IceShanty.com's Ice Fishing Community
Illinois => Ice Fishing Illinois => Topic started by: DaWakoKid on Nov 07, 2018, 10:48 PM
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If you all are adding any man-made structure to a man-made body of water with the intention of ice fishing over it for crappie, what are you making? Additionally, what depth are you setting it at and in what type of substrate?
The body of water has a lot of hard bottom, gravel and sandbars, with areas of weed growth as well. Depths down to about 35 feet. I've drilled and flashed the whole lake, but can't seem to locate the schools on the hard water. Looking to create something for then to relate to and hold on so I'm not drilling 100 holes/day.
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A little late (maybe) for this season but I and others I know have used xmas trees and other small trees and brush from fall clean ups. If you know someone or have some of these now, you could haul them out in a boat. Or wait until after Christmas and drive around and look for discarded trees then take them on the ice with you when you go, and wait for the thaw. All of this is dependent on your state fishing regs. Just some ideas.
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Hold on, suspend over? Most of the time schooled up crappies will be roaming, they'll hit cover that holds baitfish, however. I fish a ton of brushpiles placed along a sloping drop off from 8-20' of water in an area that maxes out with a flat basin around 25-30' deep. On my pond I have cover (cedar trees) placed the same, in the mid depth stretches from shallows to the foot of the basin.
Do you have a contour map for the body of water?
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Hard wood structure is better than pine. It lasts longer. I know a private pond were the owner added 5 gallon plastic buckets with handles removed and a bit of concrete in the bottom. I am pretty sure he said he put 75 of them out there. Talk about an huge stump field. His pond is large and basically a 8 to 10 feet deep and flat bottomed.
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if all you have are xmas trees, bunch them up in large groups. like 5-10. they will deteriorate fast and you want the bases to be piled up to keep fish there for more than a few years. go to your your local chick fil a. ask them for old pickle buckets. i guarantee you they have a wall of them. fill them with concrete and then by a roll of irigation pipe and cut like 5-8' sections up and stick them in the bucket of concrete so they are fanned out. and they last forever.
Depth wise, i don't like them in the deepest parts, i like them just outside the deepest parts of a body of water. if is got points, i like them around points too.
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Making structure isn't an issue. We've got plenty of old hardwoods that need to be cut. We'll use the trunks for firewood and the branches/limbs can be bundled cheaply to bricks or cinderblocks for structure. We've also added a few 5 gallon buckets filled with concrete and PVC. Need to make quite a few more of those. Just trying to figure out the best locations.
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The 3 posts above your last one lists several locations they use including points, various depths, etc. and I'd be willing to bet that a Google search for " Best places to place man-made structures in a lake to draw in and hold fish" would get a few good hits as well. Good luck.
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Check out www.pondboss.com. They have a forum/section on building and improving ponds. Should have the answers to your questions.
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I built these out of scrap pieces of telecom. duct, I put them out in groups of 3,
(https://i.postimg.cc/G8VF9jKz/IMG-0052.jpg) (https://postimg.cc/G8VF9jKz)