So I lucked into getting a 4 acre pond dug on my farm for free. Long story short, a company needed dirt, I wanted a pond, we made a trade.

Now on to the build.

The dig has started and should be 4 acres in surface area and 12-14 foot deep. I'm gonna have them put an island in the middle with some of the left over top soil they don't need.

My goal is to make this an incredible bass pond. I've got some ideas but would love your help to make it happen!

What would you do?

What part of the country are you located?

Welcome to Pond Boss!

As you may or may not know, making a quality pond is more than just digging the hole, so hopefully you have all the exact details worked out as to soil type, damn, key, spillway, and water source, etc.

With a sweet size of 4 acres, I'm assuming you've got good clay to work with?

Like scott69 said, tell us more.

Read the book “just add water” by Mike Otto. There is a lot to building a pond that will hold water. Make sure that it is suitable for a pond before they dig. Sometimes free ain’t so free

Welcome to pond boss

Thanks for the book referral. The soil type and site is gonna work out well. The company had to have the right soil type for their project so core samples were dug prior and we confirmed the clay content would be more than suitable to hold water. In fact, part of it's already dug and it's already retaining water with the recent rainfall.

I will try to post some pics later.

Kansas. About 45 mins Southwest of Kansas City.

Bham, I also made an island & enjoy fishing around it. However, due to fear of poachers I did not make any peninsulas, and now regret. You might consider building a few of them for fishing, including underwater points with some type of sunken brush, trees, and/or rocks for hot spots.

Also, if you want good LMB fishing they will need to eat BG. Lots and lots of BG, as it takes ten pounds of BG to make one pound of bass. Be sure to get several good spawning areas built with pea gravel in depths ranging from 6 inches to several feet. I'd also advise you to do something I did not, which is put pretty dense cover around spawning areas so newly hatched BG don't get gobbled up before they have a chance to put on weight.

Trying to add pics.... Let's see if this works.

Well, not sure if anyone else can click on the image link or not and see it but I can... Not sure how to post the actual pic in the thread

Works here

I can see the pics also.

Is the pond an excavated pond without a damn?

Wow, way beyond fortunate IMO! Congrats!

Just my $.02 worth, but for the tens of thousands you're likely saving by having a 4 acre pond excavated for free, I would spend a few thousand (if even that, or maybe more) to hire a "pond consultant" who will ask you all the important questions (your complete pond goals?) and either oversee the project or at the very least BE SURE every step is done correctly. If there are any steps missed, this could potentially be the biggest headache and/or money-pit you've ever encountered.

I know that sounds drastic but if you spend enough time reading this forum, WHICH YOU SHOULD, you'll see for yourself.

Take nothing for granted, learn, learn, learn, ask, ask, ask and that 4 acre pond will bring you and your family more enjoyment than you could ever possibly imagine.

I would guess some experts here would confirm that each extreme is a possibility if not reality.

Best wishes to you and your project and we look forward to seeing the process and progress as time goes on!

Is the pond completed in the photos? If so, I would be very concerned about the safety of the large area of near vertical shoreline. It will surely slough off and I wouldn't want to be along that shore when it does.

Beware of free!

At least get a consultation from a pond builder if you can find one or a "dirt guy" if you can't. It costs WAY more to fix things later.

No it's not. Once all the dirt is excavated, we will go back and grade out the shoreline with a 3/1 slope.

The shoreline with the trees in the background will be the damn eventually.

So here is a video I took November 19th.
[video:youtube]https://youtu.be/PWOxA7Xod7M[/video]

This is not the completed shape or size.

The shoreline with the trees will eventually be the pond damn. This will be the east side of the pond. It's currently 130 yards wide, but will probably end up being about 140 yards wide once we dig out the drange ditch. You can see this along the south side of the dig as I can across just to the left of the small single tree next to the current shoreline.

The pond will extend about 190 yards from the dam to the tip and be pie shaped. In the video there are two mulch piles (tree chips from the clearing) just beyond that single tree in the background. This is close to where the "tip" of the pond will be located.

Here is another video I took Dec 6th with a little water starting to puddle in the base of the dig site.

[video:youtube]https://youtu.be/zDocOrI2xfE[/video]

Definitely fortunate and despite getting the pond dug for free, I'm intending on spending good money to make sure it's done exactly the way I want to provide years of enjoyment. In fact, my intentions are to hire a professional to assist. I just figured I'd start posting and reading here to see what advice others may have.

Congratulations!

So, start telling us your goals for the pond. Fishing, swimming, duck hunting, etc?

Goal #1... Recreation!!!

That includes...

great fishing habitat (primary target bass). My thought is to put in a lot of structure at various depths around the pond. Probably mostly pallets in triagle shapes, but may build a few Georgia cubes and other structure with PVC.

Potential for waterfowl would be a huge plus. Im considering putting in a well first to get the thing filled up, but also so I can control the water level. I want to make sure severe droughts are not a factor, but also thought it would be awesome to be able to plant food plots for duck around the edge and be able to flood it using the well.

Last but not least, summer time swimming. I plan to put in a dock with a jumping platform and maybe even a zip line. My thought would be to put the dock on the damn side of the pond so there is plenty of depth. Obviously I wouldn't have any fishing structure below it.

So here is the site location

Yellow = shoreline
Gray shaded area = current excavated area
Brown = dock
Green = island
Neon green = well
Gray = rock washout for well water flow



Tell me what you would change? Add? Remove?

I wouldn't do the island. It's a waste of potential water storage, and will contribute to sedimentation.

An island looks nice but wave action will level it out in a couple years if not rocked heavy or surrounded by a wall made of stone, steal or some other type of water barrier. It would be hard to keep mowed or cleaned up if you did not want it to grow up naturally. Rock would make more fish cover.

Unless the contractor had a source of dirt much closer to his job site, I certainly hope that you didn't make an EVEN trade of dirt for a pond. Four acres of ground dug to a depth of 12 feet yields 25,813 cubic yards of dirt. 30% decompaction from being loaded into a truck increases that to 33,567 cubic yards. At $1.00 per cubic yard, truck measure, that amounts to a considerable sum. Considering that the contractor couldn't get the dirt without leaving a pond, I hope you made a good trade.

I'm sure my dirt wasn't the only option they had, and I'm sure I could have asked for money and hoped they said yes, but at the end of the day, all I wanted was a pond. Its something I was wanting anyway, it just so happened to line up where the company needed dirt at the same time so to me it seemed like a perfect swap.

Good point on the sedimentation. Also taking up water storage was something I thought of. But if I add a high output well, I thought perhaps I wouldn't need the additional water.

As for sedimentation, would enough rock along the island shoreline combate that?

Some "pros" that have me leaning toward it are

1) fun camping site
2) additional structure and elevation change for fish instead of just wide open water
3) potential duck nesting site
4) potential area to set up a duck/goose blind

Geese will use the island for nesting, too. Ask me how I know...

Regarding the island, if you go in knowing how to plan for the negatives, you can avoid most of the things people are warning about.

Unfortunately, geese are going to show up no matter what, especially if things are 'peaceful' for them at your pond.

I WISH a flock of geese would decide to come visit my little puddle!! I'm craving a platter of goose breast jalapeno poppers!!

I would substitute a peninsula for the island.

Unless you plan on building a bridge to the island, maintenance is a problem and geese nesting will be a problem. I had a small island on one pond and ended up raising the water level and made an underwater hump to eliminate island problems.

A peninsula will give you shoreline for fishing without the island problems.

Underwater humps are good structures.

Islands look cool and may offer wind breaks & extra shoreline. Also, if you have structure around them it is hard for poachers to reach it.

Still, I wish I'd put in a couple of humps & peninsulas. Live & learn.

Silly as it sounds, you can always create a floating island. In that way it will go up and down with water level, and you can chain it to the shoreline to drag it over for maintenance.

I know turtles will use floating islands but will geese?

I have four floating islands and rarely see geese use them. No nests, either.

So tell me about these floating islands