Making a river bottom base.

[Joe K.]

I am making my first river bottom base for a smallmouth and was going to use the small aquarium gravel. What do you guys use to make a river bottom scene. 

Thanks

Joe

[mountman]

Joe,
Here is an idea of how I did mine.
I used a 2 part foam on the base while it was still hardening I added some light and dark aquarium rocks along with some fine dirt in the cracks and then sealed it with envirotex for the finish.
Hope this helps,
Jeff

[mark c]

havent tryed this yet  but was thinking of the green slimmy moss that grows on th rocks at the bottom  what if you die some cotton that green color  and glue it to the rocks  after it dryes pull off the cotten and you end up with some of that green slim you often see  add the clear and stones   mark c

[Joe K.]

Jeff,

That a very nice base. I baught some small aquarium river rock and was going to give it a try and see what happened. I just wanted to see if the was onther rock try material others was using.

Thanks

Joe

[Peggy Obear]

You can buy duck weed, the little green spots, and my boss did a duck years ago with a two part base, plexaglass over bottem, that he used green carpet  pieces with other stuff and it looks like the bottem of a pond or stream.  slime idea cool.

[Schmitty]

I went down to the lake shore and got a good portion of a 5 gallon pail full of beach sand....I sifted the larger rocks out (pea size and larger). I then coat foam with elmers glue, sprinkle the larger rocks on top of the wet glue (whatever amount you want for a river bed) and then cover it with the fine sand to fill in the gaps.  Leave set over night, shake off the excess and use a paint brush to get rid of the loose stuff, then i hit it with gloss.

[Jeff Sonner]

Here's a base I recently used on a comp. smallie. Panel underneath is from Hobby Lobby stained and sealed. Small piece of 1/2" ply, some carved foam rocks covered with mache and painted with a couple washes of different colors, and some WASCO instant base mix to fill in for sand look. If you want an algae look, lightly spray a little mallard green or med bass green i a couple small places or on the rocks lightly. Only takes a VERY little for effect.

[George Roof]

One of the best river bottoms I've seen was made by Jean Lavalee.  He took papier mache and rolled it into varying sized balls in different shapes.  Then he sprinkled different colored tempera paint on them while they were wet giving each "rock" a varicolored appearance.  He had 30 or 40 of them in his "streambed."

[Michael N.]

J. Sonner...Very nice smallmouth and base!