The Honey Hole Tree – The Art of Attraction

Written by Pond King, Inc.

Friday, 30 November 2007

Brad Metzler shows his inventions, the Honey Hole Tree and the BaitMaker. If you’re looking to put some fillets in the freezer or hang a lunker on the wall, the first thing you have to do is find the fish. How do you turn it around and have the fish look for you? Brad Metzler, a Wildlife and Fishery Sciences graduate of Texas A&M University, has created an attraction that he says fish can’t resist. During years of research as a fisheries management consultant and owner of Pond King Inc., Metzler developed his concept by trial and error. “When we did our electroshock surveys, we would consistently find fish in certain types of cover or structure. All we had to do from there was to find the best way to imitate Mother Nature.” His answer has been dubbed the “Honey Hole Tree”. The Honey Hole Tree is a molded plastic cone with more than 267 feet of small pipe that forms the limbs. Each of the 89 branches is three feet long making the tree more than 7 feet wide and 6 feet tall. “The main objective was to make a structure that had abundant surface area for algae attachment and also made a large findable imprint on the bottom terrain,” Metzler said. Sometimes the best new hot spot is the one you make yourself. Many fishermen use Christmas trees to bait fishing holes out in the open or underneath their dock. But the trees eventually rot and anglers often hook a limb and break their line when fishing over them. The Honey Hole Tree was designed so that it could be fished through without any hookups, and since it is made of plastic it will never rot, Metzler said. It also floats so it can be weighted to the bottom or suspended at a particular depth. The Honey Hole Tree attracts baitfish, bringing in crappie and other gamefish. Many articles have been written about incorporating different types of structure in new ponds and lakes. Excavators usually cut trenches or build points or islands to imitate some of the land features found naturally in larger lakes. “The presence of structure at different depths is important for lake management, especially concerning the growth and propagation of bass and crappie. Many of the lakes that we survey don’t have any underwater structure at all,” Metzler said. “We usually place clusters of 3 to 5 trees in 6 to 8 feet of water because that’s where adult fish spend the majority of there life in small ponds and lakes. The added structure gives fish an area to collect and presents an ambush point for them to feed from.” Metzler also designed a shallow water cover geared toward protecting and providing spawning habitat for baitfish. “The most important factor to growing trophy gamefish in private ponds and lakes is producing lots of forage fish,” he said. “The BaitMaker” measures 5 feet in diameter and about 22 inches tall, with 90 tubes springing from the dome base providing a tight protective area for juvenile fish and ample room for egg attachment. So if you aren’t finding the fish like you used to, Metzler suggests changing your strategy and baiting your very own “Honey Hole”. A cluster of trees set in 6-8 feet of water can provide a concentrated cover area.

 

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