Man made Crappie beds..right? ... wrong ?.

xxxxxx

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I went to a how to catch more Crappie talk at a boat show. The thing was mostly about building a object fof the Crappie to hang there hat on a stick and call it home so we can visit and invite our selves for dinner.These nesting areas are made out of material that is not healthy for the water we fish in.<br /><br />How can say it's right to put plastic, metal, concrete, etc in the water ways. That is not good idea to dump more stuff in the water.<br />There was no mention of getting a OK.... besides you are breaking the law.<br /><br />I know this topic will not be like but someone has to bring it out in the open.<br />Please leave your views and be nice
 

Ron G

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Re: Man made Crappie beds..right? ... wrong ?.

i plant christmas trees in the lakes around here and use concrete blocks to hold them down,once took all the guts out of appliance and put them in there with some small trees the fish love them and so do i.Around here people put alfalfa bales or hay bales in the water for crappie.
 

llfish

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Re: Man made Crappie beds..right? ... wrong ?.

Hard wood trees work better than Christmas trees. Bamboo works great or structures made out PVC. Make sure that the PVC is sandblasted or sanded first.
 

CN Spots

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Re: Man made Crappie beds..right? ... wrong ?.

It's actually encouraged by the Game and Fish around here. Our lakebeds are pretty infertile and barren of cover. Most folks put out stake beds made from tomato stakes (rough cut 1x2s) or old Christmas trees. I have seeen PVC stake beds but not many. Kinda pricey compared to old wooden stakes.<br /><br />They do NOT encourage people to place them where a boat under power might hit them. As far as whether or not they are harmful... I doubt it. Especially the wooden kind, nature will take care of those. The PVC stuff is probably no where near as harmful as a two stroke's exaust and it would just shatter if an outboard hit it. The concrete might be an issue but if someone's haulin' hiney in water shallow enough to hit a cinderblock... they deserve to have their lower end torn off.<br /><br />spots
 

txswinner

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Re: Man made Crappie beds..right? ... wrong ?.

Beds are good, careful with the material.
 

KRS

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Re: Man made Crappie beds..right? ... wrong ?.

I think it's disrespectful and illegal to make "wildcat" fish structure in a body of water that you do not personally own.<br /><br />Too many people will do exactly what was warned about above, and that is dumping stuff in shallow water without regard to use of the lake by all recreational visitors. Their carelessness will place the lives of others at risk.<br /><br />If you are a private party on a public body of water and you are dumping stuff overboard, then it's illegal trash dumping as far as I'm concerned.
 

jtexas

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Re: Man made Crappie beds..right? ... wrong ?.

Official position of our Parks & Wildlife dept is you can get cited for littering...but I don't know of anyone that ever has been.<br /><br />BPS sells a PVC "fish habitat structure" with Bill Dance's name on it.<br /><br />One guy says he tows fallen trees from the bank out to his spot & sinks 'em with concrete blocks. Not a bad idea.
 

llfish

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Re: Man made Crappie beds..right? ... wrong ?.

In Tn. you need a permit before placing fish habitats in public water ways.
 

KRS

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Re: Man made Crappie beds..right? ... wrong ?.

Bill Dance can sell all the habitat he wants.... for private ponds.
 

heycods

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Re: Man made Crappie beds..right? ... wrong ?.

In my tanks with no tree stumps or cover I will make habitat for the fish. It gets hot in the tx. watters in the summer time with no shade.
 

Ron G

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Re: Man made Crappie beds..right? ... wrong ?.

Most of the stuff i put out is in 12'-25' feet of water and is sunk good,the game warden even talked to me one day while i was doing it.im talking about building structure which takes a lot of time and energy to help fishing.i can understand throwing out stuff in 2' water and not even tying it down.
 

gonefishie

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Re: Man made Crappie beds..right? ... wrong ?.

<br />Too many people will do exactly what was warned about above, and that is dumping stuff in shallow water without regard to use of the lake by all recreational visitors. Their carelessness will place the lives of others at risk<br />
Like CN spots said, if you're hauling hiney in water shallow enough to hit a cinder block then you deserve all of it for being an idiot. You're talking less then 2ft of water here. Beside, no one ever places structure in shallow water anyway.
 

KRS

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Re: Man made Crappie beds..right? ... wrong ?.

No one does?! Whew, that's a relief. I'm glad you have contol over the Western Hemisphere Wildcat Fish Structure Placement Division.... and you have no one that would do that.<br /><br />Hmmmm.... just a thought.... just because it's 10' of water today doesn't mean it's gonna be 10' of water at the end of summer.... I wonder about that....
 

gonefishie

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Re: Man made Crappie beds..right? ... wrong ?.

Well, I'm sorry about your Arizonian problem of shrinking water but we're here east of the Rockies Mt. don't have that problem. What is this "wildcat fish structure" that you're talking about? I Googled it and can't find an answer.
 

Pony

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Re: Man made Crappie beds..right? ... wrong ?.

Well KRS, all I can say is that most people don't put these things in real shallow waters because it is against regulations....................not to mention most fishermen are soooo secretive about where they put a fish crib, that they wont put it in a spot you can see from the surface (so generally 4-5ft under the surface). I also know that here cribs arent that common. Like Tn we need a permit for it here to.....usually people put cribs on the ice and then let them sink in springtime.<br /><br /><br />Now about "Hmmmm.... just a thought.... just because it's 10' of water today doesn't mean it's gonna be 10' of water at the end of summer.... I wonder about that.... " Now I would think that the cribs made of wood......which almost all of them that I have seen are, would be long since decayed in that amount of time. Here I have seen no lakes that fluctuate by more than a couple of foot from year to year, but the ice melt the following year seems to fix that if its low one year.<br /><br /><br />In a lake without a lot of natrual structure, a crib can be vital for the survival of quite a few fish. Around here they are helpful because we have so many musky, they give smaller ish like the crappie and bluegills a place to hide. Personally I prefer the homemade brush/wood structures as they are more natrual etc.
 

KRS

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Re: Man made Crappie beds..right? ... wrong ?.

What is a crib... I'm picturing something like 4 pallets nailed together?<br /><br />I would agree that most fishermen would have the sense not to place structure in the shallows, but not all.<br /><br />The term "Wildcat" is commonly used to refer to illegal placement of something, like garbage dumps, unlicensed subdivisions, or like used in this context... fish structure.<br /><br />It's true that shrinking water may be a Western problem, but a problem nonetheless.<br /><br />Is TN the only one that requires a permit?
 

jtexas

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Re: Man made Crappie beds..right? ... wrong ?.

Huge brushpiles were gathered, lashed together and anchored when most all of our reservoirs (of which there are many) were built - these are marked on commercially available maps.<br /><br />In addition, TPWD built and sank many of these air hose bushes:<br />
Airhosebrush.jpg
<br /><br />Here's an example of what my local fishing board calls a "crappie condo":<br />
condo1.jpg
 

Pony

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Re: Man made Crappie beds..right? ... wrong ?.

A crip is basically what everyone here is calling a fish condo etc. Its something like a bunch of brush tied together and sunk or anything to give structure. <br /><br />And yes.......... in my post I said we require permits as well, and I believe there is even a regulation that they be a certain depth. So yeah maybe not all fisherman will be smart enough to not put on shallow..........if they do, its illegal.<br /><br />Maybe fish crib is a wisconsin thing.....if you google it, the wisconsin dnr site is the first thing that shows.....<br /><br />Here are a couple examples of what I am taking about.<br />
PerchLakeFishCribs_2003-3.JPG
<br />
dd_crib_boat3x340.jpg
 

xxxxxx

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Re: Man made Crappie beds..right? ... wrong ?.

To all I'm glade I brought this topic to the surface. It is one that needs to be addressed.<br />Thank you all for not jumping on one person ..like me. Once I brought a subject up and a few where not nice with there words.<br />LETS keep the plastic...rubber hose...metal out the water. Next ask the keeper of the body of water ask for permission first before putting anything in the body of water.<br /> thank you for viewing this post............Michael<br /><br />PS: P.O.N.Y.... nice job with the motor!
 

gonefishie

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Re: Man made Crappie beds..right? ... wrong ?.

Well some plastic and metal in a large body of water is not gonna hurt anything. We need to be more worry about all the farm run off and mercury particle from coal fire power plants getting into the water. But that is a whole another debate that going to get drawn out much more then anyone of us, at least me, to care to read about.
 
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