Building Brush Piles

[Mid-MO]

Just curious to see some ideas on what everyone uses (tree type, weights, rope/wire, etc).  I saw  a pretty good idea the other day - a guy uses old pallets, weights them down with cinder blocks and ties some limbs to them.  Seems to be a pretty good idea.  Any others?

[Al Wolbach]

I have access to wooden cable spools that heavy electrical cable comes wrapped around. I fill the center with concrete attach some limbs and place in lake. Warning, this is not approved everywhere, permits may be required.......Al

[Snakemover]

You could wait until after Christmas, go around and collect a few trees from the curbs and toss them in. I saw a couple of trees tied together with a cinder block in 3' of water. The lake is currently 3' below full pond. When it's back to full pond, those tress should be a bass magnet.

[Low_Budget_Hooker]

Use search option on this one, some real in-depth articles in the archives

[Mid-MO]

Where are you searching - on the mesage boards?  I  tried that last night and again just now (using the white box in the upper right hand corner).  This post is the only thing that has come up.  Am I not looking in the right spot?

Thanks

[Matt Fly]

Good morning,

 What a way to wake up, brush piles where in my dreams last night, been in full production for the last two weeks.    My partner and I are preparing for the late summer and fall opens on Lake Fork.      

First off, cinder blocks cost like a buck eighty-eight a piece.     And that adds up quick if you want a few piles out.     Sacrete, 80 lb bag is around 2.88 @ Home Depot.  Just add water.   Makes 7-8 good weights.

I use the one gallon plaster buckets to make weights in, let them dry and turn them over, give'm a tap on bottom and you have nice weights and no plastic goes in the water, and their re-usable.    I cut coat hangers for eyelets on the weights.       Home Depot has a roll of wire, like bailing wire for 4.oo bucks and change.  

Different woods will deteriorate at different rates.    Xmas trees will not last as long as your hardwoods, therefore, we like a mixture of brush.     Willie and I have found that any green leaved tree native to Tx works, but we like Oak because of its long-givity, willows, because it weeps in the water for you, (spreads out in slow current nicely.     Cedar and Xmas trees because they are tight and allow bait fish places to hide better.

The fresher, the better!!!!!!!!!!   I like to cut and go.    Do not let the leaves dry out another words.     The greener the leaves, the more shade and flow you get under the water from the leaves.      

We use hardwoods for the base, oak, hickory that spreads out like a "Y".    We cut other branches and wire them on to differnt spots on the base as we place them out.    

Easy, cheap, and they will hold fish immediately.    Some people tell you it will take a month to draw fish.     I say not so.     Have you ever seen lakes rise above pool level.    Ever see anyone fishing the "newly flooded vegitation or bushes with success.    A bass will gravitate to the newly brush if place in the right area.

Willie and I have pulled fish off our piles within a week.   Good luck, and remember, hard work pays off for those who work at it.

Hookem

Matt

[gatrboy53]

i cut 6-8'' dia. scrub oaks 4' long trim the limbs off on one side and tie tire rims w/ coaxial cable to each end.these are quite heavy but stay in place good. cost zero

[Raul]

Before dumping anything in your lake be shure it 's legal, some places have boating regulations that do not allow placing objects.

[Shad_Master]

There is an older guy (older than me that is) that I fish with some time and he has been tracking the lakes around here for a long time.  He used to carry an electric chain saw in his boat and would actually cut the trees on the water, letting them fall along the break lines.  He also carried several sand bags and would drop these to anchor them down.  We fished a tournament together about a month  ago and hammered large bass (17" to 20") off of his brush piles that had been there for 10 years or more.

[Pond Hopper]

Take 3 pallets and make a triangle.  THen take some old weights(barbell/dumbell) and tie them to the pallets.  THen shove a xmas or other small tree in the pallets with some holes cut in the tree and pallets.  Gives the fish somewhere to hide with escape routes.   Easy to put together and cheap.

[CoRy]

Our lakes are full of old christmas trees cemented into 5 gallon buckets.  They count for most of the structure.  Since the lake was low, the edges had water weeds, i dont know what kind, all around it that hold bass early morning and late at night.  Then they move off into deeper water to the trees.  

[jtbassman]

I like to take old five gallon buckets, inside put your brush of choice, fill it up with Quikrete, dump it in.

It's a fast efficient way of making brushpiles.

[Tom Bass]

Many pallets have chemicals in the wood to preserve the wood that could be bad for the water and the fish. It's kind of like Creosote only different. Same goes for pine trees. Introduce Ex-Christmas trees in a lake would be like tossin' railroad ties full of creosote in them, in my humble opinion.

I would use trees and branches that are local to the area. You might get a better outcome.

[Danceswithbass]

I sank 2 last week end. I got 4 aluminum patio chairs that were put out for the trashmen. I took 2 of them and cut the straps so they would hang downn then faced them back to back. Then I took 5 ft pieces of pvc pipe that I also got out of a dumpster, and zip tied it all together.

We used rocks from the lake to sink them. The thing I like about these chairs is you can run a crankbait through them easier than wood, and they wont rot. A few weeks ago I sank a lounge chair with alot of pvc pipe on it. One thing I noticed when Lake Tenkiller was down 14ft I saw my brush piles made from trees had rotted and fell apart, thats when I started thinking I would use something else.

[volman33]

i would use a combination of christmas trees and anything else listed on the replies to vary your bass cover

[Mid-MO]

That is a lot of interesting ideas - I'll probably have to try a few.

[Troutfisher]

lol I like the patio chair idea!!!    

[Matt Fly]

One more tip, putting cured limbs out will cause the need to use more weight.   Thats why I like fresh hardwoods for, the added weight helps sink the pile.

[bigbassjim]

On my lake I'v noticed that the big bass (6 plus) come off of isolated under water branches that have fallen or have been moved away from the main pile, so what I do is use a single branch cemented in a cinder block cut to the right height and I drop them off to the sides of known brush piles.

[RODBENDER]

i go around graveyards and collect discarded funeral flowers ...stick a bunch of them in a bale of hay and sink it ..if the hay is packed really tight u may have to loosen it up some so it will suck up water and sink ....may need to be weighted down till it soaks up the water

[boatnik13]

First Mid-Mo !  in our state (PA) we have what they refer to as blackbass nesting boxes and they sound very much what your describing. Pallets (4' X 4' skid) except they have a over hang on top (boards stick out 18" or so on each side , giving blackbass a place to hide. The center of the skid is weighted with blocks.  Its put in a depth of 5-7 feet. If you ever anchor on one or cast over it > there is NO getting it back untill a lake draw down.  Now for other suggestions by others> Whats the twenty year plan?  I've seen the end results of tires . (tires become scatterd after the bands brake over the years (15+ years) making the bottom a junk yard. I see what Christmas trees do also after 10 years.(a pile of sticks scatterd and criss crossed on the lake floor offreing nothing but a place to snag your anchor or lure on). Most of theses Items have been removed from the PFBC (PA) structure list and no longer permitted. It did offer a few years of good structure before becomming a dump site and NO fish.  The state has moved to better manmade structure and placement. Placement is a big factor.