re: Sinking artificial tree for crappie

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Unless the water is crystal clear, if the trees are more than 5ft deep, the algae won't grow on them very much because not enough light reaches them. Mine were in the the 20ft-10ft depth range.

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The DNR will have PILES of christmas trees at boat ramps on the Georgia side of Clarks Hill in about 2 weeks and normally I do my share of getting rid of them for the DNR (I am too busy this year to do so). In Clarks Hill in 20 feet of water they will become a mass of algae before the second Christmas. Clarks Hill tends to be gin clear from about June through October though. I used to do the same thing on West Point and it is far more fertile than Clarks Hill and they would last longer but they would eventually also become blobs of algae. It was also kind of a labor of love on west point and not really necessary due to the amount of cover left in West Point when it was dammed up. Clarks Hill also has a substantial amount of cover but its older by about 30 years and much of the cover in Clarks Hill is gone or getting close....compared to West Point. I have also done the same thing on Alatoona and they'd blob up in a short period of time on Alatoona because it is also gin clear and if you put one in 40 feet of water in April it will be in 10 feet of water in February LOL. In my experience a 10 foot tall sweet gum tree is ideal....cut green. They are flexible so they do not destroy themselves in the boat and the branches are far enough apart to allow good water flow and provide plenty of cover. I have cut branches out of christmas trees and had them last longer....but without it they are so thick that they don't work long, in my experience.


About 20 years ago they stopped doing it but for about 20 years prior to that a group of guides on Clarks Hill would tow MASSIVE oak trees out and sink them upright.......some of those are still around and hold an amazing amount of fish all the time. Unfortunately live scope has made them well known to everyone with a boat so they get a lot of pressure but it is amazing how many fish stack up in those trees. Some of them were 50 or more feet tall sunk on the river and creek channels in 70 or so feet of water so the crown was 20 or so feet below full pool.....and about an 1/8th of an acre across down to about 40 feet deep. There used to a be a video of them setting one of the bigger and better known ones on you tube....it was a LOT of work but they flat out still hold impressive numbers of fish....albeit fish with lockjaw LOL.....

Agreed. I wouldn’t drop some Chinese bs plastic tree in my lake. PVC is one thing, the china plastic tree sounds like pollution to me. Throw it in a dumpster.

It works but you only catch fish on artificial bait