I've been readng this site for a little over a year now. I have a couple of general questions that I hope some of you can shed light on. I understand the nature of my questions are vague and if you don't have enough information to go on I will understand, but any help you can provide will be greatly appreciated.

My wife and I are planning on moving west in the next year or so, possibly Montana or Idaho. Have any of you had any experience with building/managing ponds in climates like Montana or Idaho? Does they have the right types of soil for a pond? What sort of setbacks in general can I expect to run into building a pond in a place like Montana?

Welcome, North Coast!

I wish you well on your move to Big Sky Country. I can't recall any forum members in Montana or Idaho. We have those states bracketed fairly well with people in Wyoming, South Dakota, and Oregon, but since they count how many days (instead of hours like I'm used to) it takes to cross those great big states, the info is not really localized well.

Soil info might be available on line from state or federal agencies; people here may be able to assist getting it and probably can assist interpretting it.

Climate-wise, I think Ed Eitel (Wyoming) and Dr. Willis (South Dakota) might have a good idea on what kind of fish could be used. I suspect the info Mike Mitchell (Colorado) is writing about Rocky Mountain streams in PB Mag might also be useful.

NCL, if I was moving to either of those states, I'd be looking for property with a live stream and it would be in the mountains or in view of the mountains. With a live stream dammed up, i.e. trout pond, you don't need to worry about weather the soil holds water or not. I did a quick search on google and most of the bodies of water appeared to be fed by live streams or rivers. If you can narrow done the area of interest and scan google earth for ponds in that area it might help to determine if any exist. Much of Idaho has circle irigation so I know they have ground water in a large area of the state. Good luck