Hey guys, just getting ready to start planning my first pond. The place I have planned is in bottom land. The soil is mostly blue clay.(have not went beyond 4 feet deep on a test hole). The pond will be 14 feet deep at its deepest point. The dam will be approx. 5 feet tall, and the rest of the depth will come from digging. The pond will be 1 acre.
Now my questions for this.
1. The water table is realatively high in the area. Will this cause any problems or will it actually help.
2. There are approx. 10 or more acres of hill side that will feed the pond with water. Will this amouont of runoff work with the pond size? (the creek that comes from the run off runs constantly every month but august)
3. Is there anyway to have a house seat built on the damn?( the damn will only be 5 feet deep.)
The reason i ask the questions is i have 1 year to plan the pond, before I break ground on it. I also have about 3 years after that to pay off the place i live in now, and wouldnt it be nice to live right on a pond, walk out the back door down the patio to the dock. just wondering if i have options.

Welcome Edro, What are your intentions with the pond? Type of fish you want to use? The water table may play havoc when your trying to dig the hole. Might have to keep a mud pump on standby so you can get your digging done quicker. You mentioned a stream, is it going to run into the pond? Shortly others will chime in with more information and ideas to help you out.

My intentions with the pond is to make it a trophy bass pond. I know this will cut down on the numbers of fish, but to me the bigger the better. i plan on digging the pond in the summer when the water table drops a little. hopefully this will keep me away from the mud issues. Yes the stream will run into the pond. I am wanting to plan some kind of buffer zone between the pond and the creek, maybe grass land or something to cut down on the silt entering the pond.
I am thinking that when the water table drops in the summer the pond will remain full from the stream that runs into it. Looking foward to hearing ideas.

Bump for someone with more experience than i have...

Welcome to PB . Can you post a pic ? Your local co-ext agent can provide info or get you in touch with RCA who has computer programs to help.

I would avoid running the stream directly into the pond. You would be surprised at how much silt and sand can be brought in. I would run the stream next to the pond (parallel) and damn the stream up and then run a 4 or 6 inch pipe to the pond perpendicular from the stream to the pond to bring water over.

Other option is to run the stream into the pond but create a small pond upstream of the larger pond. This could be used to raise forage fish or whatever and then it will catch silt and can be more easily mucked out with a backhoe than the main pond.

i like the idea of the smaller pond above the larger one. The pond would go from will to hill; I'm just daming up the valley. The creek is not very big at all, runs about 1-2 inches deep and 1 foot wide,(not really a huge creek) unless we have a down pour of rain.

Howdy, edro.

Good thoughts you're getting so far.

You mention that you're building on bottom land.....is there a river close by, that created the bottom? I have a similar situation to what you're describing, which generally has worked out well, but there is a constant very gradual seep from the pond which was mystifying until we did some digging with a backhoe in an area below the dam. About 6 feet down, the clay suddenly changed to fairly loose river gravel, deposited sometime in the distant past by the Duck river, whose channel is now about a hundred yards away. As I mentioned, everything works fine, but be aware that there could be a seam or layer of gravel somewhere in there.

No there's no river close, just a valley. It will damn up the head of a small creek. (The creek starts on my property and runs for about 15 mile until it meets the river. Im planning on digging a test whole sometime this weekend.(between fishing saturday and sunday). If all goes well the next couple weeks i will begin ripping the old barn down.(It's dangerously leaning and loosing its foundation).
If you guys want i will post pics and keep you updated and you can give me feedback which is much appreciated. (Remember this will be a year and half project.)
As of now I am on step one of a million.
Step 1: I have a guy from the extension office coming over next thursday. (If this step goes smoothly its on to the next, which will be finding several contractors and talking to them.