CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- Scott Blake has a message for everyone who buys a natural Christmas tree this holiday season: Recycle.

"You wouldn't believe how beneficial those recycled trees are," said Blake. "Everywhere [Division of Natural Resources workers] put them, you can count on finding fish."

Every year, the DNR collects discarded trees and sinks them into West Virginia's lakes to create fish habitat. Blake, a diving enthusiast from Tyler Mountain, said the trees act as artificial reefs, providing fish with places to hide or to ambush prey.

"The difference between areas without trees and with them is like night and day," he said. "You can be cruising along, seeing nothing but mud and rocks and maybe a fish or two, and all of a sudden you come upon a clump of Christmas trees and there are 100 fish around it."

Skeptics need not take Blake's word for it; he has pictures.

"When people find out I'm into diving, they ask me what I see down there. I decided to take along a camera so I could show them," he said.

Most of the photos he's taken have been at Braxton County's Sutton Lake and Nicholas County's Summersville Lake, mainly because they're the only ones clear enough for decent photography.

"I encountered my first patch of trees at Summersville," Blake said. "They had a lot of small walleye around them. The population was incredible. There must have been 20 to 30 little walleye on each 5- or 6-foot tree. I couldn't believe it."

Zack Brown, a DNR biologist who coordinates the tree-habitat program, said the recycled evergreens help replace what the lakes' original builders stripped away.

"When these reservoirs were created, the Corps of Engineers used to clear the ground before they filled the lake. They just took all the woody vegetation away. Some of our most valued game fish species - bass, crappie, bluegills and muskellunge - like to hide in woody vegetation. The brush piles we create with Christmas trees give those fish a place to live," Brown explained.

Fish forced to live on rock or mud bottoms often find themselves exposed to predators. Brown said it's only natural for those fish to seek cover.

"Think about it," he said. "If you were out on the African plain, you might like a tree to hug if some lions came prowling around."

Brown said the DNR "has a longstanding relationship" with the operators of Charleston's Capitol Market, which acts as a clearinghouse for recycled trees. "The folks at the market collect the trees, and workers for the state's [Rehabilitation Environmental Action Plan] help out by transporting them for us. We try to place [them]

while the lakes are drawn down during the winter. We try to get them all in place before spring, when the lakes start refilling."

Brown said people should contribute their trees by removing the ornaments from them and dropping them off at Capitol Market soon after Jan. 1.

"I mention the ornaments because someone occasionally leaves a few of them on," he added with a chuckle. "We like ornaments, but we don't need a collection of them."

Once placed in their watery homes, the trees attract fish surprisingly quickly.

"One time a dive buddy and I found a clump of trees that had broken free of their anchors and had floated to the top," said diver Blake. "We dragged it off the bank, found a sunken stump and tied the trees to that. I surfaced, got a breath and dove back down. Fish were already moving in on the trees when I got there."

Brown said DNR officials hope to collect roughly 700 trees this year. They'll be planted in Wayne County's Beech Fork and East Lynn lakes, Summersville, Sutton, Upshur County's Stonecoal Lake, Taylor County's Tygart Lake and Grant County's Mount Storm Lake.

Reach John McCoy at johnmc...@wvgazette.com or 304-348-1231.