--no prior pond experience: check. --decided to dig on a whim (with a borrowed trackhoe only available for short time last summer): check. --no site or soil survey: check. --dug right through clay soil and into sandy/rocky soil thinking "the deeper the better, right?": check. --probably dug into some sort of ancient stream bed: check. --hit plenty of springs: check. --probably too steep of sides and levee: check. --encountered boulders too large to move: check. --water leaks out through sand seams underground and reappears in my pasture more than 100 yards downhill much to the delight of my farm animals: check. --only found this informative website after-the-fact: check.
Luckily the pond is small (about 40 x 60ft) and there's a small branch creek which flows year round not too far away. I ended up leaving a large boulder in the middle like a little submerged island, and used it to place footings for my walkway (which is made out of black locust logs).
All of this was done on a shoestring budget, which makes it that much better. I did have problems filling the pond, and ended up using Soilfloc polymer which really helped slow the leaks. It still requires some continuous water flow from the creek, but I think that will be OK. I'm really trying to avoid using a liner.
I'm using 4 inch corrugated drain pipe from the creek for inflow, and a 6 inch corrugated pipe for outflow (which all goes by gravity downhill below the pond back to the creek). Will eventually slowly replace the cheap corrugated plastic with buried PVC pipe as the budget permits. I do have an emergency spillway. (One of the pictures shows some water below the dam, but the dam does not leak, and that is just spring water from some recent very wet weather which is unrelated to the pond.)
