hi everyone, new to site with questions

Hi, I'm dawgmanx2 (Barry). I've checked out this site many times and have found it to be the best I've seen for crappie info. I have a question concerning placement of crappie PVC structure. I have built over a hundred of these so far and started putting them out not knowing the best way. I'm using 3 gal nursery pales (getting for free) and placing paper from sack Crete to cover holes in bottom. Putting about 20lbs Crete(buying for $3.00 per 80lbs) in each and then putting 7 pieces of 2' PVC in each one. 6 around the perimeter and the last in the center. The center PVC has the coupling at top so i can slide a 10' piece into it marking where it is as I'm placing the others out. I am putting a 3" outdoor type screw in the last 2" of PVC after pre drilling small hole in each to anchor in Crete. I have used 3/4 and 1/2 inch PVC conduit, but now buying 1/2" form Lowe's for $1.07 in 10' lengths. I fish on Kentucky Lake between Eva and Cypress. The water depth in winter pool averages around 6' where I'm putting the structure out. I'm placing 10 pales per spot approx. 4' apart, 2 to a row and 5 rows making a rectangle. Total cost per bed approx. $20.00 (10 pales per bed).
First question; Is this a good way of making the structure?
Second question; Is this enough for each bed or to many?
Third question; Is the shape of a rectangle best design?
Fourth question; How far apart should the beds be from each other?
Last question; Should I bait the beds while putting them out, if so what and how and how often?

Sorry for all the details, but wanted to cover all bases. Don't want to go through all time and effort if better way to do it.

Thanks for any and all help!!!

Dawgmanx2

Welcome from Alabama. I am "Bumping this back to the top so you will get more responses.

It all sounds good to me. The only thing I can say is keep after them and always tweek and adjust to improve your efforts to make habitat for your crappie. It's truly a never-ending process, a way of life. FISH ON.

someone move this to the crappie structure forum...

I find, the less I handle the structure the less TIME I have in it. At this point all I pay for is cement and labor. If I put one bag in each TOP, that's spprox $3.75. I bought about 10,000 feet of broken and damaged PVC. I place 9 "pieces" per TOP. I make/cut the pieces anywhere from 3 feet up to a max of 7 feet. THen I use a 18 qt dishpan that we reuse over and over and we make 10 whenever we pour. We usually place all 10 in a crappie highway. that's 10 TOPS equals 90 PVC pieces and 10 bags of cement.

Rick is that a 40 LB bag of cement and how many of those can you fit on the boat at a time? I've got 4 made so far and am looking to make 2 more today to inplace this weekend.

no, those are 80 pound sacks in the bases. I put 5 in my boat and my partner puts 5 in his.

Here's 6 on my boat. I think it's 6...

good lookin stuff

How do you get them overboard? You just toss them or do you use another metod. I have 7 made now and am thinking of making three more and implacing them this weekend.

i pick them up and toss them out. I do arrange some buoy markers first.

hey rick "crappie hiway"
does that mean all in a row
if so do you try and keep the same depth or up/down a ledge

thanks
al

Dawgman, welcome to the conversation. Sounds like you are doing a good job with your pvc structure. I build some that way myself, it's a lot cheaper than the porcupine.

It sounds like you put enough out in one spot. Most people put out a little bitty pile and expect to go catch a limit off it.

It sounds like where you are putting it is only going to work in spring though. That's where you said you are putting it in 6'.

I can't tell where you are from your post or profile, but unless you fish privat water or something like a shallow oxbow you probably need to be fishing around 25 to 30 ft this time of year. I reread your post and see it's Ketucky Lake. Is the 6' depth good there now?

What do I know, my freezer is completely out of crappie filets. Maybe I'll try the 6' water. LOL

sac-a-lait, you answered a previous post of mine in fine style. I plan on using tapered tubs so I can pop them out and reuse the tubs. I would think that if they were spread out underwater like they are spread around your yard, the crappiewould move in and call their couzins. A friend told me he had lots of old pvc that I could have. Now that I have a solid idea, i'm gonna go load up thanx y"all.

Hi, and thanks for your help, Lord knows I need all I can get.

Hi EarlG, I am fishing Kentucky Lake area between Eva and Cypress Creek. The depth in the channels in winter pool averages around 6' deep. I have not found any deeper water in that area without getting into the Tennessee River and with the barge traffic there, try to avoid. I put around 30 of these pails in the boat at one time and with that type of weight don't want to take chance of getting swamped!! I hope to find some deeper areas, but I'm just getting started putting beds out and decided to start where we wish mostly in the spring and work from there. If you or anyone knows of deeper water in that area that would be good, please let me know.

Thanks for your response sac-a-lot. I made the first 50 or so with 80lbs in 5 gal. buckets. Then found the 3 gal. pales from the nursery's and went to about 20 lbs. each. I hope that this is enough weight for the area's I'm putting them in, about 6' deep. I still don't understand when you are putting yours out how far apart they should be and what type of configuration you make with them. Is 4' between them enough, or to much? And is a rectangle the best or some other type? Thanks again for your help.

the blue line is the water line. I put out approx 4 buoys 15 to 20 feet apart in length and about no more than 10-15 feet wide. The the tops go in near the buoys, etc and I get a general idea of what it will look like underwater. Sometimes you won't be able to do all this bet bet then is arrange them on your boat from front to back and then drop them over both sides...

Something else you can do to make sure where the condo's are setting is tie a marker bouy to each one using a real light line. You can break the bouy loose after marking the exact spot where it settled. This helps when you don't have enough hands to help set out the brush. So use bouys where you would like to set them and the tied on bouys where you actually set them cause them buggers are hard to find sometimes. Ferdi aka Fred

Quote:

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Originally Posted by sac-a-lait

the blue line is the water line. I put out approx 4 buoys 15 to 20 feet apart in length and about no more than 10-15 feet wide. The the tops go in near the buoys, etc and I get a general idea of what it will look like underwater. Sometimes you won't be able to do all this bet bet then is arrange them on your boat from front to back and then drop them over both sides...

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Your condos look very good. Have you made any modifications to them since you saw Mr Ernest' condos with the shade arms on them? I was just wondering if you ever considered putting some kind of shade on the center pvc pipe?

Barry, thanks for coming bye the other day and taking a look at my new beds.

give me a call holler sometime and we'll wet a hook.

thanks,


RangerEdd

Welcome from Indiana

PS
The coffee pot is on

I am a firm believer in small spots, little, tucked out of the way, smart a$$ places. If you make 20 small ones, they are a lot less likely to be found, than one huge one, that everybody will see you on. Also, the bigger it is, the longer it takes to fish....longer you are there..more likely to get caught fishing there...now it belongs to everyone...kinda of my way of thinking. It will also teach you which areas to put them in. Spread them out and pay attention to EXACTLY the conditions that made it a good spot and then it is easier to repeat. and if they were going in 6 feet of water and in the channel, I sure wouldn't build them over 4 feet tall. boats will hit them. I realize that you are putting them in at low water, but if the lake comes up 5 feet, that still has them 4 ft tall in 11 ft, which is plenty,,,,until the spawn and then the fish will go shallow anyway...... several ifs and excepts.......thats why you make a bunch of smaller ones,.

:)hi dawgmanx2 I am new to the website @ i have lots of questions as i am from minnesota.crappie structures have not caught on up here as much as it has in the south.we have a little trouble with DNR thoughts on putting out cribs.this web is becoming very interesting. capt.ron