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BAMBOO CRAPPIE CONDOS
Lake Greeson is basically void of any natural habitat or cover,
which
is vital for newly hatched crappie and other species to survive
to
reproductive age and catchable size. Cover is especially
important in
our clear waters with stripers, catfish, walleye, bass, gar and
other
predators that seem to enjoy fresh crappie as much as I do.
We’ve discovered that Bamboo or
"Giant Cane" is an excellent material
for building fish habitat, also referred to as "Fish
Attractors". We call
them "Crappie Condos" because they make excellent cover
for young
crappie and other species to feed around and hide in while they
grow up.
Fish can be caught on them within days of
sinking and fish stay on them
year around when they are in the right depth range. Hooks are much
easier
to pull out of bamboo than wood and it lasts much, much longer than
most
trees, especially the small, tight branches that provide cover
for newly
hatched
game fish and the forage they feed on.
Bamboo Crappie Condos that have been in the water for
over 6-years are
still providing cover and producing fish for us. After the
leaves fall off there
are still a lot of small branches that make excellent cover and
moss and algae
soon form on the stalks and branches providing additional cover
and food
for young fish and also insect larvae and crustaceans they
feed on.
Crappie Condos also have open areas where larger crappie and other game fish
can conceal
themselves and ambush their prey from.
Giant Cane is native and plentiful throughout the south where it
is sometimes
planted for property borders or screens and often spreads farther
than desired.
We’ve found several patches that folks are willing to let us
cut back or even
take it all. It grows back to usable size within a year so we
have a steady supply.
Our goal is to provide
crappie and other game fish with beneficial habitat
that will accommodate their
needs at all seasons and depth
ranges, at
all lake levels and
through all stages of their lives.
To accomplish this we make four different styles of Bamboo Crappie
Condos and we’ve developed a system for each of them. We
now
have
over 1,200 Bamboo Crappie Condos in Lake Greeson.
Bucket/Bamboo Crappie Condos
For these we use one five-gallon plastic bucket, 60-pounds of
QuickCrete
and about 20-freshly cut stalks of bamboo about 12-feet tall or
only
the top 12-feet of taller bamboo. The bushier
the bamboo is the
better
and we leave the branches and leaves on. We don’t use any
bamboo larger than
about 1¼-inch in diameter where we cut it at the butt
end because larger stalks
take up too much room in the bucket and are
too buoyant. We cut the bamboo down
using a Commercial Brush Cutter
(Weed Eater with a saw blade) and then cut it to length with
bypass lopping
shears just below a “knuckle”, which secures the
stalks
in the QuickCrete.
It's best to trim off any branches coming out of the bottom
knuckle
so they aren't taking up room in the bucket.
We stack the bamboo on a boat trailer
and secure it with ropes to haul it to
our building site. Tying the Bamboo in bundles of about 20 stalks
makes it
faster and easier to transport and we can carry more on the
trailer.
!!!CAUTION: Be careful around power
lines. Bamboo is conductive so don't let it
come in contact with overhead power lines while you are handling
it!!!
The biggest problem we’ve had in building our tall condos is
keeping them
standing up until the QuickCrete sets, especially if there is any
wind. In the
past we used rebar driven in the ground around the buckets,
secured with
a piece of rope, which worked well but we also needed a tree or
dock to secure
the bamboo to for additional support. Now we're using re-usable
jigs made
from plastic culvert with 2 x 4 legs, which hold the buckets
secure without any
additional support while we build the condos. These work real
well as long as
we cut our bamboo no longer than 12-feet and we don't have a lot
of wind.
We start with about 3-inches of water in the bottom of the bucket
and have
one person stir while another person pours in 60-pounds of
QuickCrete.
The trick is to keep stirring as the QuickCrete is poured
in to mix it thoroughly
and keep any dry QuickCrete from settling to the bottom. We're
using 80-pound
bags of QuickCrete so three bags is enough for four condos. We
empty the
bags of QuickCrete into buckets first so we can divide it up
evenly and it also
pours a lot better from a bucket since it has been loosened up.
We make the QuickCrete a little soupy and make sure it’s
stirred all the
way to the bottom of the bucket so we can get the bamboo all the
way down.
A small garden rake with a long handle works well for mixing the
QuickCrete
but a piece of stout bamboo about 4-feet long also works.
Next we start putting the larger bamboo stalks in the bucket at
an angle so
the butt ends are at the bottom edge of the bucket and the stalks
rest against
the rim on the opposite side and work our way around the bucket.
Then we fill in the condo with the rest of the stalks
spread out at different
angles up to vertical.
Here is a set of 8 completed condos.
The concrete needs to set over night - longer in cool weather -
before sinking
the condos. The completed condos
are lifted out of the jigs and loaded on
a large pontoon boat with an open deck and taken to the
area we want
to sink them. We use a second boat with a mapping GPS/Sonar to
select
where we want a condo, mark the spot with a buoy marker and then
come
back and save a waypoint on the condo once it has been dropped.
There's no need to try to drop the condos straight
because they go down
like a parachute with the bucket at the bottom and stand
up even on fairly
steep slopes because the bamboo is buoyant. We put these
condos at
a variety of
depths on points, drop-offs, on the inside bends
of creek
channels and
in the deeper areas of coves that crappie spawn in.
Depending on the lake level we'll sink them in 15-feet of water
(when the lake is
very low) down to 50-feet of water (when the lake is high). We
usually see a 15 to
20-foot variation in water level each year and depending on the
time of year, we
catch crappie in as shallow as two-feet of water and as deep as
45-feet of water.
Bucket/Bamboo Lay-downs
For shallow
water spawning habitat we use a variation of the Bucket/Bamboo
Crappie Condo. Instead of spreading the bamboo evenly around the bucket
we keep one side open except for one stout piece of bamboo with no limbs.
When we're ready to drop the condo we lay it down and put a heavyweight
concrete block over the piece of bamboo without limbs and tie it in place.
To deploy, we slide the bucket off the front of the barge first and then walk the
block off the deck and lower it into the water as the barge is being backed out.The block keeps the condo from floating up and also helps keep an open
area under the condo for crappie beds.We place these condos in protected coves where they should be in 3 to
5-feet of water during the spawn, which is usually just below the buck
brush at a level where there basically isn't any cover.The advantage of these condos over the Concrete Bock Mega-Mats
and Lay-downs is that we don't have to wait until the water
level is low to put them in the lake.
We're also trying these condos in fairly shallow areas where there's
current at times. By placing the bucket upstream from the block we
think the bucket will anchor into mud in the bottom and the bamboo
will collapse in the current. We'll find out after the next flood.
Concrete Block and Bamboo Condos
We build three different styles of
Bamboo Crappie Condos using
heavyweight concrete blocks. The quickest and easiest is our Flat
Mats.
These are good for shallow areas and two people can build one on
the
front deck of a boat and sink it in just a few minutes
once all the
materials are ready and we’ve located the spot we want to
place it.
Each Flat Mat takes two 8 x 8 x 16-inch heavyweight concrete
blocks,
about 3-feet of nylon rope and about 16 bushy stalks of
freshly cut
bamboo about 15 to 20-feet long. We start by tying the blocks
together
with one on top of the other and at right angles to each other.
With one person steadying the blocks and another person getting
the bamboo we start inserting the bamboo through the blocks.
Two stalks of bamboo are inserted
through each hole in both blocks from
both
directions so that a third to a half of the stalk is sticking out the other side.
Once assemble we just pick the Flat Mat up by the bamboo near the
blocks and walk it off the front of the boat and let it
sink. It helps to
have a third person to properly position the boat and then have
them
back up slowly while we’re putting the condo in the water.
The end result is a cross about 20-feet across with four heads
that come up
about 5-feet off the bottom with open spaces in between. Once
they've been in
the water a while they'll settle and only come up 2 or 3-feet off
the bottom.
This is what they look like after they've been in the water a
while and the
lake level drops to expose them.
These condos are placed in spawning coves
in 3 to 5-feet of water depending
on the lake level. They can be built in place if the lake goes
down enough so
the spawning areas are on dry ground but if we get the
opportunity to work
on dry ground we build our much more substantial Mega Mats and
Lay-downs.
Mega Mats
Our Mega Mats make much better
spawning habitat than the Flat Mats
because they have much more vertical cover and areas where crappie
can
get up under the bamboo. However they have to be built on dry ground when
the lake is at it's lowest level, which is typically in the Fall and early Winter
here.
Mega Mats are placed where they should be in at least 3 to 5-feet
of water in March when the crappie begin spawning and in as much as
8 to 12-feet of water by the end of April when the crappie tend to spawn
deeper. Of course the water level depends on the amount of rainfall the
area receives and how the water is used for generating electricity.
We select a fairly level area towards
the back of a known spawning cove,
preferably where there is at least two features nearby where
the bottom
changes depth like a hump, shallow point or ditches formed
by runoff.
We start by stacking four 8 x 8 x 16 heavyweight concrete blocks on
top of each other in alternating directions and tying them together.
Then two stalks
are
inserted in each hole of the second block
up about half
-way through from opposite ends to make
a cross similar to our Flat Mats.
Two
stalks are inserted from each
direction in both holes of the third
block up. Each butt-end of these stalks go into one of four
additional "leg
blocks" on the ground about six feet from the stacked
blocks, which keeps
the top end of
the stalks suspended and gives the Mega Mat stability.
The butt
ends are inserted in the
opposite hole of the "leg block" so the bamboo
is
crisscrossed, which
helps spread the tops out and provides added stability.
The process is then repeated
with the
fourth block.
With one person pushing the
bamboo through the stacked blocks and another
guiding the butt ends into the leg blocks they go together
very quickly. With 4-stalks
in the second block and eight stalks in each of the
third and fourth blocks it
takes twenty stalks of bamboo and
eight blocks to build a Mega Mat. This
makes a
condo about 5-feet tall that covers an area of about
500-square feet
for a total of about 2,500 cubic feet of cover!
When the lake level rises to cover
the condo the bamboo will float up
making it more open with more space underneath. These provide
excellent, open cover for crappie to get under and around for
spawning as
well as dense cover for the fry to hide in when they come off the
beds.
Bamboo Lay-down
The third style of block/bamboo
habitat is intended to replicate a "lay-down"
tree - a tree that has fallen off the bank with the top of the
tree laying down
the bank in the water. Crappie and other species use lay-downs in the backs
of coves for spawning
cover and newly hatched fry use them for cover when
they come off the beds. Mature crappie use lay-downs in creek
channels as
staging beds on their way too and from their spawning areas and
young
crappie use them for cover as they work their way back
down the
creek arms as the water warms through the spring and summer.
We place our Bamboo Lay-downs on the
banks in the back of spawning
coves and also on
sloping banks along secondary creek channels between
the main channels and spawning coves. It takes
five 8 x 8
x 16
heavyweight
blocks and sixteen bushy stalks of bamboo about 15-feet long to build
one.
We start with two pairs of blocks
stacked on top of each other and tied together,
about 8-inches apart and a fifth block about two and half-feet
behind them. A
small garden rake works to level off a spot for the blocks so
they will be stable.
One stalk of bamboo
goes in
each hole of the bottom front blocks,
with
the two in the middle going beside the back block and the two outside stalks
crisscrossed with the butt ends
outside of the opposite side of
the back block.
There's no need to put the butt ends of the
bottom bamboo in the
back block since
they are laying right on the ground
anyway
and we need all the available space in
the back block for the rest of the stalks. We use these first four stalks
to space and align the blocks in the proper position.
Then we put two stalks
in each hole of the upper blocks
with the butt ends
going through the holes in the back block. Each pair of
stalks in the front
blocks go into opposite holes in the back block in a
crisscross pattern to
spread the bamboo out as much as possible.
The back block holds the
but ends down, which keeps the tops suspended well off
the ground.
Four bamboo stalks go on top of the front blocks with
the butt ends going through the holes in the back block.
When all the bamboo is inserted we pile rocks on top of the
blocks and butt ends of the bamboo for added weight and stability.
This is what the finished Bamboo Lay-down looks like from the side
and from the front.
When the water comes up the bamboo will float up a some, which will
open it up and give the crappie plenty of room to get up under the
limbs. The leaves will probably be gone by Spring but algae will
form on the bamboo in just a few weeks after being submerged.Providing habitat in a lake that doesn't have adequate places for
crappie and other species to spawn, live and grow is helping Lake
Greeson produce an abundance of bigger and healthier crappie
and other game fish for everyone to enjoy catching.
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