Justin and I picked up some new equipment and are going to start building the first of many hatchery/forage ponds for our lake tomorrow.
We also will be building several forage ponds for clients this next year as well!

Here is a pic of the 2006 Kubota KX121 mini excavator:


This is the 2002 Caterpillar 226 Skid Steer:


We also picked up a trailer and a dump truck from a guy who was shutting down his excavating business and made us one heck of a deal on the whole lot!

Cool!

Have equipment will dig!

Those will work . Who's going to drive which one ?

n8ly:

You going to put some tracks on the skidsteer?

i have a cat 246 skid loader..they are nice except when you are trying to push and turn at the same time. the joystick system delivers 85% to one side when turning..almost impossible to make it move in slippery situation if you are trying to cut dirt..

with that being said, i would buy another one tomorrow if i needed one.. i love the foot throttle..

Exciting, Nate!!

Justin drives and maintains them both. I am completely ignorant and useless when it comes to equipment, engines, motors, and fixing things. Justin is a genius when it comes to that sort of thing.

Sounds like a good learning opportunity Nate. I'd love to learn how to operate and maintain something like that. You never know when a skill can come in handy.

As much as I like learning about everything humanly possible, I realize that my mind can only run 100 mph, 101 might push me a bit too far over the edge.

It works out pretty good though having a brother like Justin.

You can learn how to drive them. Justin will need some help.

I have another brother, 2 brother in laws, and my mother. I wont be learning how to drive any equipment any time soon.

Spent a few hours yesterday designing our ponds and am pretty excited. We have a 12" siphon on our 33 acre lake. We dont have an overflow since there is no runoff draining into the lake, so we have to use the siphon to let water out. The siphon is adjustable with a nice valve, so I can run as little as 20 gpm all the way up to over 1000 gpm if needed. The whole lake is elevated and down below the siphon we will build a series of ponds that all gravity drain into each other. The first pond where the siphon comes in is going to be 40x200, and the rest of them are going to be 30x100. I already have a 900 foot long trench that is 30' across and 8 feet deep down there, so we will just be digging out the cattails and muck, shaping up the sides and building some nice dams.

The first pond is going to be my bluegill hatchery pond for the lake. We go through alot of fish up in the lake in a years time and we desperately need to supplement the bluegills. I am not going to buy fish for the ponds, but rather grow em from my best brood stock.

I am going to have the other ponds be for feed training SMB, LMB, and YP to supplement for the lake as well. The lake is different than most in the fact that naturally it supports pretty much no fish. Everything catchable in the lake is for the most part stocked fish and pellet fed.

Sounds like someone is going to be busier. Bob had a good article on forage ponds about 2 years back in the mag.

Very cool Nate!

Nate --

Looks and sounds great. I have a good friend who has a track hoe just like that, and a skid steer about that size. He and his dad have done a lot of work at our place. It is amazing how much dirt they can move in a short time with one digging and the other loading the dump truck -- all at high speed -- and without crashing into each other.

Looks like a lot of fun.

Ken

Outstanding!