Artificial Cover

[ouachita]

I would like to hear the specifics on what type of artificial cover you guys put out. Brushpiles, cat boxes etc...

I have tried 4' sections of 10" diam pvc sewer main with no luck. Maybe brushpiles are the right idea. I was trying to find an easier way than building boxes or brush.

Any suggestions??? Also what location do you look for??

[Spearooo]

I have never done it before but id imagine the deep side of a bite where the river turns. I was under the impression that the best time was the summer when the water is at its lowest point, you migth want to set it up when the water a a bit high and wait untill it gets warm and low for the to hole up...
this is just speculation.............
tell us how it goes......

[jeffe]

At low water on Lake Greeson, I saw where someone had went up in a inlet, on the bight of a curve in the old river bed, and chain sawed a bunch of gum trees so they fell in the Lake. Bouancy of the fish shelter is always a problem. I think the wet heavy wood of a gum tree might be a solution. This was done to make cover for pan fish, it appeared. However most of us prefer to find a hump out in the lake to drop stuff on. There might be problems with cutting anything on a Corps. Lake. Usually very early in the year, Jan. Feb, Mar, I find many boxes, barrels and so forth that came free, along the shoreline. These are freebies and require nothing but weight and relocation. I once found a old heavy equipment tire from the earthmoving during the construction of the dam, I expect. This thing was about 10 feet across and 3 feet high when laying on the bottom. Thinking what a great fish shelter it would make if it was in the right place, I decided to move it, twelve miles up the Lake ! Man, what a long slow dangerous lift and tow. It was especially hard to position on the Hump I wanted it on. The wind caused problems, and planeing when sinking was also a factor. I admit I have focused on this way too much, but, it sure is satisfying to know just where to go to spear a ol' catfish for supper.:D

[rmo8jlt69]

the best thing to put in a farm pond or small part of a river or where ever you are fishing, christmas tree yea thats right christmas trees tie cinderblocks to a couple of pines, you can pick them up on the side of the road after the holidays when people are ditching them to the trash people. that is great cover for crappie, bass and bluegill, i know you call them bream. good luck with the artifical cover

[yellowdog]

I agree with the christmas tree idea. they make great cover and are easy to come by.
YD

[jeffe]

CHRISTmas trees work well for holding pan fish, who mainly feed up in the water column, and the trees are a great spearing enviroment. Trees hold bait fish and the larger game fish are there in feeding mode.
Catfish on the other hand, are a mostly bottom dweller / feeder. ( exceptions, yes I know there are always exceptions )
So a fish attracting device for catfish is different. One of the easiest to make is a half of a plastic barrel. However it is just barely positive buoyant and must be weighted. Wooden boxes are probably the most popular, but are very buoyant and require more weight.
Tides aren't a factor for moving or releasing a fish box in fresh water. Yet old riverbeds in even very large lakes, at depth even, still have currents flowing that can move or release fish boxes or shelters. Arkansas fresh water lakes have rock ledges that make some of the very best natural FAD's.
The largest problem in placing FAD's is location and the ever critical DEPTH.
Local Corps of Engineers Lakes have large rises and falls, further complicating the problem.
Different species of fish prefer various depth for temperature comfort level.
Oxygen content of lakes will change over a spearing season, making the catfish who withstands lower oxygen levels, more predictable ?
Ha !
Lots of variables, eh ?
Yep, it makes fresh water spearing a great sport.:)
I guess the bottom line is, after years, I am still learning in a constantly changing fresh water Lake enviroment.:confused:

[jeffe]

Ouachita I re read your initial post and was reminded of something that some of the oldtimers do. Geeze, come to think of it, now I am one of the old timers, they will scoop a few handfulls of bottom gravel into a barrel or pipe to make the fish more comfortable. After being told about this, I started doing it everytime I found a bare pipe or Barrel, and noticed a difference right away. Last year I tried a new place not far from Mountain Harbor, just East of North Star Cove, and found that someone had placed a number of trash cans there.
They were mostly sitting on the bottom in the way a trash can usually sits, but each had a brick in it for weight. With none of them holding fish, even though it was a place with current and a bottom covered in shells from the shell crackers, just above the old river bed. As I located each, I turned it on it's side and scooped gravel into it. By the end of last Summer, I had speared several fish from them. Something as simple as making a habitat more comfortable or natural to the fish seemed to make a difference.:)

[jeffe]

I would like to hear the specifics on what type of artificial cover you guys put out. Brushpiles, cat boxes etc...
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Ouachita, here are the coordinates for the School Bus, a great fish attractant device.
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NORTH 34* 36' 09.0"
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WEST 093* 18' 23.4"
>
This is in a curve of the old Ouachita river Bed, in about 24' of water this time of year. The old river bed drops off to about 105' deep. The curve of the river bend, on the slope down to the bottom, has many stumps, rock ledges, and some artificial FADs.
When you come out of BRADY MOUNTAIN HARBOR, take a heading of 257*, go past CAMPERS ISLAND, thru the narrow channel. The last time I dove this someone had put a BarbeQue Grill and a old fiberglass satelite dish out there also. Most of the cats I have speared at this location were under the Bus, near the front.

[ouachita]

Sounds good. I'll have to check this out. There is an island close to there that has a bunch of undercut ledges on a steep bank on it's north shore. It's a good spot also. I'll pull my map and let you know the number.

Thanks for the info.

[jason33318]

are there any other suggestions for artificial cover, maybe like something more permanent than xmas trees, i know they stick around for a long time but i was thinking more along the lines of the trash cans. how well do they work? by the way, what is a cat box?

[alagig]

Back in high school I had a friend who always over complicated everything. This is what he swore by when bating a cat hole.

9 oak pallets
50# cotton seed mill
3 pair pantyhose
nylon rope
5 gallon bucket of bricks and brick parts


1) Take 3 oak pallets and tie their ends together with nylon rope so they make a triangular shape.
2) Repeat step 1 twice more.
3) Cram bricks into one side of each triangle.
4) Cut each leg of pantyhose into 3-4 sections.
5) Tie one end of panty hose off and fill from the other end with cotton seed mill then tie it off. Do this with about half of the pantyhose pockets.
6) Cram the loaded pantyhose into voids in the pallet triangle.
7) load the other half of the pantyhose pockets similar to the first but also put a brick or portion of a brick in them before you tie them off.
8) Drop your 3 triangles in the location you want fish to be. These suckers are heavy so get some help.
9) Drop the pantyhose pockets loaded with cotton seed and brick in the same general area.
10) Let set for a few weeks
11) Return to the seen of the crime and get some fish.

This is what we did and it worked, even though I find some of the stuff RJ insisted on pure bs.

[jeffe]

Labor intensive, but it does work. The only places that I have seen them when they weren't holding fish was in a smaller Corps of Engineers impoundment that had seriously low Oxygen levels at mid Summer.
Oxygen levels are a major consideration when placing fish attracting devices, and is one reason the old river bed is used by many spearos. It brings Oxygen and nutrients downstream.
Even a large fresh water lake will have Oxygen levels that are low the further you get away from the old riverbed.
Even species that have adapted, like the Striper, origonaly a Saltwater species, who spend much time in lower colder depths that have lower oxygen levels, are forced up into warmer water, usually over the old stream bed, to forage for bait fish.

[alagig]

That is one of his simple designs you should see some of the complicated contraptions he cooked up.
They held 12-16lbs cats and nice sac-a-lait but few bass. The lakes were Lay, Logan Martin, Mitchell, and Harding; Harding is the smallest and on the Chattahoochee, the other 3 are on the Coosa here in AL. I never got a chance to spear these spots so I only know what was brought up on hook and line. RJ, my fishin bud, always made everything more detailed than they had to be. I always use a little High karate, a dab of hair wax, and a few cold brews when baiting a cat hole myself. I just figured that someone could simplify that idea and make it work for them.
http://www.uslakes.info/LakesState.asp?StateID=AL&Site=Lakes has plenty of info that will tell the size and allow speculation as to the what the O2 levels may be.

[jeffe]

Yea0wah !
Now, ya' know THATs a winning combination !
I ben' a' studin' on the panty hose thing.
I know this "GOOD OL' GAL", what lives jest' down the holler, seems she prefers them "HEFTY CONTROL TOP" hose.
I jest' bet them ud' hold a bunch o' cotton seed !:eek:
Thanks for the link.
:)

[727hog]

I've been diving on Greers ferry for about 4 years and putting out brush for my line fishing for about 6. You were absolutly right about brush piles for small fish. My best ones were green cedar trees and limbs. Greers ferry has a very low number of fish and you can dive for a while and not see anything and come up one of these new brush piles and see hundreds of minnow sized fish. I know this doesn't help spearos but, Hey the little fish have to get bigger or at least they're food for bigger fish.

[jeffe]

Originally posted by 727hog
I've been diving on Greers ferry for about 4 years and putting out brush for my line fishing for about 6. You were absolutly right about brush piles for small fish. My best ones were green cedar trees and limbs. Greers ferry has a very low number of fish and you can dive for a while and not see anything and come up one of these new brush piles and see hundreds of minnow sized fish. I know this doesn't help spearos but, Hey the little fish have to get bigger or at least they're food for bigger fish.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
727hog, if your'e a Crappie fisherman when your'e not divin' then you are already reaping the rewards of yout labor !
Four years of brush piles will give you a substantial number of crappie hot spots.
How do you determine the depth that you want the brush piles set at ?
I have a rough estimate based on the water level at it's lowest and the thermocline at the highest water levels. My formula will change from Lake to Lake, based on my dive experience on that lake in the month of August. Which boils down to this: the size of the lake is directly porportional to thermocline in August.
I hear lots of dive stories about Greers Ferry Lake , how about spinnin a few of them for us ?

[727hog]

I believe the depth of the structure should depend on your goals. I'm lucky enough to live on Greer's Ferry Lake. It's a 40 year old resavoir with most of the shallow brush gone because of the wide Lake level fluctuations. I started placing brush to improve Largemouth Bass fishing. 12 to 20 feet .No luck. There just is not a viable Largemouth population to help in the southern part of the Lake. Other species are more suited to the barren water. Smallmouth and Spotted bass have found their nich and offer a targetable population for line fisherman. So my brush placement has evolved into helping small fish find some shelter and food, in the hope that small fish attract bigger fish. It's pretty cool to cover 50 yards without seeing a minnow and then seeing hundreds of fish on something you put down there. My placements are from 5 -40 feet at full pool and 0-25 at low levels. What was the most effective thing I did for attracting fish? I cheated and put a "deer" feeder on my dock. The fish put on quite a show when it goes off and then they return to my brushpiles after the food is gone. I'll start a new thread on Greers Ferry Diving. Doug

[jeffe]

I'll start a new thread on Greers Ferry Diving. Doug~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Hey Doug, I'm lookin' forward to hearin' some of those stories !:)

[jeffe]

One used plastic Barrel.
One Chainsaw.
One Hole saw.
>
This is one of my early attempts, at a fish shelter.
Note that both ends are cut out which leaves fingerlings that seek shelter there vulnerable. Later versions have a small escape opening at one end. This will not stay on the bottom without being weighted. In fresh water it is just barely positive bouyant, so it wont take much weight to keep it on the bottom.
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When deploying a line of these I use the sonar to follow the underwater contour at the target depth. Usually I will have someone putting them in the water as I run the boat and sonar. They will almost always land upside down, and on a dive at a later date, I will turn them over and make a depth adjustment as needed. They "nest" inside each other on the boat and take up less space that way, allowing for deployment of quite a few on a single trip.
>
In order to be able to go back to them, I note land marks, but more importantly, I chart the line on GPS, marking the start and end of the string of shelters with way points. Transfering the data to my Computer at home and burning the data to CD so I can't loose it in one of my famous "puter disasters".:rolleyes:
>

[727hog]

Jeffe, What kind of success have you had with those barrel things?

[jeffe]

Jeffe, What kind of success have you had with those barrel things?
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Pretty good, I think the reasons are:
Shelter for bait fish.
Bait fish cannot be trapped in it.
It's on the bottom , where a catfish wants to be.
It has a natural gravel bottom that the catfish seem to prefer.
>
negatives on them:
Sometimes barrels are hard to find.
Sometimes barrels are expensive.
They are just barely positive buoyant.
They have to be weighted.
Permanent weight attachment must be thought out carefully or it just won't last very long.
Large fish can move them readily.
You can spear the fish and the barrel at the same time. The quick fix for this is, string the fish first. Then extend the point barbs and screw the point off. Most of the time the shaft is hard to pull from the barrel. Seems like I nearly always "silt out", and in the zero vis it is easy to loose the fish.
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Weight may be any scrap iron, attached with galvanized wire for longivity.
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Moving the "string" of barrels is fairly easy.
I tie a old ski rope to the first one, then pass it thru a hole in each one after that.
If I don't have far to move them, I will just tow them behind the boat.

[jfg]

Hey Jeffe,
I get 55 gal plastic barrels on occasion from a friend of mine in the Xray supply business. He gives them to me. They get concentrated developing and fixer chemicals in them. The ones I get are blue in color. If you have any friends in the hospital business, ask their xray department who they get their chemistry from, then call that vendor and see if they get their stuff in those plastic barrels. You may get lucky and pick some up very, very cheap.
Jim

[jeffe]

I stopped by Scuba & Archery in Hot Springs this afternoon and Steve had a copy of the new map on his counter. The coordinates for the school bus are listed on the map ! Although slightly different from the coords I have used to find it in the past, they are so close you won't have any trouble finding it on your sonar.
Here is a clip from the map: