Pond Boss Forums POND CONSTRUCTION Soil questions How to find Leak?

I just bought a home on 3 acres and a mostly empty pond occupies about 1.2 acres. The soils is red clay with some iron deposits. What gets me is the type of soil should hold water. I dug a small test hole next to the pond about 4 feet deep. It will hold water like a bucket. The bottom of the pond if full would be about 12-14 feet deep. The pond will hold about 4 feet now, however, it will recede to the 4-foot level about 1-2 days after a heavy rain. The bottom has 4-9 foot tall pine trees in it, so it hasn't held water for a while. The soil on the bottom is a sand/clay mixture. Could there be to much sand? I would like to find the leak so maybe a ESS-13 or Bentonite application might allow it to fill. All answers/suggestions appreciated.
Thanks,
Brian Christian

Brian,
How high above the 4 ft mark have you seen it?
With the info you have given I would be looking around the 3 to 4 ft mark for anything other than clay soil. IE: shale, tree roots in the dam, sand, rocks, gravel ect.
Give a little more info. .. Stream fed? Water running below the dam? Dug pond ect.
Ric

Ric,
I have seen the pond about 6-10" higher after a very heavy rain. There is about 3-5 acres of drainage to this pond, however with one 20 foot long ditch and permission from the county, the pond can acqire about 30 more acres of drainage. The house is on the top of a hill so drainage is hard to come by. I hacked my way behind the levee today and found the soil fairly moist, more so than the soil on the higher, dry part of the levee, confirming a leak. My main concern is I if I were to treat it with a waterborne application of ESS-13, would I be wasting my time and money? The hardness of the soil will make dry application extremely difficult. I could take photos of the pond and post them somewhere, that may help with the description. Thanks for the reply.
Brian

Brian, The wet stuff behind the dam may not be indicative of a leak in the dam. After a good rain I get a lot of wet area that I have been told is rain water running down inside the back of the dam and coming out at the bottom.