New "boo buckets"

After making the 'boo buckets', how long does the qwikcrete need to cure before they are sunk? Planning on making a batch of ~15' buckets to drop soon. Also, is ~15' about right for 25' of water?
thnx

I give'um 2 days but I make'um soupy. Make sure u drop a cedar at each spot u drop your boo. this attracks small fish which in turn attracks big fish. Just my opinion.

Two days will do it. If they are 15' tall be sure to fill the buckets with sacrete, to keep them from being top heavy and falling over.

I was hoping to make them early one morning and them drop them off late that night. Is that too soon? I've always had qwikcrete set up in a half a day when I've used it before with other projects. hmm...

thanks

btw. I'm looking forward to making alot of boo buckets. The house I just bought has a lot of bamboo on the property. I've only been there two weeks and i've already had an asian family ask me if they could harvest my bamboo shoots in the spring!

agrihawg...If you set them in later that day plan on something going wrong with the
set cement"...I don't touch mine till at least 48 hours...JMO

tenncrappie...You don't think the lil fish are attracted to the boo? You add another type of wood at the site you drop your boo condos?

Thanks for the advice. Hopefully my learning curve won't be too steep. The past few days, I've read a lot of the structure posts that were put on here during the past year.

I been reading alot too, but here in Michigan we don't have boo!. I am gonna work with PVC. Getting lots of ideas, thank you all.

Cheers.

I just do whats worked for me before in the waters around here. I'm no pro just what works for this hillbilly from Tennessee. Hope I haven't offended anyone.

Hey Tenncrappie you certainly didn't offend me. Hope I didn't come across the wrong way I was just asking a question...Gave me an idea od dropping a boo condo with pvc stuff to make it natural off the get go. Thanks for your idea. Never really thought of it.

If you can get the quikcrete in the water with an initial set, they WILL set up just like above the waterline. It's hard t believe, I know, but...

When we repair our lock and dam walls (at the Corps of Eng) we have DRY quikcrete lowered to our divers on pallets! They pour the DRY stuff directly in cracks they wish to fill, right from the sack, after they have formed the crack up so it will hold the powder. (It pours underwate just like it does in the air)

You can make 'em up at the camp site in the afternoon and by the next morning, they can be put into action. BUT, if I had the time, I would wait longer.

When they are "green" they just have to be handled with ease. The handles on 5 or 3 gal buckets come in handy for setting them into place, using a 1/2" nylon rope and an "S" hook on one end will do it.

You're gonn catcha BUNCH o' fish, pal.

aj

It's a lot easier than tryin' to sink wood pallets! Today, I was working by myself with three pallets nailed together with plumber's tape. I had a bag of quikcrete that had set up on me in the shop, so I figured that would do it. WRONG!

It did NOT sink. I fooled around with it for a while and finally I lost the bag of hardened cement. Tried weighting it with flat rocks from the bank---impossible tryin' to do it by me onesies. So I trolled the bandits, marking brush piles and drop-offs as I found 'em.

I thought that concrete would cure underwater, but wasn't positive. Seems like the Hoover Dam was curing for several years.

Were gonna shoot for 36 hours dry time before we drop them. Can't wait any longer and get them dropped this weekend. I'll try to get some pictures.

I drill holes in the bottom of the bucket to let the excess water out....
Leave at lleast 48 hrs before sinking em.....
My 2 cents.........

If you put a big piece of bamboo in the center when building your buckets you can use that to pick up and handle the tops easier. If the concrete isn't really dry the bamboo will pull out of the green cement. Waiting 2 days is best.

I agree Spiderman that you have to wait long enough for the concrete to not pull out.

How long can you work with the bamboo before it dries out or turns brown??

We made the buckets Saturday and dropped them today (Sunday). Didn't have any trouble (other than running out of gas). They really look good on the depth finder. Hopefully most of them will produce. We dropped 3 buckets at each location, and dropped at 5 locations.

Here is a shot of the buckets we made. They look a little thin in the photos, but they were actually really bushy. We used at least 12 sticks of bamboo per bucket. What do you think?

http://i538.photobucket.com/albums/f...g/P1010169.jpg

I posted this picture in the Arkansas forums, but thought I would share it here too. Scrapper, my dad, and I fished these bamboo crappie condos on 11/26/08 and caught 25 crappie. 3 buckets at a location, with 5 different locations. We caught crappie on all 5 spots. This was the first time we got to fish the bamboo condos we made. They still look great on the depth finder and even better we caught a good mess of fish off of them.

http://i538.photobucket.com/albums/f...g/P1010195.jpg

I have got to make some condos! The cane around here is not that tall. How did you fish them?

We fished the boo condos with a slip bobber, basically fished by the side of the boat. Used minnows on #4 hooks.

Nice catch. I sank my first condos back in the spring... well atleast most of the condos sank. I poured the crete in the bickets about 5 the evening before, and put in the boo and waited till morning. I guess the boo wollered itself a little loose. When dumped overboard, about half of each condo floated back to the surface by the time we got back with the next batch of condos to be dropped. :(

But we still caught a couple of fish off of them

it's funny that what one guys swears is the only way to do something, is what the next guy will tell you to never do.

LMBarnett, there are a couple of possibilities causing your problem. One is it could be the concrete wasn't set enough. (I'm sure you're thought of that) The other might or might not be an issue. When you cut the 'boo, make sure to cut directly below one of the "knuckles". Because it's bigger at that point, it should help keep the 'boo from sliding out of the 'crete.