Artificial Cover

[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.

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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.
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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.
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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".
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[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.
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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: