Homemade Bass Attractors

Share you wisdom. Has anyone had any luck with the homemade bass attractors like the one pictured? Any advice on where to put them in a body of water?

Yes, I’ve made some very similar to that design with quickrete to help it sink.
There is a good argument to mix in some natural limbs with the artificial.
Natural will work faster. Artificial will last longer
To speed up the process on artificial surfaces, rub with 80 grit sandpaper, then rub with compost to accelerate the attraction of microbes and algae.

I like 12-15fow as that depth will hold fish all year. It’s also a depth Im comfortable pinging with sonar prior to fishing it.

Points, cuts, drop offs, humps, funnels are all good places

The best places to drop them already have fish holding there.


I’ve found that Bois D arc, Willow, and bamboo work well

I like cinder blocks and sisal rope (it biodegrades in 6 months—by then the tree is so water logged and buried in the mud, it’s not moving.

Thanks CCTX. Great tip on the sandpaper.

Imo it's hard to beat large hardwood trees. Difficult to work with but big fish will live under them. Not just occasionally visit it like a crappie pile or similar

I have hundreds of these in the lake and they consistently hold big fish

Jpurdue, message me and i'll tell you what works for me

Agree 100%. As mentioned Bois D 'Arc is my favorite. Extremely dense and relatively easy to sink (unlike Christmas trees, which like to float like a cork)
They are cumbersome and heavy to manage loading and unloading off your vessel, so be very careful, and obviously wear a life jacket and carry some sharp scissors and some sharp knives just incase.

At times, I've had to saw them into sections to sink on top of each other.

Very dense, so easy to see on the fish finder. As stated, they just don't attract fish, they become a home.

They are best the first three years, then I would refresh them with new brush.

It seems kinda crazy to me that people dump hundreds of those things in the lake. We aren't supposed to toss a torn up Senko overboard
but piles of plastic are OK?

What am I missing? Are they so good for our Bass population that it is a good tradeoff?

Legitimate question. I really don't know.

Take a bunch of torn up senkos piled up to improve fish habitat.

Bass eat torn up senkos

I put out both. I prefer sections of trees. But right now mine are loaded with crappie and not bass. They work so well I feel like I need to triple my habitat placement. My problem is I have to go on someone else's property to get the trees. That almost doesn't seem legal.

Find someone elses, they are a PITA to deal with!! I told myself last time I lugged 4-5 of these bucket structures that next time I was taking cinder blocks and rope and cutting down stuff on the bank and dropping them off next to where they were living. Lot less work and it is work doing all of that,

Much easier to just have side scan, idle around, and push a waypoint button.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IRiiUlk7Rdo

Answered my own question.

Curious if anyone on here has ever been caught and ticketed for dropping brush piles in a public lake?

I have been caught by a game warden.....he was very cool about.

Asked that I put it out deep enough not to interfere with boat traffic.

I told him the depths I prefer and he had no issue with it.

I'm sure some smaller lakes it could be against the law but a lake like Rayburn, any given day you see lots of boats idling around with brush piled on top. In fact, many have large pontoons built specifically for that purpose.

One day I was launching at Eagle mountain and someone had their triton literally full of Christmas trees, and a TRWD ranger sent him away lol. He pulled past me and just told me he was heading to the ramp at West Bay

Those are the types some of our Boy Scouts did for their Eagle Scout projects with the aid of the TP&W Biologists.

There are some in the Cassells-Boykin Park area on Sam Rayburn that were done by them.

What's kinda funny about this, is one of my go to areas around Cassels Boykin for 20 years was horrible last year. It's a natural point that drops into Pophers creek, last year 100 yards from where I normally fish I find 6-8 of those cubes on side scan and some pallet piles. Either I never pulled up there at the right time or that structure changed the way they set up now.

Sounds like the TPWD piles between CB and Monterrey

Not quite, did find those as well though

I have made several of these and they last forever. They do hold fish but I think they just relate to them. They do not hold fish as well as real wood brush tops. They do not hold the baitfish and crawfish that hide in the brush tops and therefore don't hold the fish as well.