Gary wrote:

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Most of the guys around here are using Christmas tress with concrete poured around the base using a 2 gallon plant pot for the mold, and when dried just cut the pot off.  The trees stand erect and they say they last for ever?

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Gary I have a Christmas tree sunk in a corner and branches tied together sunk 40' from the tree.. neither has produced a single fish..

I tell ya.. I use to be 100% on board with the Christmas tree thing as well.. but here is the thing with trees.. if you put a pine tree in the water it takes months for the needles to fall off.. if the lake has a lot of sediment suspended in the water it clumps to the needles and fine limbs.. once this starts to happen your tree is basically "clogged up" and small fish wont be able to swim through it.. just suspend around the outside.

Within a year a pine tree losses up to 50% of it's fine limbs and starts to look like a tree skeleton... that is when big fish start to hang in it really good.. but after a year even the larger limbs start to snap off and even though your old crusty tree may still hold fish... it's not as good as it was the first year. That's why guys that drop Christmas trees in the water usually do it every year.. out here in Texas the water gets up to 90 degrees and I'm sure that eats the trees up even faster..

Had my father not bought the Bill Dance porcupines and put them in the water I would have tried to tell him don't do it.. but I have since fished them and there are two things about PVC fish structures that have now forever steared me away from adding natural cover... PVC is dam near snagless and they hold fish.. I actually cast my jig so it drags right through the PVC.. can't do that with a Christmas tree.. well you can but you will either lose your jig or pull branches off your tree.

Anyways that's my 2 cents on PVC vs natural cover. when out on the main lake I still fish trees.. but I didn't have to mess with transporting and sinking them..