Last Night i sunk an orange tree sized limb complete with 15 branches still atached. The lake has a 35 ft deep field sloping up to 14 ft of water over 400 yrds. I sank it in 20 ft of water to get it completely submerged. Its an 850 acre lake and the tree is 200 yrds from known bass habitat. It is basicly in open water. How long will it take for a population to take hold naturaly? Are ther things i should be doing to help start a population? :-/

Ideas so far.

• put out fish food
  
• release unused shiners
  
• release caught bass
  

All I can tell you is... I know people who put out trees in lakes. As to my knowledge, all they do is drop them... and the fish come with time! Sorry I can't be of more help.

I guess I will fish it once a month untill I catch somethin.  Then I will know.

35 ft deep in a Florida lake?  Must be a phosphate pit.

To paraphrase a line from Field of Dreams:

If you sink it...they will come.

Surfer, if by unuesed shiners you mean ones that you went and bought but didn't use that it is a bad idea. Most places actually tell you not to release unused bait. Its one of the many ways that problems get transfered to different lakes. I'm not sure but transporting fish to different lake may be illegal too. Some one correct that statement if it is wrong. Just trying to keep both you and your lake out of trouble.

bassdocktor

i'm a little curious how you got a tree into the middle of a lake...

bass cover a lot of water when they feed, the bass may start hanging around your tree sooner than you expect...just depends on where their food goes now

"If you builit they will come". Nice.

Bass Doctor,

I had not thought of that. I have always released live store bought shiners that were leftover. Am I supposed to kill them then toss them? Or put them in a garbage can. Or can I just release them? Reminds me of Goldfish.

JD FL,

Lake Conway chain has lots of deep territory. Here is a map of the lake the tree is in.

http://lakewatch.ifas.ufl.edu/RevisedMaps05/OrangeMaps/ConwayNorthOrangeMap.pdf

This site has a list of lots of Florida lakes.

http://lakewatch.ifas.ufl.edu/MapList.htm

Topwater,

The tree fell back during the hurricanes and has just been sitting on the edge of the lake. I tied a ski rope to it and used my 60 hp to ****** it out into the water. I then chained blocks to it and sent it down. I did a thorough job as this is a very popular ski lake and I don't want anyone injured by a floating tree. It's took three hours and was more involved than I lead onto, but that's the concept. Its 0.4 miles from the nearest shore line and has no visual markers. GPS and sonar is the only way to find it.

Surfer,

Unfortunately I have no idea what you should do with unused bait. It's something I have never been able to figure out. I haven't really thought about it either since I don't remember the last time I used any thing that could be released. It's just one of the things that I constantly read when I flip through one of those books that the DNR puts out or that is released when some new virus is spreading.

Sorry,

bassdocktor

You have to be careful sinking logs, especially on a lake that isnt private property. There is always the potential that your anchoring could come loose.

As far as how fast will fish use it, that will depend on a few things. The obvious that if fish are staging in 10ft of water the log at 20ft is going to be ignored. Smaller fish, insects, amphibians etc may be attracted to it in hours or days. From there the cycle grows.

You should always discard unused bait on the ground or in a garbage can. In essence you are probably aiding in the spread of non-indigenous species (species not found in that area). Never transport fish from one lake to another either.

Spread of non-indigenous species is a serious problem and must be stopped!

We've planted pvc brush before and just left it alone. I can't really help you with getting fish to the brush. However I have heard that transporting fish is illegal, like BaitMS said, atleast in Georgia. Any of you southerners wonder how they got BlueBack Herring in Lake Lanier? People put 'em there.  :-/