I'm stirring around the idea of making a few crappie condos for fishing this summer. For those of you who have made them, do you prefer PVC condos, or actual brush such as Xmas trees or willows etc.?

It's tough to beat bamboo and cinder blocks. They're cheap and work.

willows work wonders. Done the bamboo route many times but they dont seem to last as long as willows

i did the 5 gal bucket x 2....drill 30 - 3/4" holes in it.cut 3/4" yard sprinkle pvc 30" long.put through bucket and add 1/4 bucket of cement.it works!

Pics?? Seems like a lot of work, but pvc seems like it would be good because your line would not get tangled.

If you drop a brush pile, how long does it take before you can expect to start catching fish on one?

here's sum i built last year...no work involved

I have never had much luck with PVC condos. I like cedar trees not Christmas trees,. It takes just as much work & time to put in a Christmas tree that will give you 2-3 years of use as it does to put in a 5-8' end of a cedar tree (as big as you can handle) that will give you 8-12 years of use. I am using and still catching crappie off of cedar brush piles that I put out 12-14 years ago. The only thing better than cedar is cypress or bois-d-arc. Bois-d-arc will be there till you are a old, old man, doesn't matter how old you are today. This is my opinion about crappie BP's.

Last year our cedar trees rotted in about 6 months. Bamboo is free and we are killing them with these we made last January

I like to build PVC trees and add bamboo or cedar limbs in with the pvc. Seems to work pretty well for me.

Thanks for the pics, those are great.

Here's a few of mine. I used irrigation tubing and filled them with spray foam. A bag of cement in each bucket. My only problem is they don't show up on the finder easily. I guess that's not too bad since I know where they are, just takes a few more minutes to pinpoint. BUT, IMO, you can't beat a big ol' willow tree stuck in a soft bottom.

I've done a bunch of X-mas tree and bamboo condos, bamboo seems to hold the most fish and is easy to get unstuck from. I've had mine in the water for a couple years now and they seem to be doing well.

Some of my recent ones ...

For my next ones I am going to use MaryJane plants in hopes they give the crappie the 'munchies'.