 Welcome back to the channel, everybody. Making a big haul right now, about 25 yards. Driveway to driveway. Got a little something special today. We got kind of a yucky day, but we're gonna build something. I've been in a very much build mood lately. Got some materials in the bed of this truck right now that we're going to use to build some fish houses. For some crappies, just go ahead and back this thing up to the old crispy collector. Get ready to build. It's a little yucky right now, but the weather was gonna be nice today, and I was going to take my truck and do a little trout fishing. Go on a little trout venture. However, my truck is in the shop right now. It is getting worked on. Now, if you've watched the next video, you will see the day before, and we are still in that situation waiting on it. I'm probably gonna go get it this afternoon, and you guys can check out all the upgrades. So that is on the next video, but this is my interim vehicle, which is a Silver Silverado. How about that? So I thought on this misty morning, why don't we build some structures that are gonna help us catch some fish in the very near future? And I went and collected some Christmas trees. After Christmas, everybody was throwing out their Christmas trees. So I got some of those, and I've also got a big brush pile in the backyard that Steph has been telling me to mulch up for many months now. I thought, why don't I take some of that brush, all these limbs that I've been limping off of all these trees out here, and use some of that to make some cheap brush piles as well. So this is what we got. Went to the home to pot, and I got some concrete blocks here. These are like less than two bucks, or like a dollar, 50 a piece. I got some quick Crete. I got another bag over there, and I've got another bag in the garage from Leftover Projects. And I'm just gonna take these, arrange some sticks in there, and then pour the quick Crete in there, mix it up, and then that's gonna be our thing. We can put our Christmas tree stocks in here, and it's pretty simple. Mostly where we're gonna be planting these is in a shallow water lake. And I've told you guys, the ranch that I've hunted and fished a few times, it has a dedicated crappie lake with no structure in it. It just has reeds around the edge. So that's great during the spring during the spawning, you can probably crush them out there. But during the rest of the times of year, I've idled around out there on my side imaging. I've looked at, I mean, it's just sand. There's bait around in the middle. There's one dock with like one little tree down there. So it desperately needs some good piles for fish to go into. And it's only like five or six feet of water. So that is what we're gonna be targeting when we're building these brush piles. You can really go buck wild with brush piles. You can make them gigantic. In fact, a lot of people do. Put them out in 20, 30 feet of water. I've attempted it before, but really we're gonna design these to be pretty spindly. Basically making a short, squatty, porcupine looking area that's safe for bait fish to get in. And then just giving the crappie a smorgasbord buffet house. That's what we're doing. So step one of this deal, I'm gonna take this big box right here. I'm gonna cut a side off of it and just lay it down. And that way I can lay my concrete blocks right there and when I put the cement in, it's not gonna get everywhere. I mean, I could probably do it on the leaves or something like that, but this is just gonna assure that the wife doesn't kill us. Our house and yard is kind of a mess, honestly, y'all. It's just a hodge podge. Normally she wouldn't care. But today we have a crew, like a team coming in and they're redesigning, they're re-leveling the yard. They're putting in stones and rocks and grass and all this stuff and making it pretty. And I don't wanna rain on that parade. So I'm gonna keep everything nice and clean. Clean up my work area. A little bit bigger knife, I'll work a little better. One of y'all actually gave me this knife at a meetup or a parang or whatever you wanna call it, but it's actually very useful. I've used it in the yard limbing many, many times. I didn't use it today, either that or hatchet to limb, but thank you. That's just a really nice piece right there and you never know when you're gonna have to chop down an oversized box. This right here, ladies and gentlemen, is a lot of brush. This actually, imagine it on the bottom of the lake what that would look like with all the crappies just in the midst of it, big bass eating the crappies. That actually happens, you know. I guess step two now is going to be finding the right limbs, doing some limbing. What we wanna find is the spindly ones. These are already ones that I've sawed off of trees. Some of these would actually make pretty good piles, like large piles in deep water, but what I'm gonna do is try to find the ones that are real spindly that I'm gonna put in like five to seven feet of water so I don't want them sticking out maybe just at the surface. The way they're gonna go down in the water is they're gonna be like a Christmas tree on the living room floor and all the presents below the Christmas tree are going to be fish. Just imagine that golden crispiness to happen there. It's also a good idea to do this on a cold day when the snakes are taking naps. Just throwing that out there. Take some of these limbs off, we can use those as extras. Take this whole end right here. That's gonna be about five, six feet. Chop it off right there. By the way, I am using a grunts, and brook, these axes are made in Sweden. I got my first one about six months ago. They are awesome. They are really awesome. This one used to be shaving sharp. It came shaving sharp and then I stropped it and it was incredible. And I actually planned on doing a video where I broke down a deer with one of these, like skinning and everything. It's that sharp, not kidding. But I made a little, a couple of boo-boos and you don't wanna chop directly on the bone with this guy. This blade is extremely sharp, but it's really not meant for chopping through bone. I damaged it. I've since sharpened it, it's still very sharp. It'll shave a little bit, but it's not as crisp. But anyway, so this is my woodsman's hammer. Just working on the old bushcraft skills in case I have to use them in a very bad situation. So let's go ahead and get up in here. So we'll take this end, stick that in our cinder block, and we're gonna have lots of spindles and then we can add on to it. One right there, just a wiry dude, perfect. Here's another good one right there, real wiry. This is kind of like a building a, what do you call that? A bouquet. This is like redneck bouquets right here. Instead of the florist, I am the fisherman. So just doing that right there, I think y'all kinda get the idea of what's going on here. But we'll start out with that base, then add just a few more things. Coming here with even small ones. Take these little small ones, chop them in half. The idea is you just get those spindly ones for a good base and then you can fill in. It literally is like bouquets. So now what we'll do is put the dry, quick creed in and get everything in place, how we want it. And then when it looks good, we'll just pour the water in. Give it a little mix up and then you know what happens. It becomes very hard. Probably could have gone with a bigger surface to work with, it's too messy. A couple of different tree species and look at that. It's got cover from top to bottom. Who wouldn't want to live up in there? I mean, you can't even tell. It's like continuous trees out here. It's a beautiful arrangement of oak and ash and something else I don't really know, but I would love to have this in my office. It's a nice little piece. Put some crappie in it, you know, as like a mount. Cinder block's kind of ugly, but anyway, you guys get the idea. This is gonna be nice. It's got a variety of different covers. It's got really spindly stuff, tall. This is gonna hold up really good. This is some like oak, oak sprouts right here. Some really small trees and branches that I trimmed off and I really like that stuff. So I'm probably gonna use that as the base on a couple of these. And then obviously the Christmas trees, they're really easy. Those would honestly be good, just laying over in the water. Basket of those two around docks. So I filled up concrete about three quarters of the way. Now I'm gonna fill it up to the top and wiggle those trees in there. They're really not moving at all, but then add the water and this one is gonna be done. Messy sun gun right here. I'm probably gonna end up moving this to the yard because I don't see a clean way out of this situation. Oh yeah, juices are flowing. This is gonna be messy. Sorry, babe. Poke around on that one with a stick for a little bit, let it do its thing. And that's pretty much the extent of making this style of brush pile with those different kinds of trees. I've also got a bunch of cedar limbs out here that I haven't used in this yet. There's a ton of them in the pile. I've also got some fresh ones that are just laying on the ground. So I also wanna try those. I'm really not sure how the cedars, like the greenery on the cedars will be with fish in the water. I know it detracts bugs, so I don't know if it'll detracts baitfish. But typically with brush piles, if you put it like fresh green trees out, there will be crappie and fish on it within like a day or two. I mean, it's pretty quick. These don't have any greenery on it, so I don't know how long that will take. It's not gonna last quite as long. It's like PVC or something like that. But PVC is really expensive to do. The one thing that people really like about PVC, if you're doing it in public lakes, it can be hard to see on your electronics so you can hide the piles easier. You're gonna see this very, very easily. But in the lake we're going to, it's a private lake essentially, so there's really nobody out there. Don't really care. We just wanna get the most bang for our buck. And right now we're looking at $2 for a, the $2 maximum like with tax on the center block and then the trees, they are free. I've got a bunch of them around here, y'all. And I'm constantly having to deal with them. But if you wanted to do this on the cheap, you could probably just find some people around the lake or whatever. Don't wanna be cutting people's yard trees down, but people around the lake that have to trim up their trees. So if you just wanna do some riding around and look for pre-cut limbs like this, now's the time to do it. Fall, winter, when people are out and doing that stuff, ask friends, ask your neighbors, whatever. But in the spring, if the lake allows it, you can just go cut them down around the sides. But definitely check your local listings on that. You don't wanna be just cutting down, Corps of Engineers trees or something. You might get a big take. As you can tell by the background noise, I have an entire construction crew here today. Oh yeah, y'all. It is getting absolutely bonkers in here. That man right there is an expert on that bobcat. One day, Rob Turcla. I need you to get to that level, sir. He is doing what would take me a year in hours. In the process, we've had some uprooting. I've got now the chainsaw. We're making more brush piles. Things are happening here. So I've got a super-limbing one there. Look at all the limbs. More piles, more piles. And let me show you what's happening over here. So for all y'all that have followed the Lake Life Family Channel, it's been a long time coming for this situation just with our house shifts a lot. Because the water, we don't have any sprinklers. So it is high time. We're getting water sprinklers put in. We're regrading the yard. So the water moves away from our house rather than under the house. So there's not as much shifting. And I think while in the process, we're just going to go ahead and get a little bonus move right here. He's got so much dirt. He's got to move it somewhere. So he's regrading the side yard. I'm going to have him push it in here. I've been meaning to redo this driveway anyways. This is going to be like extra trailer parking. Maybe put the Crispy Collector over here. And I'm even thinking about putting like a little shed, like a little lean-to barn. And I'm going to have him push some dirt right here and make it level. That way we can back stuff up in here. Extra trailers, boats, you know, all the stuff for the chickens and everything else around here. Wood, all that fun stuff. So here's another pile that I have constructed. So this one has got a mix of cedar in it as well. I'll put cedar limbs. It's got oak limbs. It's got the white ash. It's got it all. And now I'm going to move on to the Christmas trees that are right here. So I've got three Christmas trees. I'm going to make it super simple. I'm just going to take these little singular blocks. I'm going to put the stems. That's what you want to call it, the base, the trunk. In there, fill it with quick creep. Call it a day. Extra wood flying everywhere. I don't think there's any rewards being given out on looks here today, but you get the idea. These are going to get it done. I just love what's going on here, you know? There is a lot of change happening in the yard. I am building things. I'm having ideas pop out. Just having these guys here and moving things around. I'm envisioning. I'm thinking about more boats I can put in the yard. Search Stephanie loves that. Oh, Kedokia, we have got our two styles of crappie brush piles right here. One with the natural trees. The other one with the Christmas trees that we collected. First of all, we're going to let these dry. So that's going to take entirely too long. So I'm going to shut it down right here. But on the next video, we're going to take these out to the lake itself. It's a hundred acre lake and we're going to place these around, then go and fish them pretty, pretty quick after we put them there. And we'll continually check them. And I want to try doing some PVCs as well, just to like see how much the fish come to them. But I'm pretty sure fish go to more of the natural piles versus the PVC. And it is absolutely chaos here at the tree house. Right now there's a diagram tractor moving around. You would not even believe how much dirt they're taking out of the yard. They are redoing the other driveway right now. As we speak, I mean, things are changing around here. So you're going to want to stay tuned for that. I'll tell you right now, I haven't done brush piles in a long time. Normally what I like to do since electronics are insane these days is just go find brush piles that people have already put out. And I don't have to do any of the work. But since I'm going to be putting these in a lake that hardly anyone ever fishes and I'm trying to enhance the lake, I'm making them myself. So I figured we would learn a little bit along the way. And I'd share it with you guys. Thanks for tuning in. God bless you. We'll see you on the next day.