I'm building a stock pond on my land that when full will be about 2 acres. Right now its just under an acre and filling...well at least it will be again this winter. The deepest part will be about 20 feet with the majority 6-8 feet and all areas are within casting range. I'd like to find some ideas for cheap, but long lasting effective homemade habitat and structure that wont snag my dads lures...thats all hes worried about.

Thanks

Lunker74,

Lots of stuff will make great structure, but you've kind of limited the options...structure that wont snag my dads lures.... The kind of structure that fish really prefer is the kind that also snags...has "arms and legs"...appendages. Fish love shadows and stuff they can hide under.

IMO, you just can't beat brush piles, but they aren't snag free. Cedar trees last and make really great structure. Weight them down with something or mount them standing upright in concrete. Old pallets make some nice structure.

A new pond can be an opportunity to clean out the garage, yard or whatever to create structure. Any junk will work, just be sure there's no oil/grease or other chemicals in it....but again snag free is kind of tough. I've used old bath tubs which are sort of snagless and old commodes from a bathroom remodeling project. Also used old hay rings, old farm implements, etc. There are a couple of old lawn mowers in one of my ponds (oil/grease removed).

If you want to spend a little money, buy some concrete, pvc pipe, and pvc fittings and make yourself some "TREES". Depending on your construction, it can be made so that snags are minimized.

If you want to spend a little more money, there are commercial products available such as the "Porcupine Fish Attractor" which is endorsed by Bill Dance. It is advertised as snagless but I'm not sure that's true.

One tip is to be sure to take some pictures and/or mark the structure so that you can find it when the pond is full. Its amazing how easy it is to forget exactly where the structure is located when the pond is full.

Good luck on your new pond!!

Welcome to the Forum.
Do a search for crappie condos here on the forum and it will show you a lot of different ideas. Most will be made from PVC pipe.

Thanks.

I wasn't really trying to limit my options too much the 'Dad losing lures' is true but not a necessity...it was more of a joke.

I've seen some pictures of homemade structures, I guess maybe the engineer in me was coming out and I was trying to be too technical by looking for instructions, drawings, specs, $ amts. etc.

I did search the forum and mostly found info about brush piles. I already cut down some cedars and tied them to bricks when I stocked the minnows and bluegill this spring. I guess I'll try to wing it with the bigger more permanent cedar structures sice they are plentiful on my land. Would cinder blocks and galvanized wire be good? For a two acre pond how many trees per bundle and and how many bundles? Uh oh heres the engineer again.

Thanks again and maybe I'll post a few pics when I get them done.

Engineer here also...so no problem.

Ray Scott published an excellent video series on ponds and it contains some really good ideas on structure. Its worth looking at if you can find it...I have the series here somewhere and if I could find it would be glad to loan it out.

The rule of thumb that I've most commonly seen is to limit your structure to no more than 20% of the pond surface area. The most useful thing that structure does is provide those of us who fish a better shot at 'em by concentrating the fish around those structure locals.

Cedar trees mounted upright and set in concrete are really great. Something about that Christmas tree shape that fish really like. I've got cedars mounted upright like that with the tops just at the surface that have been in the pond for 7 years and still going strong.

We just started stocking 2 ponds on our property one about an acre that we dug out and filled with water out of a river over the winter. The structures we put in were all random things that we just let our imaginations go wild with.

We made a few random boxy things with a lot of limbs poking out with pvc pipe and sunk them.

We also made a few "christmas trees" out of concrete. We just made little concrete plates that started out at about 4 foot in diameter and got smaller gradually by about 6 inches and connected them with rebar (not sure the size i think it was about 1/2 inch. But we just drilled holes about halfway into the concrete and stuck the bars in then put one on top of it and filled it in with concrete. If you do this make sure you build it next to the tank or have something to get it down there easily because it was a pain to haul down >.<

I'm sure there are a few more things that you can come up with, but thats the artificial stuff we used. Like said above though, brush piles and Christmas tree's seem to work best.

PVC PIPE!!

Check out the Habitat section at: www.uslakesandponds.com. You can order the stuff if you want or just get some good ideas.

some stuff that is easy to build and doesn't take long

get some of those plastic 55 gallons drums, then drill a bunch of holes in them with hole saws all around the sides

then get some pvc pipe of wooden boards if you wanted and put them in the holes where they go all the way through the drum

put some screws in on the pvc/boards on the outside of the drum so they don't move

then put some bricks or something heavy in a hole you make in the top of the drum

you can make one in about 15-20 minutes and they hold fish

little fish will go in and out of some of the open holes and big fish will hang around them because of shade and to ambush the bait fish coming in and out