I live on the coast, less than 2 miles from the water and I want to dig a pond & stock it with catfish or bass. I have done a lot of research but still have numerous questions. I have no idea where clay is at (if any) & I only have to dig a couple of feet normally to hit water. A lot of folks have ponds around here, some look pretty bad & some look good. I've fished out of several ponds in this area that had a nice healthy fish population that appeared to be just sand?. I plan on aerating & feeding this pond & digging it 12-14 ft deep for the most part. I don't know if I will need a liner, bring in clay, or what? I don't want my water to be ugly & brackish so I'm kinda thinking I may need a liner. The pond will be fed from a deep water well (pretty good water). Any help that I can get on this would be greatly appreciated, just want to make sure that I do this right the first time Thanks

Oh, & planning on the pond being 1 to 1.5 acres big.

Skinner...in your area apossible alternative to clay being trucked in at big bucks may be to truck in some sodium bentoinite clay.

Bentonite swells when wet and you could truck in far more of it for the same transport cost on hauling a wet, dug clay.

Plenty of info here and on the web about using bentonite to seal a pond, but in all honesty, I would bet a rubber liner would be the most cost effective.

Consider contacting Mike Otto, co-owner of Pond Boss and lake builder extraorinare at ottosdirtservice.com for a phone and or site consult.

Thank you, see now I'm gettin' somewhere lol.

If your water table is that close to the surface and it is always that close to the surface you could have a water table pond and it would not mater that it is sand. You might not be able to have very steep banks however.
If the water table moves down in the dry times then so will your pond as you probably know.

Yessr, water table is generally pretty high but of course fluctuates with the rain. I need to do some more research on Bentonite, I wonder if it will still seal the pond if there is standing water already in the pond?

I think it would be very hard to seal a pond that is dug into a fluctuating sand water table.
How much does the water table move over the course of a year would you say?

Normally not more than a couple feet.