Building Brushpiles

[Mark]

Good topic. Guessing this can only be done legally on private lakes and ponds. I know a guy who does use a couple pallets tied together with angle iron running diagonally thru the pallets. His theory is the pallets allow the small bait fish to hide out and the angle iron prevents larger predator fish from swimming thru the pallets. Made sense to me.

My brother flooded the cove in his lake with brush and downed trees. Great fishing but lots of snags. Another buddy two coves down swears my brother messed up his cove and this buddy refuses to add any cover and even hauls down trees and brush out of the cove. My opinion is there aren't as many fish in his cove, but it's his cove and that's the way he wants it.

I would think there is a fine line between good cover and too much cover that makes it hard to fish without snags. But I like the old adage "If you ain't tying hooks, your not fishing where the fish are".

[dtrs5kprs]

Hard to beat a cut down gallon milk jug full of quikrete and your wood of choice. Other option is something my cousin used to do. Filled buckets with quikrete, and lowered them over the side. Idea was to create an artificial stump.

[Guest]

Whats illegal about sinking brush? Did I miss something?

I wouldnt sink them anywhere near a known swimming hole, or create a boating hazard.

This is offshore type stuff,

[dtrs5kprs]

It is against COE regs I think. Doesn't seem to stop folks.

[Quillback]

Yeah they probably do it to make sure people aren't using nasty stuff, for example 12V car batteries as "stumps". And that someone doesn't put in a brushpile in front of a ramp. I'm sure all of us here would use common sense, but you know there are exceptions.

[Guest]

Suddenly, this doesnt sound like a good idea.

they would be going into a COE lake, for sure.

apparently, others dont follow the rules, because Ive seen them all over COE lakes.

[dtrs5kprs]

The one time I did it in a COE lake was as a bass club project. Lots of brush. We did get approval prior to adding the brush, and gave them locations.

Might have been rough locations, and might have been a tree or two that had a boating accident on the way to those locations.

[Andy & JoAnne]

My local lake, when filled, looked as though it needed to have some cover added to support the bait fish/crappie populations. There looked to be no weeds, shore covering for the fish to hide. Fishing from the bank produced very little. They have since reduced the surface area by over 60% for a utility project showing a lot of what lies beneath the water. Maybe too much cover?????? The fish are out in the stump fields. Notice in the pic that the banks are gravel with minimal/if any cover. No brush piles for me to add though I did consider it before lowering the lake.

[Guest]

Andy that looks perfect unless you're bank fishing, what you could do is take 3 cinder blocks & lay them in line & tie a 2x12 across them. It's called a plank. Apparently smallmouth like spawning around these home made planks.

[raise the motor]

Three years ago I was issued a permit to cut small live cedars (below 6" diameter 12 inches above ground) or dead trees from CORPS land to sink in Bull Shoals.

The permit only allowed rock for weight and only aluminum spool wire for binding. No wire mesh or other wire. Only trees, brush, rocks, and wire could be used.

The CORPS uses other materials that the permit did not allow.

I belivie the permits are issued every two years upon personal appearance at their office on the announced issue date. They were cut and sink permits.

Joe