Bamboo, and tossing Natural Cover on top of them. This was not the results I had hoped for when beginning my test over a year ago, but result is what I wanted, and what I found. The lakes I used for testing has quiet a bit for Timber, so it has lay down, and nartural cover all ready. So this may have some effect on the result. Lakes, that don't have much timber or cover in the water may be a little different, with the fact that ANY structure is better than NO structure, so result may differ due to lake conditions. But as for my 3 lakes used in the testing, this was the results of over a year of testing. Not the results I had HOPE for, but the results just the same. I guess now I can get about my Brush Pile building, taking full advantage of my effort. Don't mind saying, there has been a LOT of structure building in vain in the last year. This winter we will correct that problem.
keith
