Pond Boss Forums POND CONSTRUCTION Selecting a site Beaver pond woes

Well im new to this,it seems like a very informative forum and i think i should be able to add some interesting subject matter.......Ihave to think where to start.....9 years ago i purchased a 100 acre piece of property. I searched extensively before buying this plot,much of New York region then New Hampshire. I had certain criterias that had to be met in finding,( in my opinion) was the perfect piece of America. I needed something remote and rugged. i needed something that looked wild and was. But most of all, i need someplace that was blessed with a supply of springs and a large pond,not shared by surrounding plots of land. I finally found what i was looking for. The perfect plot.... seemingly unaffected by the workings of man. Natural surroundings at its finestwith above all a large pond located in the middle of the plot!
The pond aprox. 7 acres in size was natural not manmade thanks to some beaver that years before decided it was also a nice place.The pond (after some detective work accomplished with a small john boat) i found to be 12 ft at its deepest 30% @8ft, 30%@5ft 20%@3ft, 10%below3ft, 10%above 8ft. The pond is fed by several springs that surround the pond and has an average outflow of perhaps 65gal/min, the water ph is neutral and the water clarity is very clear year round.
now.....lets get to what is really unique about this paticular ecosystem......years before it was one big pond, it exsisted as several smaller ponds (created by the beaver) one small pond fed into the next...into the next...down the line. I found this out talking to some of the older natives.....These ponds where loaded with native brookies( you could catch your limit in 20 min....then go back for more, it had seemed like an inexhaustible supply of frsh trout for the dinner table.
Then it happened......a freak thunder storm....one perhaps worse then anything encounterd in recent memory...proceeded to dump huge amounts of rain on the land. The first beaver dam started to over fill from runoff( caused by inappropriate logging practices), and overfill it did causing the dam to break apart.The sudden huge rush of water slammned into the next beaver dam, breaking it up, and so the domino effect... down to the next dam below that one ,then the next, right down the line........all was lost....and all that remained was a small little brook that twisted and winded through the scenic little valley.
It remained like this for a few years....that is untill the beaver decided the surrounding food source merited some major construction. And so they built back a large channel dam much larger then anything before. The pond that followed grew to the size it is now about 7 acres, much larger then anything before. Maybe a few months later, a new custodian came to the land, happy to be there and appreciate all it had to offer, and that was me...
ok .....if your still with me i guess your interested . Lets get to the problems. one of the things i wanted to accomplish with this pond was trout production ... after the washouts the fish never came back so i tried stocking brookies , that didnt work my guess is the pond got so big water temp became a factor, August bottom temp reached 70 degress. next i tried rainbows with no luck. Lately ive been considering LMB any suggestions?
There are photos of my pond on next page.

mtnlobster
Is your pond in the catskills or the adirondaks if so I can offer some advise.
Scott

Its in New Hampshire, 3/4 up the state,close to the vermont border

My consideration is with the Engineering. Now, I don't know anything about up North dams, but in Texas, beaver dams always silt up and sooner or later wash out. Is there any way to make it permanent or are up North beaver dams different?

Imade it permanent about 6 yrs ago. I put in a earthen damjust below the beaver dam

Dave
They are the same up north here but I think more stubborn, and a little more schooling on how to harass pond owners
Scott
Catskill Pond

Thats right! nothern beaver can be a real pain in the neck. however if you stop a min and consider what the animal is capable of its really quite incredible.Ifind them to be rather fascinating animals, sometimes ill be observing one 2ft away while its standing by its damn trying to figure out what in the heck i am. And that tail slapping....its kind of comical.
In my pond the beaver are there to stay.....i mean after all they where there before me, so i decided tha they could be an asset more then a hindurance.
Thia is a great forum for pond owners, and you guys seem to be quite knowledgeable.......anybody have any suggestions on how i could make my pond make me some money??

1st buy a nice rifle,try the new 17 caliber rimfire excellent distane shots, 2nd make sure the damn you built will stay when the beaver one goes (and it will) 3rd give up on the trout mother nature had something going you will never duplicate unless you are willing to start over make it deeper or not so big so you get the flow of water back to keep it cool and get ready for the headaches. 3rd large mouth are a lot better anyway contact your local fishery for stocking info and have at it. You could also do smallmouth who put up a better fight either or are great but not both according to my hatchery you can do one but not both. As for making money set up a charge for fishing we have one around here called Cat fishermans paridise they charge to fish and its always packed all the time rain shine or snow. but serously, I like beavers as much as the next guy but you have to get rid of them or they will forever be a pain. Maybe buy live traps and reenter them someone else far away if you dont want to destroy them your choice. Good luck

bc,
The new 17HMR is a very nice round for apx 200 yrd shots at groundhog size animals but that little .17 cal 17 grain bullet has little penetration & most probably would only make a nasty superficial wound after passing thru a beavers thick wet fur.
There are lots of trappers who would love to rid anyones pond of beavers. You can ask your local wildlife officer for names of local trappers.
Ric

What an interesting project! Can you provide photos? Photos of dam(s), pond, beavers at work (close-up shots, if possible).
In the meantime, I'll think about what you can do to create and maintain a fishery, too.

i have lots of pics how do you get them on here?

mtnlobster,
Go to the topic HELP under General Questions , It's the last topic heading on the forum. Third post down is How to Post Pics
Ric

Hey Dave, Don't belive what they say about "up north Beaver" being more pesky, I lost my dog to a monster Texas Beaver, drug him right under, barley made it out with my own life.. (up north beaver)HA!!

hey Ric ,i cant find helpor general questions where is it, want to post pictures right here is it possible to do that?

mtn,
On the main Forum page you have topics:
Open
Pond Construction
Stocking a New Pond
Managing an Existing Pond
Aeration
Aquatic Vegitation
General Questions

Each has subtitles .. IE: Open only has one .. Questions and Observations

Under topic General Questions the last subtitle is Help
It should be the last (bottom) listing on the main forum screen. Click on Help & then pick the 3rd post which is POSTING PICS EASILY.
Ric

This is how I did it.Have P.B. open on a new topic where you want to post your link. Go to www.photobucket.com start a new account, all they ask is a user name, password and e-mail address. They instantly send you an e-mail with operating instructions. You simply download your chosen pic to your photo album.Once you see your pic (in small) in your album, just click on it to enlarge. Right click and copy the URL from that photo. Now bring up P.B. again and click on the URL buttom next to the gremlins. Paste your URl here, remember to delete the "http" prefix because it's already there from copying. It will then ask for a title for your web page. This is where you type your photo name, i.e. My 14lb Rainbow. Ya right.
This stores your photos on the net. Posting the link as described allows us to see them. You can allow viewing of you whole album as well.

thanks for the info Ric!

It sounds to me like you have the perfect SMB fishery. The cool (but not cold water) and streams make it sound perfect. I assume your not particularly interested in a panfish, since you originaly wanted trout. You also must have a native population of baitfish (which I would be very interested in hearing more about). You should be able, assuming you get some yearly reproduction if small, to grow trophy smallies. True they aren't very competative against LMB and BG but try landing a 5lb one on a fly rod! They actualy have crayfish patterns designed for SMB.
BTW, sounds like you have a slice of heaven, if you need someone to inherit it, I would make the sacrifice and move to NY.

thanks for your recomendation. Iwas actually thinking about SMB however lately ive been leaning towards LMB and pumpkinseed as forage

Why pumpkin seeds? they don't get near the size of BG?
here is a link to fishbase.org, this is what they say about pumpkins
http://www.fishbase.org/Summary/SpeciesSummary.cfm?genusname=Lepomis&speciesname=gibbosus

Lakedoc believes that smb spawn better with some current and I have also read of them spawning in rivers. They are really a river fish, being quite populous in the upper missippi. If you have creeks with rocks flowing into your lake I think you should get above average SMB recruitment. You may want to had rocks or gravel. I don't know how many fields you have near by but farmers ussaly collect piles of field stones you may be able to get just for hauling them away.

tyw if you had read my original you would know that my pond is all spring fed. The springs supplying this pond are all very cold aprox 45degress , they most come from deep under ground trough a shale slate stratum . I always wanted to investigate these springs to see if i could increase there flow somehow. Unfortunately i never had the time to do it. IN any event the springs feed the pond with a total flow of perhaps 60gal per min....its all in my original posting ,you should read it, its still there! anyway i included pictures of my pond you can get alot from them .They are a couple of posts back from this one. i appreciate all the suggestions and comments and find them all interesting!

I am not by any means an expert, but I would not throw out the idea of trout all together. As you said, they were once native. That would mean to me you have the climate, soils, water etc to sustain trout. The size, shape of your pond may have changed, but these essential elements have not. Even as a suplementary species, you may consider stocking a few. Aeration will most likely help you to achieve your goals regardless of species. I am partial to trout, not for their taste, yuk, but pound for pound are hard to beat from an angling point of view. (And that's all my repressive gov't will allow pond owners to stock). I also wonder what happened to your planted trout, are they actually gone, or just hard to catch. See, now I upset both the bass fisherman and now you. Just my 2 cents anyway. Good luck with your pond, you found the right place here anyway. Wood

mtn,
I would have to agree with Wood, except I very much like the taste of trout. BTW Wood is the one who posted the inst. for posting pic's.
Also .. very nice pond! Like the pic's.
They started moving dirt yesterday for my pond!!!
Ric

Wow! beautiful site. I miss New England as I used to live a stone's throw from the New Hampshire line in Massachusetts. I have fond memories of catching brookies in a spring fed lake near my house.

That said, as one who is raising brook trout right now I would not give up on trout either. 60 gpms of flow is more than enough to keep trout if you manage it right. However you may want to attempt to divert runoff from summer thunderstorms in the future if you go the trout route again.

I have an 88 by 59 by 9 foot deep pond on my property that I have grown brook trout over 5 lbs. with only 38 gpm. The pond is about 117,000 gallons.

The trick with trout as you probably know is you must keep water temps between 55 and 65 (most of the time but you can go a little higher if D.O. levels remain high) with at least 6 ppm of oxygen. If you can do that you are home free. From my limited experience I have found you should have a pond that has a low surface area for depth to keep temps cool but I also use a 1/10th hp compessor/diffuser system to keep the water circulated. However I heavily feed my fish and removed over 500 pounds of trout from this pond this fall. If you do not stock heavily, do not feed, and have water that has a low surface area ration to depth you should be fine w/o artificial aeration. However it would be a good idea to do some form of natural aeration as in a fall or something just like they do in stream improvement. I would think you should be able to have a pond up to a half an acre with 60 gpms if you do everything right or even better would be again a series of smaller onds as you had before

Obviously your original three ponds did not warm up as readily as the one larger pond. And correct me if I am wrong but I believe you had a drought recently which may have contributed to the problem.

If it was me I would go with the trout in a hearbeat and I do understand your leaning to the pumpkinseeds if need be as they are a cooler water fish than bluegill and probably are easier to obtain in your area.