Sinking Trees?!

What's the best way to anchor a 7' Christmas tree to the bottom of the lake?

I was thinking of drilling a hole in the base and running wire through it and then wrap the wire around a cinder block at the base and drop the tree over to let it sink. The base is about 4'to 5" thick and I was wondering if only one block would hold it down.

Also is it better to have them standing up or laying on their side?

I have about ten trees to put out. How many should I put in each area I want the fish to gather? I will be dropping them near drop offs close to creek channels in about 15' to 20' of water.

Any ideas or suggestions are helpful.

We use lay down Christmas trees for shallow water, this is for fry and minnows to survive after the spawns...for deeper water, and for Crappie to use, they need to be upright...you can tie them to blocks with nylon rope, etc, or vinyl coated cable and clamps....we went the cable and clamp route because we have a dam that we had to take into consideration.
You can also run 4 bolts into the bottom of the tree and set in a bucket of cement, or use another type of cement base!
Our group set out several thousands of Christmas Trees over the 8 yrs we worked on our lake, and used them in various configurations.

We drill a hole thru base of tree and attach 1-2 blocks according to size of tree .

I just cut off the lower branches to about 10" and slide the trunk through the block until the cut branches make their way through the block. Now that it's locked in place, slide it in the water. You don't get much choice how they land, but they seem to hold fish.

I try to stand them in a group in line or circle up to 4 feet away from each other. Tie a cotton cord, kite string and a plastic bottle to the top so I know where each is located. It will take a few trips to shore to drop a lot of trees. After I finish I cut the bottles off.

As Intimidator said, with literally several thousand "C" trees and sundry various other types of both natural and artificial attractors under our belt you`ll have to pardon if we sound like `experts`...

Hopefully we do not come off as "Know-it-alls"....we are just trying to help anyone else avoid the mistakes we made, and learn what we have discovered at our lake....we just want to help people build and place cover to improve their fishing or their fishery...hopefully we have learned a few helpful things in 8 yrs, that we can pass along!:)
The only real difference in our experiences are if you are fishing "Gin Clear" waters...but I have worked on a few Mountain pit ponds in SC also!

Oh I for one appreciate the tips and info!
I will be using the double cinder blocks and tie two to each tree then tie a 12" piece of foam tubing noodle to keep it upright and then loosely tie another 12" of foam to float to surface so I can see where it comes to rest, then I will pull the string loose to remove the floating foam and mark my location. I will place 4-5 trees in each loaction then give them a few weeks and try them out.
Thanks again for all the help!
Attachment 184299

To give you an idea just how well ours turned out, our 1st drop was in mid March, SW Ohio; ice had just come off the lake. Terry Judy our dropper comes by and looks at the 1st spot, fish alarm on his sonar on. He makes a pass to orientate himself and "splashes the 1st 8 "C" trees on his second pass from 8 to 15 fow in a line. He distinctly remembered marking 2 small fish. 30 minutes later with the next 8 "C" trees he again does an orientation pass to line up for "splash" #2 when his fish alarm starts going off like a broken alarm clock. He makes another pass and drops them, comes back and insists that go back with him. He makes another orientation pass and I`m estatic, thinking we just found the "Mother Lode" of fish ! He quite calmly tells me "No, we just MADE the `Mother Lode` of fish !" With an ultra light and jig he managed to hook and throw back 6 fish in under 5 minutes that weren`t apparently even there 1 hr previously...

On the Christmas trees do i need to wait for the needles to fall off before sinking?

Sink them asap...the needles make no difference....the longer you wait the more mess they make at your house!:)

Sank some of them last night! Look pretty on the SI...
Attachment 184898
Had a mess of needles in the boat but they all blew out on the ride home. :cheers2

Will be dropping the rest soon. Will try to post a scan of them. Want to put six in a row!

If this area works out for you then go ahead and add some other stuff later....the big benefit of Christmas trees are they are so dense and growing Crappie love them. It has been reported that the pine resin drives fish away, but we have NEVER seen that, usually within 15 minutes there are fish on them...I also believe that fresh Christmas trees with sap will last longer than dried ones, I think the sap helps prtect the SOFT wood from the water so it doesn't degrade as fast...the downside of dried out Christmas trees is that they degrade faster than anyother type of wood that we have used and according to the type of water, you will just have the main trunk left in 1-4 yrs.

I don't know about your situation in Texas, but we have found that Hardwood Evergreen Shrubs do the same job and last ALOT longer.
In our experiences, If the cover is properly placed, Crappie will use the dense cover as home bases and part of their "Pattern Movement Highways". Once they get BIG, they will start using other Large Cover like stumps, etc, to ambush and feed. The Largest Crappie at our lake will spend alot of their time "Free Swimming" in the lake following the Large Schools of Shad, and when they are full will again use some of the cover to safely rest.

If you are interested in making yourself a continuous "honey-hole" that re-supplies itself with fish, you can put some piles of laydown Christmas trees, brush blocks, etc, in the nearby shallow water....this gives the fry some place to hide, eat, and grow after the spawn. These will also be home to baitfish, micro-organisms, craws, etc..this is the basic food chain "on a platter"....then out where you are now, continue with the dense cover....then in another area, add less dense, larger diameter cover, like a 6" PVC stump, Big diameter limbs, PVC trees, etc, etc, make sure it is closer to their feeding area (near by flats, etc), you can also sprinkle cover between all of these areas and make a highway for them to use between all of the "Main" areas....all you really have to understand is how the fish use the area you have chosen in different seasonal patterns, and place your cover to adjust their behavior....fish are opportunistic, if you make their life easier, they will adapt...what you have done with this is given the fish everything they need in a smaller area and contained them throughout their lives, or until you fry them up!:)

In Indiana you have to get a permit and pay a $100 fee to sink any structure in a public lake.

According to the DNR "Discarding a Christmas tree on a private pond is at the owner’s discretion, but doing so on a public freshwater lakes is governed by the Lake Preservation Act (Indiana Code 14-26-2) and Indiana Administrative Code (312 IAC 11-4-7). Those two laws stipulate that a license from the DNR is needed to construct or place a fish attractor in a public freshwater lake. To qualify, the fish attractor must be anchored to ensure proper setting and must not be placed in a channel, a beach area, near the lake surface or in an area that would adversely affect public safety and navigation, or adversely affect the natural resources or natural scenic beauty.
Three DNR divisions – Fish & Wildlife, Law Enforcement, and Water – have a role in reviewing and approving a permit request for placement of a fish attractor. If approved, the permit carries a $100 fee and requires the permit holder to remove any portion or portions of the fish attractor that become unattached.
The administrative rule (312 IAC 11-4-7) was enacted in 1999 by the Indiana Natural Resources Commission in response to requests for permission to submerge cars and other large objects, including an airplane."

I guess I won't be sinking my airplane any time soon.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by crappiewisdom

In Indiana you have to get a permit and pay a $100 fee to sink any structure in a public lake.

According to the DNR "Discarding a Christmas tree on a private pond is at the owner’s discretion, but doing so on a public freshwater lakes is governed by the Lake Preservation Act (Indiana Code 14-26-2) and Indiana Administrative Code (312 IAC 11-4-7). Those two laws stipulate that a license from the DNR is needed to construct or place a fish attractor in a public freshwater lake. To qualify, the fish attractor must be anchored to ensure proper setting and must not be placed in a channel, a beach area, near the lake surface or in an area that would adversely affect public safety and navigation, or adversely affect the natural resources or natural scenic beauty.
Three DNR divisions – Fish & Wildlife, Law Enforcement, and Water – have a role in reviewing and approving a permit request for placement of a fish attractor. If approved, the permit carries a $100 fee and requires the permit holder to remove any portion or portions of the fish attractor that become unattached.
The administrative rule (312 IAC 11-4-7) was enacted in 1999 by the Indiana Natural Resources Commission in response to requests for permission to submerge cars and other large objects, including an airplane."

I guess I won't be sinking my airplane any time soon.

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In Ohio, we had to have our 2200 acre, 8 year "Project", OK'd by the ODNR Division of Wildlife and Fish Biologist, ODNR Park Management, And Army Corp of Engineers....we just had to run the general locations past the Fish Biologist for approval.
In Ohio, it is illegal to swim anywhere other than marked swimming areas in State Lakes, so we were OK there, we really had no shallow Navigational areas to worry about, and we knew the Main Boat Ramps, Walleye netting areas, and Dam area were "Off-Limits"....that left us with ALOT of water to fill with cover!
No fees were required, because the ODNR knows that having fishermen do this saves them Huge amounts of $$$...and they all realize what a Benefit it is to a lake!

The Knowledge of the lake, by those who participated really helped...We placed shallow cover around most of the lake for spawning purposes, etc, and just filled entire areas with cover designed for those areas and certain purposes. We have cover on Flats, drop-offs, in trenches, creek channels, road beds, etc.
The cover was designed and added to help the overall lake and not the fishermen (per say).
We needed to improve a diminishing fishery and help provide stability so we didn't see so many "ups and downs" or "cycles"....the lake was pretty much barren of any natural cover from the early 70's, and all of the vegetation had been killed during the major drawdowns for the Main Boat Ramp and Marina. Bass, Walleye, and Perch populations were way down, and Crappie populations were stunted.
Now along with the added thousands upon thousands of pieces of cover the vegetation is coming back...things are looking REAL good for us!:):):)

And yes, we do have the "0-dark thirty" guys who continue to add to the lake under the cover of darkness...most of these guys are adding their own honey holes....they also know if they get busted, they can be punished to the full extent of the law.
Please check your local REGS. before you add cover to a State Waterway or Lake!

The spot I put the trees in was already a crappie honey hole where many fisherman try their luck at catching a few on the lake. There used to be trees there from before. I know because I saw some schmuck pull up to me fishing and use his anchor there and when he pulled up he yanked the dead disintegrating tree up with the anchor. I mentioned to them that they should look at buying a trolling motor so they don't mess up the fishing spot again. They didn't seem to care much and drove off. Of course the fish were all gone after that so I had to move.
I just added the trees back that were there before.
Anothre scan I made shows trees I dropped but I also dropped three PVC "porcupines" near the end of the line of trees. You can't really see the pvc balls but they are there and will compliment the trees for the future.
I still have eight more trees to sink and am looking for the best spots. I may drop 6 in one area deep to hold them when they close to spawn and a single tree in two other places close to shore for spawn. I will post scans when I do.
Thanks for all the great inputs!

Actually. to act as "nurseries" you want the needles on for the densest cover possible . (btw, DO NOT ever try to `flash burn` the needles off; it`s like trying to burn off a single cup off of a whole gallon of gasoline; it just "DON`T" work very well- been there, tried that...) Sink with needles on. The needles will naturally fall off in about 8 months. The 2cnd year underwater is when the trees will best produce...most "C" trees will last between 4-6 yrs or more depending on the type of tree (cedars last longest followed by spruces), type of body of water, how deep they are placed, and how they are rigged...good luck sir and make us proud ! You too will learn the POWER of the "C" tree...

Thanks alot that it alot of info I was looking for. I'm ready to get them set and start slaying them there is nothing any more fun to do!

I use bucket filled with alittle under halfway of cement to sink christmas trees. it takes alot of work at home.. but when you get to the lake, it only takes seconds to sink all the trees you can carry on your boat. and they all sink upright aswell(pretty much like the stern of the titanic ship). the fishfinder even confirms that they are standing upright at the bottom of the lake.. planning to go back out and check on them.

Sank a few trees today only got a pic of one and it actually stood up! Let's see how long that lasts. Attachment 185535

Sir, with 1/2 bucket of cement (unless it gets fouled by an anchor) it`s going to be upright until the tree decays away...in VERY heavily anchored or pressured spots drill 1/2" holes on the rim of the bucket and insert 1/2" OD (outside diameter) 36" long PVC pipe 90 degrees to each other. Short of a US Navy guided missile frigate dropping her anchor directly on top of it, it`s STAYING at least at a 45 degree angle if not completely upright. This is also a cunning way to help attractors "stay" in place on relatively steep grades...been there, done that; still have the "t" shirt.

JMart, that looks like a great spot to put a tree! The crappie will stack up there at all depths depending on the weather! Good job on placing!

Agreed. But BETTER yet, imagine a whole row of those cute little signals about evenly spaced going up that inclined slope, like a staircase, so that regardless of the fishies` daily temperature/ light/ type of prey preference lo and behold, there`s cover and probably FOOD (prey) already waiting there...

nice pic and diagrams