Dropping brush piles

What kind of brush do you guys like to drop? I've heard mixed opinions about dropping Christmas Trees, what do you guys think?

I do not use cedars at all for bass. I have found that hardwoods do best for bass or willows.IMO.

Look on the crappie boards, you will see them made out of everything. I have been watching the "free" listings on craigslist and hit a gold mine with a plumber who gave me darn near a truckload of all shapes and sizes of PVC so I am making a bunch and setting them out over the next few months. And I have heard that sweetgum and bois de arc are real good woods to use and Christmas trees need to be trimmed some so they can swim in between. Some say the fish dont like the smell they give off, but not sure myself. I hate all the needles and they are a PITA to throw off a bass boat, pontoon would work better.

I have helped drop christmas tree brush piles and i think one positive is getting the trees after christmas is usually free. Caught a lot of good fish out of some of those piles

Hardwood works well and smaller piles will work better. I've sunk many Christmas trees and they don't work near as well as a small bundle of live oak limbs no bigger than a Christmas tree. Problem with hardwood is it doesn't seem to last more than a year or so.

Imo..Christmas trees work great for crappie almost immediately. It took over 1-1/2 - 2 yrs before the bass would mix in.. The bass also seem to spread out around the trees, not so much stacked in like crappie. After the waiting period for the bass, you may get another 3 yrs from those piles. As mentioned above, certain hardwood will last longer. I have built dozens and dozens of plastic attractors, with mixed results. It's like, not every place you drop brush is gonna work like you hope. You really need to do your homework with a map, and a decent depth finder. It's a carp shoot, some spots work others NADA.. I believe I've actually killed spots with structure, fish would load up on a clean ridge in the summer running it feeding on shad, I drop brush piles there and it becomes a great catfish hole, the bass disappeared..
Hope this helps, I have a lot yrs of experience in dropping piles, it's a lot of work period. I've had better luck with smaller individual PVC piles over a larger area for bass, the rewards can be phenomenal... Sometimes...

I like sweet gum trees if available. And usually I stick to 1 or 2 smaller limbs and use a single concrete block to sink it. I do use Christmas trees when available but they sure seem to break up quickly but do hold fish almost right away. Great early spring cover as the fry have stuff to hide in! Like mentioned above use a map and sink them where you think it will work "best". I try to find a cove or drop off and stagger my piles so they have cover in all depths. And for me a semi-circle with one end totally open seems to work best.

^^^ those look good!! I'd definitely take the handles OFF though!! snagging that would SUCK!!

The handles allow you to rope them down in order to set them upright.

Been there done that, I've made about 5 of those, thing is that they're so small it's hard to pin point them especially at the depth I'm dropping my brush. My hd structure scan barely picks it up

I use bamboo.. never get hung up and fish love it. Bass and craps.

Robby Rose use to the go to guy on brushpiles