So what is the best material to make brush piles? Thx

Dead cedar, bois'd arc, oak, pecan. These are all hard wood that will last years under water. After that, any type wood you have available including bamboo. Thin out the small limbs so you don't hang up as much.

I hear patio furniture is doing well too!

I prefer willows. Hold fish very well, last a while and you don't hang up very much with them.

On bulk trash day in my neighborhood I see a lot of brush pile materials waiting to be hauled off and most likely burned. I will be on the look out for you next time that day comes around.

Cedar and Bois' D Arc, are my two favorites...or anything laying up on the bank that can easily be sunk. (Ie., Rocks)

I fish Toledo Bend exclusively and use sweet gum or willow.

Willow is great but has to be replenished a couple times a year.

What about Home Depot buckets with drain pipe? I've heard these work pretty well???

I am no expert, but IMHO
Those will hold fish, not as well as brush , but you never get hung up and they last
forever. You can spend quite a bit of $ if you build very many.

Mo

Yep, but finding said patio furniture condos has been a challenge.

These are working quite well for me. Not as good as wood types but last forever and hold fish. I put out 32 of these 4 to a location in the last 6 weeks. Talked to manager at Lowes and got buckets for $1.50 apiece. Pvc free from dock and plumbing contractors in area. Drip tubing ebay $32 per 100 ft. About $4 per condo.

Good looking habitat you got there. If you put a pvc 4 way in the bottom before the concrete, you can attach 3' sticks of pvc to it and it keeps the buckets from fallin over as easily. Plus you can wait until you are on the water to attach the pvc to it if you cut it at the bucket and add a coupling.

Decorate by tie-wrapping clumps of 5' to 7' bamboo stalks VERTICALLY, about 2-3 foot out from the center, attaching the stalks to three pipes, all the way around, then stick a bamboo shoot into the end of each Schedule 10 1/2" PVC pipe. Makes them about 12-16 foot in diameter, depending on the length of the bamboo. Make a holding device out of larger ID PVC pipe and stick it into your front seat receptacle, put the bottom piece of pipe (the one in my hand) on the ball first, and insert it into the pvc pipe holding device. Holds it for you as you build it, rotate it around as needed while building and decorating with bamboo. Using this receptacle/holder one man can easily build these right in the boat, on-site, with stealth, at a clandestine time and place of your choosing. 4-5 bricks on the bottom pipe when you are finished building it, then throw over the side. DONE!

Hint: Cut the bottom pipe short so that it does not touch the bottom: this causes the weight of the bricks on it to slowly and continually sink the other pipes (without bamboo in their ends) into the bottom and anchor it. Never pulled one up or off yet.

Only the bamboo leaves show up, look like small schools of fish. VERY hard to find. I promise you that unless you build these and already have previous knowledge of what their stealth signature looks like on DownScan or SideScan (sonar is useless to find PVC) anyone else would drive right by them and not give them a moment's notice. They look nothing like a brushpile, look like baitfish. Apparently the bamboo stalks, like PVC pipe, both have a specific density close to that of water, therefore neither shows up on sonar, and the bamboo barely shows on DownScan/SideScan. The PVC is invisible. People look for brushpiles...not this!

The first ones we built...we returned the next week and couldn't find them. Had previously waypointed them when we sunk them at night, returned days later and drove right over them...nothing! Had to use a Carolina rig to sound them. Bastards caused me to go out and buy an HDS-7 so I could "see" them a little with DownScan (sonar remains blank), and even then they showed up so faint that I didn't know what it was that I was looking at for a couple of trips. Virtually impossible to grapel and drag away.

61 years old. Been sinking brushpiles for forty years. Never again. This is too easy! Out-produces any other I have ever sunk. Only cedar trees approach its effectiveness. Rayburn crappie now whisper my name in hushed tones...

Where did you purchase the sphere? I've seen them a few places, but they seem to expensive to me.