I saw some pictures of artificial brush piles that I was very interested in making but haven't gotten around to it. I can't find the pictures so I will try and describe them the best I can. They cut a bunch of different length sections of plastic hose (it wasn't garden hose it was black plastic and was about 1 inch in diameter and about 1/8-1/4 inch thick so it was pretty sturdy) then they took cinder blocks and placed a bunch of the pieces in each side and then filled them with cement. The hoses all kind of flowered outward and made a snice snag proof structure. I've included a link to a picture of the closest thing that I could find on the net. It's the stake tree structures about halfway down the page. They used 5 gal. buckets and 2x4's so just picture that with a bunch of hoses instead of the wood.
http://www.pserie.psu.edu/seagrant/communication/fact/fs14.html