Built fish structure in the new pond

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What do you guys think?

Unless I just can't see something, there's not enough weight to hold those in place. I've been down the same road.

Not enough .Make some out of PVC pipe . Tons of designs on internet Use one big pipe and branch off it. Put the main pipe in a 5 gal bucket filled with cement. The wood will be gone before the fish population can grow to harvestable size.

The big boys on the crappie lakes been using 5 gallon buckets and PVC or PEX tube and form shrubs or small trees with them. The rounded surface makes for less snags while still giving them the structure to hide under.

Guy I worked with last night is doing that now. He is using large tractor tires he is getting for free from the tire shop.

Those clay tile pieces are great. Stack as many together as you can. The PVC seems the way to go. Around here we gather used Christmas trees every year tie them to concrete blocks and put them out on the ice. Get your GPS and hit the waypoint button and done. A few big rock piles make awesome structure too

I thought about PVC but we wanted to only build it with stuff we got laying around or can find, plus we wanted to keep the materials natural (or at least semi-natural like concrete being similar to stone) and not have to buy anything.

We tied wire around everything and tied that wire to cinderblocks. And everything else not attached to cinder blocks weighed down some other way. I’m also planning on a lot of this to get water logged.

I appreciate the info, as I stated in a previous reply to someone else i probably won’t use PVC but I will add more structure.

I know a guy who got cinder blocks from a demo job and used them. The structures he built would provide big fish with cover and the holes in the blocks themselves provided the bait and hatchlings small spaces to hide

Am in the process of doing exactly the same thing. Built a lil late in the year for good grass around the dam and edges but I have time to work on structures now. I had a few oak pallets that I put together but wonder if they will float eventually. I have access to really heavy steel 50 gal. drums so I put some of those in as well for the cats. I used my tractor and smashed them half closed at the mouth and put a fairly good size rock in them before I laid them on the side. Hauled 3 truck loads of mountain stone but that was about all I need of that stuff in 94 degree heat! Probably be next spring until it fills up so it's a work in progress.

Depending on the water depth we have taken 8 ft logs and drilled holes in the ends. Take an 8 ft peice of rebar on for corners and bend the bottom. Stack a row of logs and add some brush. Continue this for 4 or 5 tiers and weight I down. Bend over the rebar on the top. Done more than 400 on a local lake but the caveat is that is should be in at least 16 ft of water. Over time some of the smaller brush rots away but the crib logs are still in the water and in great condition 25 years after the first set have been in.

A guy down the road made a deal with the Pre stressed concrete place for their blems and stacked the pipes and shapes it his new pond.

Bunches of 10 inch culvert pieces stacked like a Pyramid and I think that there might be a set of steps in there too.

There's a lot of force from rising water and wood that still wants to float, most of them will be dislodged and floating before the pond fills. I thought the same thing, only to see everything floating randomly around the pond. If you have some earth anchors, they work well and are cheap.

I’m thinking I’ll combine big logs and big rocks to make more structure with some brush in the middle and make small area for minnows to hide

Casting distance should be taken into consideration when building structure.
Go get some cattail heads and start breaking them up on the banks for the seeds to lay on the ground for the moisture to sprout.
A bed of cattails is plenty of cover for minnow fry to live in with food and shade.
Bring back some aquatic and lay in that structure you have made, you would be surprized what will grow from their seed stock even after drying.