These beds are so good that fish will come out of the water to get in 'em!
http://i149.photobucket.com/albums/s...0/stakebed.jpg
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These beds are so good that fish will come out of the water to get in 'em!
http://i149.photobucket.com/albums/s...0/stakebed.jpg
Those are outstanding!
They look great! Have fun sinking them.
We've sunk over 300 of them. A little concrete goes a long way. All the way to the bottom.
my first impression is it looks great...my second thought is that it looks like it weighs a ton. Throw in the concrete to sink it and my third thought is theres no way I could get it on the water and get it overboard in my jon boat.
Must take a big boat to put them out????
We used to use a 20' jon boat but we put our heads and money together and bought an old 28' pontoon boat and stripped it down. Now its a floating work platform. We equipped it with rollers to slide the beds out.
How deep is the water where you sink those???
And how long does it take to attract crappie???
Good fishing.............
sixfin,
Those look fantastic. I have found a few of them and they hold fish better than anything I have ever fished. You guys have got a great operation putting those out. Thanks for helping the fish find some new homes. I like the pontoon setup. Are you still using the crown stapler ? I was wandering if you can get stainless staples in the 7/16 ? Hard work pays off !!!!
How big is the fish ?
They even look better the second time I looked at them than the first, and they looked awfully good the first.
Hey there Sixfin,Is that rough cut oak that those are built out of? What are the dimensions, height of the stakes, ect.
I think that I saw pics of your barge. I have access to buying one cheap and I am serious about building the same set-up.
Exactly what are you building them with, galvanized staples, screws or what?
How much weight does it take to sink one that size?
300.......all I can say is WOW! You deserve to catch a ton of fish.
ifish,
We looked at using SS staples but they were very expensive. We are using galvanized right now and we are going to see how they hold up.
Crappietexan,
We have went back after a week and caught fish out of them. They seem to produce better the first year that we put them out. You can still catch fish after a year but that first year produces so much better. I guess they like having something new around.
slabbandit,
The frame is made out of rough cut sawmill oak and the uprights are poplar. The bed is 4'x8' and the stakes are 40" tall. We put about 175 lbs on them when we sink them. We've had them float before and thats no fun.
ifish,
That fish in the picture weighed in at 2.74 lbs. I've caught two that big but I can't seem to catch a 3#er. Any suggestions?
Good looking beds.I'am sure they catch a lot of fish.
hello.....i saw a large open pontoon come across from the benton county side with a large bed on it last fall.....was that you fellas.???? it looked like you have a very good operation on dumping those large beds....Quote:
Originally Posted by sixfin
Hey sixfin,
What are the size of your boards? You said the poplar upright were 40" tall and the oak frame was 4'x8'; the poplar boards look to be 1.5" thick x 4" wide and the oak boards look to be 1" thick x 6" wide.
Those are some awesome looking beds?? Great work!!
Thanks,
Great Idea!!!!
I like that design!!!!!!!!!!
Stan:)
Nice looking bed and it sounds like you have a good set up for sinking them. That thing would sink my boat!
The poplar uprights are 40" tall and 1 1/2" wide. The frame boards are true 1x 4's. We place the uprights every 16" apart. I will start a new post and show pictures of the pontoon and how the beds set on there.
Fishnline,
I used to put these out by myself with a 14' jon boat. Only thing was, you had to make sure there was no wind. Found that out the hard way. It's a good thing they put flotation in those boats. I could only do three a day by myself but with the setup we have now we have put out up to 40 beds in one day but that was a full day with six guys working at a pretty good pace. Plus we use a generator with a compressor and pnuematic staple guns and nailers.
Awesome beds sixfin. I put a similar but smaller version in my pond and they work great.
Good looking bed. They look like they'll last awhile.
We build similar matts. Ours are built with thinner lumber though. We have about 450 of them out. We use 8 used concrete blocks to sink them. We have a 20 ft alum boat with a conveyor on the front and push it off when we get it where we want it. These last a long time. We have some that are 12-15 years old and we have begun to restake them by driving stakes . These matts are fun to fish as everything is vertical. Very few hangups.36-48 " stakes are good.
NIMROD has access to a nearby cedar sawmill and has started building some out of cedar slabs. Anybody got any experience with how long the cedar boards will last out there?:confused:
Slabbandit , my guess is heart (red) cedar lumber should out last most wood. The fasteners is what I worry lasting. I priced SS nails and screws , the sticker price scared me off.:eek: Galvenized nails ain't real cheap either . We need to get organized to build some more.:D
When Greer's Ferry first filled up in the early 60's the cedars were the crappie and bass hotspots. They lasted a lot of years.
Hey NIMROD, I'm in for building the stake beds. What do you think we should use for nailing them together?
Galvenized or stainless would definitely last longer. I can get all the wood we need. We can use blocks or buckets of rocks for weights. I have access to a bunch of 5 gallon buckets ,just need to clean out the oil.:D Now we just need time ,maybe we could build them in my shop in the evenings. Don't waste fishing time right now.;) Your buddies that you keep taking out could help possiably ? Mine can furnish buckets and all the wood. We still need some type of fasteners (nails or screws).
I can't believe it. The slabs are already hang in there
I love the big Dodge Ram I'm wip my wife said know way
Thanks for all the good information! I too was wondering what you guys were using as fasteners?
slab,
We put the 4' uprights on with 2" staples. We got the idea from the place we get the uprights. They use them to build pallets with. I know its hard to believe but those big staple have more holding power than screws or nails. We tested all three and the staples proved stronger by far. And they don't split the wood. We were having to predrill them to keep them from splitting but not now. We bought some big pnuematic staplers and it is so easy now. As far as putting the runners on the 8' boards, we use a pnuematic framing nailer. We tried galvanized screws but they kept breaking when trying to screwing them in. The screws are so thin that they would sometimes break while going down the lake to drop the bed. Hope this helps. If you have anymore questions, please feel free to ask.
The picture of the bed at the first of this post was built using all nails. This was before we found out about the stapler. The stapler we use is a Porter Cable MS200. It shoots a 7/16" x 2" staple.