Had a few left over PVC materials and thought about ALL the homeless crappie in the world (or on our home lake), and was overcome with compassion for those more unfortunate than ourselves.

So my brother and I thought we would give back to the crappie community, and see if we could just help out those little rascals less fortunate than ourselves.

This is all light weight drain pipe, but worked great. We had 2 - 10' pieces of 4" Drain pipe that we cut in half (4 - 5' pieces). We also had 20 - 10' pieces of 1" drain pipe. So we put one end of the 4" pipe in cement, then dilled a 1" hole, every foot to the top of the pipe. We slipped the 10' pices of 1" drain pipe through the 1" holes, giving us a Crappie Community with a 10' diameter.

Put 4 of these Equal Oppertunity Dwellings out this morning.






Starting in a couple weeks, we are going to be offering a Weekend Smorgasbord Of Tasty Treats for the Crappie on a limited income. Just trying to do our share. Anyone wanting to donate $ $ $ to the poor Crappie please feel free.

Send ALL donations to: Ahh, just PM me ! ! ! !



keith

Sounds like a good idea. Keep us posted if it works. I guess placing it would all depend on bottom conditions, etc.

wire on some willow limbs and make it brushier. 4-5" limbs on the arms maybe??

Looks good Keith! Bet reservations are coming in!!!!

When we sunk them, they all stood straight up. We were even lucky enough to hit the mark and dropped it where 2 underwater creeks come together. Hit it right in the creek V. If Crappie use the creeks to move up and down the lake (and I think they do), one is placed in a great spot 17' deep, with the creeks being 21'. All the others were placed where there is 18'-20' of water within 20 yards of the bank, with creek channels close. We dropped them around 15'-17'. Researched our GPS at home for a couple of nights looking for places that had all the elements we felt were important to holding fish. Time will tell. We are happy with everything so far.




Well, we have had mixed feeling and result from the thicker structures. I have a couple of Baboo Patches on our property that we use to make most of our structures. We have had better luck with the lack of thick cover for crappie. Bass love the ambush cover, but articles I have read, and some of the underwater video camera footage we have viewed have showed structure that will hold a good number of crappie, but the structure just be 6-8 limbs.

Currently putting out our Baboo Structures, we have started trimming ALL the leaves and small (Shoot) limbs off of the baboo. Making it look exactly like a Baboo Cane Pole. This allows us to fish it as soon and fish locate the structure. Don't haft to wait for the leaves to fall off (which takes longer than you would think) also allowing us to fish straight down in the structure as soon as it hits the bottom.

When we started, we were leaving the leaves and small limb on the baboo. You would haft to fish around the outsides of the structure, due to not being able to get a jig or minnow actually IN the structure. We put out some THICK (with leaves) sturctures of baboo in March, they still have so many leaves on them that you can not get a Jig IN the structure. You had to fish the edges. So we were picking up several bass, but few crappie, if any. Most of the better structures are the ones that has been there long enough to have weathered the pile, with just your major limbs left.

Now, we make the baboo structures with just the pole itself, and can fish anywhere IN the structure without getting leaves and small limbs on your hook.

This was our first PVC Structure, and had ALWAYS heard about how hard PVC was to pick up with your Sonar. We were hoping for that, which would limit the amount of people that would find our piles. These babies glowed in the dark. Anybody traveling over the top of them will see them with NO problem.

We have just started The Thinning Structure Theory, but we are getting fish off the brush pile much earlier/quicker than we did when we were leaving the leaves and leave limbs on the baboo. It's is still a THOUGHT, but we are going that way at the present time to see if we can notice a difference. We are surely catching crappy out of newer structures, earlier than we did with the thicker structures. and the best thing is, it is much easier fishing in a brush pile with less little limbs and leaves to hang you up.


We are still just experimenting to see if we can show a difference. We are going to make a few Baboo pile in the next week or two, and I will try to post a few picks of them. But with ALL this being said, YOU could be exactly right. Thanks for your thoughts and opinions.


keith

BTT

Yep, I thought it looked kinda sparse when I first saw it. I thought crappie like a bit thicker cover. Good ideas! I hope it works, it would make it a heckuva lot easier to build, put out and fish. :-) Thanks!

"The Thinning Structure Theory"

Better trademark that!!

Keith,

as you are building and setting these condo for homeless crappie, I am afraid you have put yourself under the regulations of the United States Goverment. As a FCI Agent ( Federal Crappie Inspector ) I must know the exact GPS location of these Condos so I may make an asessment of Crappie contintment. I will let these first ones go without a formal report but please advise me where you are putting the rest of them at the time you place them.

Thank you for your coroperation in this matter,

Big Al BBQ
FCI compliance Officer

Keith, I got a fix for the mass of leaves, just leave the boo in your driveway for 10 days after you cut it. In this heat, all the leaves will end up IN YOUR BOAT on the way to the lake! I ended up with a bushel basket of leaves piled up under my console when I got to the ramp.

What an obvious con. There is no such thing as a Federal Crappie Inspector. Better PM me the locations of those structures so I can watch out for this con-artist for you. Man the things people will do to try to find other people's spots. Sad, just sad.

Mark-Ray,

I just can't bring myself to give anything to a guy that would have Washington Redskins Logo on his Posting Form. I mean lord, have you been fishing in the sun to long or what. "Cowboys"

I am working on a few Bamboo Structures this week, and I'll try to get a PIC of them before we get to the water. And we would appreciate any thoughts on the topic. They will look a lot like the PVC Structures, except they will have more poles. We have/do put out some Baboo Structure like is normally seen ( http://www.actionfishingtrips.com/habitat.htm ) but use this type with all the stems & leaves left on them in deep water. We make out of 15' - 20' (bigger/longer than above web site) bamboo poles with stems & leaves left on. We put these in 30'-35' water, allowing them to stand up, off the bottom 15'-20'. We are looking for suspended fish in the heat of summer, and cold winter with this type of structure. These structures will be 15'-20' tall, with a diameter of 20'-25'. I requires my brothers 24' pontoon barge to put these suckers out. We will get our first signs of how they do this winter.

These that I am working on this week use 10' poles, with few or no leaves. The poles will extend out from the cement base about 7'-8' making the structure diameter about 14'-16'. This is big enough to hole a decent number of crappie when/if you get a decent school through the area. We are suing the summer to build & place as many structures as we can get out. We are also figuring that it will be during the fall when fish move back up to feed for the winter, and more probably next spring when the fish have moved fro wintering deep water, to shallow spawning waters. This will had given the crappie enough movement to locate our placements.

It's ALL thoughts/theory. We are figuring that the crappie is in the summer 20'-25' water on the summer pattern, so putting structures in 10'-15' water will not get much of a look until crappie move back up into the 10' water again. Same with 6'-8' water placements. It will be spring before they are located. But we are still setting structures just the same. We'll see how things go. But it has been fun building them, then studying our GPS, looking for deep water close to the bank, with natural bank lines to support spawning.

But, then my wife thinks I am spending to much time figuring out what the crappie needs and might do, and not enough time figuring what SHE needs and might do. What's up with that ? ? ? ?

keith

who you calling a con-artist you indian lover

Keith--
are all these going in Lake Palestine ?
I would be really interested if the single 4in upright
with cross pieces hold good numbers of fish.
I dropped similar structures last week ( much shorter
cross pieces) and put 5 to a spot.

Please post up results.

good luck




MO

Will Do...

We put ours (4 PVC Structures) in 17' - 20' of water. Firguring that most of the crappie are already hanging in the areas they plan on spending their summer patterns in, we are not thinking we will get much action off of ours until next summer.

The Baboo Structures we are working about building are going in 8' - 12' water, hoping be be used as staging areas before the spawn. We'll keep reporting how these types of structures do as things go along. hope to have some PICS of the Bamboo Structures be the weekend.
keith