Ok the snag free thing would be nice. and if the material is free then that is a good option i guess.
Although the new sidescans and down scans have no problem finding PVC.
I kinda like losing jigs from time to time though. If i never lost a jig i wouldnt have a excuse to go to BPS or Cabelas!!!

The few I put out last year, have completely disappeared to my HDS-10 w/SI & DI. After about 4 weeks it was over. I can just barely see something, and I don't mean enough to tell anything about the image, that there might be something there IF I increase to image by 1 click. And that is with me knowing exactly where it is.

I have put out some Orange Tube Tree's that I can see with the SI a little better, but again, if you didn't know something was there, you wouldn't know what it was. I have PVC Tree's that have disappeared also. Here are a few PICS of what I put out that has basically disappeared. Disappearing is not a issue if they are holding fish. I don't find that the PVC stuff holds fish as good and natural limbs and tree's and such. But other fisherman not being able to see my PVC piles is not a problem for me, I like it. Here's the PICS.

Orange Tubing Tree



PVC Tree




PVC Horizonal Pile





keith

I have read that people sometimes put something on the PVC condos that will show up better on your sonar, but don't know what they are using. Any suggestions....some sort of metal or what?

Never tried it but heard aluminum foil wrapped on the ends of the "limbs" makes it light up on sonar. Anybody ever try that?

Here is what my boys created at our dock. 3" PVC and filled them with cheep dog food. These started producing crappie after soaking for about a week. Don't forget to sand down the PVC so the algae can grow. After a year of soaking these will be completely covered with algae and should produce for many years. These are in 19' of water. Always a good idea to tether these to the dock so you can pull them up and refill them with dog food. the dog food brings in the bait fish and the bait fish attract the crappie.

I was told by a Lowrance salesman that any metal in the PVC tubes will aid the locators finding the condo. Heard of some Guys buying the commercial plastic ball, dropped 6 in a lake and the have not found them!!

Possible rebar or conduit might help. I made some condos from yellow gas PVC pipe about 4 feet high. Have the coordinates, but not finding them. Todd Huckabee, in a seminar , stated that yellow PVC was are to find. I am building condos now and prefer the "tree" or "horizontal". I will put some metal or concrete n the tubes.....to test.

I will be keeping a eye on this thread! I sat 2 condos out and do not see them on the finder.

I have made a few of these.

http://catchcrappie.com/howtoExamples1.asp

Over the last 20 years I have built hundreds of condo's and most are still in place and hold fish.

The above link takes you to a few samples.

I prefer 12' to 18' depths and place several close together, 5' apart works best.

Be sure they are well constructed so they don't create litter.

since we are on this topic...

Not PVC, but you can't go wrong with some strategically piled and placed driftwood either...

A lot of great ideas here that I will put to use on Fork
While clean out my shop, I've found approx 10-12 license plates and I will attach 1 to the top of each PVC structure for locating

I like pvc trees with bamboo mixed in to get them going. Works well for me.



Took these to the dump since I didn't know if it was legal in the lakes I fish.