Rayburn report

Attachment 216663Attachment 216664 47 in a 72-quart ice chest. Put six of these out in the Black Forest back in March with bamboo stalks sticking out of the ends of all of the 1/2" PVC. That made each one over fifteen feet across, fifteen feet high. Tie-wrapped bunches of 6-8' bamboo stalks vertically to the pvc pipe in a circle about half way from the center of each. When done each would have made a pretty good duck blind. I'm done cutting willows and dragging and weighting them. This is too easy in comparison: glue together above desired drop site, stick bamboo in pvc pipe-ends, tie-wrap more on the pvc to augment, thread five bricks on bottom pipe, drop. DONE. Besides, they out-produced our willow-only brush piles this past Spring. And not by a small margin. They strapped it on any and all of our wood-only piles. I've done willows since the 70's, and this old dog has learned a new trick: Bamboo/pvc out-fishes wood-only. Four on bottom in a square, then two dropped on top of them in somewhat of a pyramid. Singles of these back in several deep coves in the Spring would produce a limit if allowed to rest for a day or two, but this mega-brushpile out on the main lake did not crank up good until about the last week in May. Thank the Lord that we put so much bamboo on them: Downscan only shows the bamboo and the bricks, the pvc cannot be seen. It would take a very educated eye to identify it as a brush pile. Looks more like fish around shad balls. For that reason it goes unmolested. We got fat off of that hog up until my 90 Merc broke a ring first week in June. Just got it back together and broke in last weekend. Have not been to it all summer. These from 2-4:30, most hitting our minnows aggressively right above the top of the pile, so much so that your line went slack and got coils in it as they came up out of the pile to take them as they dropped. We only had to measure three, the others easily over the 10" size limit. Most 12-14", my (our) best per-fish weight average in forty years of crappie fishing. Our other, smaller piles like these that are not on the main lake are only producing one or two keepers and the rest being 5-8" throw-backs. The big crappie are still out in the main lake as are the shad, the Fall move back "shallow" having not commenced yet.

Great looking cover and a beautiful cooler full of fish! WTG!

where did you pick up the center piece

PM'd you. I don't think the vendor is a sponsor here, so no spam or free adv.

Nice cooler full of crappie. That fish habitat will be their for a long long long time. Thanks for sharing the pictures.

I am most interested in seeing how they weather the wind generated current through the winter that historically has flattened my other piles. With the eight bottom pipes spayed out in all directions all it could do would be to roll on another eight. Not shown in the picture is the one pipe that goes straight down in the center...I'm holding it in my hand. It is the one piece of pipe that has to be cut shorter than the others. That is the pipe that you slide through a few bricks and then glue on a tee to keep them on. We lost much fewer hooks this year too

Just curious, can you see PVC on a down scan image?

Tonykarter can you pm me the info also about the center piece, please! Thanks.

Nice mess of fish. Great post full of details thanks for sharing all of the info. Good luck with you piles this fall and winter.

Randy I cannot draw the pvc on either downscan, sidescan or sonar. I cannot see anything on just your regular high quality sonar, neither the pvc nor the bamboo. You can only barely see the bamboo on sidescan if it is only slightly off to the side, and you will see nothing if more than 30 feet to the side. Idling across it with the big motor the downscan will draw a picture of bamboo leaves which just look like a school of baitfish, but absolutely nothing on the sonar screen. The downscan will show the leaves as being something akin to little pods of individual baitfish, not a white cloud of shad. Going directly over it slowly with the trolling motor the downscan will vaguely draw the stalks of bamboo spayed in all directions with the leaves on the end of the stalks, but not the pvc that holds it there, hence the perception of only little fish to the uneducated, with the stalks perceived as the trails of little fish moving up in the water column that our graphs often display. Unless you already know that it is bamboo what is drawn is not enough to pique the interest of most fishermen. It was a learning process. When we first went back we actually thought someone had grappled them and dragged them off! We had put them out at about 10pm to be stealthy, had fished all day and we were dead tired. Even with great lighting to triangulate and GPS assistance we were not completely sure of their exact location with any level of confidence, especially once we went over them and what was drawn for us did not correspond to anything that we previously recognized as a brush pile. We knew about where they were, but not exactly where. And they did not assist us in relocating them even a little bit. We trolled over the waypoints from several directions and there was just nothing there that we saw that made us throw out a buoy knowing that it was the right place. I tell you how confused we were: On most of them we had to pick up the Carolina rig and drag it around until we felt the weights clunk on the plastic. Thank God for the telegraphing quality of braided line. We dropped a buoy and THEN went back over it to educate ourselves as to what one looked like and what we had to look for to find them. Until more old crappie salts and guides get on to bamboo I think these will be secure for a while from predation, other than being observed over them pulling them over the side. I read somewhere on here that you cannot see pvc on sonar because its density is very near that of water. That is what motivated me to research what was out there in the way of man-made pond and lake habitat and that is when I stumbled across that center piece. We put them out in late Feb, early March. We knew the willows wouldn't sprout for a couple of months, so when we were on the way to the lake I was thinking yaupon or some perineal. However, when I looked over on the side of the boat ramp and was like, "Hey...there is some bamboo...wonder if that would work?" Turns out that was a blessing as it inserts easily into the ends of the pipe, probably much easier than anything else. This is work best done on a pontoon boat as they are quite ungainly. I would not want to try to raise them to re-charge the bamboo next year, probably couldn't get them into the boat without breaking them a bit. Besides, I cannot conceive of a way to easily grapple them to get them to the surface. I'm thinking scuba. Go down, find it, pull bunches down by rope, decorate. I'm ordering another dozen centers and will get started building again in late February. Anyone got a couple of scuba setups for these already in the water?

Interesting Tony, thanks.

Tony, just wondering how critical you think the bamboo is to producing, do think they would be as good with out it. Thinking of giving this a try but don't have a source for anything to add it would just be the pvc pipe. Do you have a pic with one that is all bamboo'ed up just before drop time?

Lonnie, I do not have a picture but I will shoot some next time we build one and post them up. I'll try to capture a sidescan and downscan image if I can figure out how and post it too. I honestly do not know if just the pvc would produce as good without some kind of additional cover. My first blush answer would be that it would produce, but may not hold as many fish and therefore would peter-out quicker. Might need quite a few more in the water to get the same results as fewer with some kind of cover added. I am making this supposition based only on other threads I have read on here: somebody stated in one of the brush pile threads that just pvc will produce as good as wood, but not as good as pvc and wood. I'll be adding to all of mine, and probably will never find out if a naked one is as good. The bamboo grows right off the side of the boat ramp and is just too convenient not to take the nippers and lop some off to stick in the ends of the pvc. That alone really expands the size and surface area. Tie-wrapping a ring of bamboo bunches half way out from the ball to the ends of the pipe somewhat fills in the center, and adds some support to the pipe bases. The centers are a little light, and anything you can do to keep the pipes from flexing upon throwing them over the side of the boat would be a good thing, hence the ring of bamboo bunches. Right now I'm brainstorming a way to use the front pedestal receiver as a mount on which to insert the bottom center pipe which will hold the thing a little higher off the deck and allow it to rotate without the other pipes fouling on the gunwales or center console. (Ask me how I know this.) That way you do not have to thread yourself through the pipes to attach the bamboo. We liked to have killed ourselves getting these decorated before without the thing going over the side prematurely. If you use 5' pipe it spreads the base outside the gunwales and someone has to hold it full time. Using pipe just a foot shorter would be much easier, but we are a little stupid when it comes to easy. When I get that center mount conceived I’ll post up pics of it as well. I sure like her...anchor.

Would you also pm me the info on the center section.
thank you

I would also be interested in knowing where to get the center section.........Thanks

That's a nice catch. Glad I don,t have to mess with those things. I would be in a mess all the time.

Here is the info on the centers. I'll be out of the office for an extended period and may not be able to log on to reply to your PMs wanting the info with which to buy them: HB Pond Management - Porcupine Fish Attractor I didn't want to be a spammer or rep for any company that is not a contributing sponsor of the forum. I bought the dozen deal on just the center ball and bought the pvc locally. Take the ball with you when you go as I found that some 1/2" pvc will not fit into the receptacles. I think the schedule 20 will not fit, and besides, it is too expensive. I think I got the schedule 10? Not sure, but they make a lighter pvc pipe than Schedule 20 and it fits, and it is much less expensive. Cut the 10" sections in half, it uses 27 of them if I remember right. If you have access to a pontoon boat, or can enlist the help of someone who does I highly recommend using it. Once you have one assembled it is a handful to navigate around on any smaller deck to fill it with bamboo. When finished building it with 5ft pieces it takes two men, preferably three to lift it and get it over the side. Good luck.