How much of this forest should I clear from around the pond site? Spent 2 days brush cutting just to pinpoint the pond site. With advice of NRCS it will be .3 acre and clay heavy roadbase must be hauled in. No biggie, my resources will go to aeration/fert/feed rather than so much clearing; I can hardly wait to stand on my pier with fly rod in hand! Trees are hickory, maple, oaks, .. generally hardwoods. I'm inclined to cut every tree back 75' from the dam and 60' elsewhere. Should some smaller trees be left in closer? Would you clear cut back more? I have a limited 4 ac. watershed and hard sandstone rock 18" down. What would you do?

SoS:

If you haven't read it, see Small pond in the woods. It describes a situation not unrelated to yours, and includes a lively discussion on Canadian Rock which you can ignore as you like.

I did enjoy the read, 'Small pond in the woods.' Clearing roughly 1 acre of forest, as well as taking out the GRAND Oak, for a .3 ac pond has me on a course for martial conflict. Don't quite know how to tell the wife about this. Honey, 'ya know the 90' oak, yea the 1 with the 4 squirrel dens up high, well yesterday I ... She's gonna shoot me. What ideas are out there on leaving some limited forest around the pond yet minimizing the water drawdown impact?

There is no requirement that the trees must be cut. Its your pond do it your way. You can manage around the trees. Trees add shade and help hold the soil and a lot more. Keep them away from the dam and you will be ok.

If I had one grand oak I would move the pond before I cut the tree.

If I had one grand oak at the pond, I'd be 75 or 100 years ahead of where I am. Right now my "grand oak" is about 6" high.

SoSauty,
Our pond project required clearing the entire pondsite of pretty thick timber. Alot of it was pole size, but there was an ocassional thick Hickory, Walnut, or Cherry that broke my heart to mow down...just gotta do it.
Once the waterzone was opened up, the entire picture I had in my head changed. I was warned that it would...it does. I have a pretty slick contractor doing the work and he suggested that I consider pushing the timberline back a little further to allow a roadway to follow the perimeter of the pond. He reminded me that some of the trees (or portions) will eventually wind up in the drink and I will want to be able to get to 'em to clean house. Besides, this will push them back about 20 - 30 feet from the edge, eliminating (perhaps) some of the leaves that fall from winding up in the water. My brother supports this engineering idea for another very important reason. He put in a 3 ac pond in MI. and is throwing me advice. The one thing that he says that he enjoys the most is the ability to take walks around the pond...it's therapeutic. I believe .3 acre can provide the same.
Good landscaping technique promotes irregular vegetation patterns along the shoreline. A consistent vegetation line parallel to the shore is less desirable.

SoSauty,

I would only clear enough trees to properly maintain the dam and edges of the pond...a tree or two would be great shade for you (and the fish).

The dam should have no trees, although I have broken that rule on my small .25 acre pond for the sake of shade I left a couple of big ones.

: )

Gator

Your suggestions, reading every tidbit on this forum, and Pub 590 sorta indicates protect the dam, clear some of the forest, and get creative with the areas away from the dam. In Oct. I'll get enough cleared to have line of sight across the water zone. I'm sure my drawings will change at that point. Think I'll keep some trees, maybe the 75' future grand Oak some 50' above perimeter. I was dreading clearing that much forest anyhow thanks

SoSauty,

How much open space will you need for fly fishing? The number of locations (or the entire pond perimeter) you wish to fish from may help give you your answer.

I like to have trees all around the pond, but access is important too. I'd make sure I had a road cleared the drive all the way around it at the very least.

Open shoreline is nice in some areas as well as some wooded areas. To me it's a balance of both.

The interesting thing is the more I clear, the more wildlife I see. They really like the edge of the woods and the cleared areas!!!

Eddie

Eddie brings up a good point
I had our State wildlife biologist out to our pondsite to go over our plans to utilize the W.H.I.P program. When I told him we planned to clear for the perimeter drive, he jumped all over that with adding native grasses. He said that this buffer of grasses between the woods and the water will eventually be teeming with wildlife and bio-diversity...big time. He highly approved and recommended this practice.

Cleared area versus forest: Animals are just easier to see.

Unless the forest is in the thousands of acres, it is pretty much all edge habitat, thanks to fragmentation.

This plan is getting richer, a little exciting too! The orange arrows rep the hill falling away, so can't slide the pond down much. The upper pond is only 50 ft from property line. Present shape notes 2 points enabling a fly backcast and then there's the pier midway of the long(120') East side. I envision an open yet slightly wooded view from the house across 90'of native grass to water with towering hardwoods and wildlife as the backdrop. The Redears will fear me as no inch of water shall go unfished! [IMG]

Made it out to 'Bama for a week last October. Sure 'nough, the plan changed with a clear waterzone to view. Nearly scrapped the pond concept. 1st, lousy soil and very little of that, 2nd, a Colossal Sandstone rock, perhaps 60' by 90'. On reflection, it appears to be fresh sandstone without any any noticeable fissues. The 2 neighbor ponds hold water OK, just not great, with sandy loam dams and bare sandstone bottoms. Seems a pond liner (Bruce does well using) would keep down part of the problem vegetation in the 1' to 4' water over the rock. I'd line the dam and 4'+ deep water leaving only some of the shallows au' natural. It's my 1st pond and seems a little risky. Excavation is still 2, probably 3 years out. Hope the pictures make it. The car in the background is the house site. Foreground trees are in 1' to 2' of sandy loam.

I got that trees on the dam is not good, but what about trees at the base of the dam, how far away should you keep them?

Keep trees far enough away that their roots cannot possibly effect the integrity of the dam. All trees are different.

"Know your roots"

(Out of box thinking) Tree roots will migrate toward water? If so then trees on front of dam would be somewhat o.k.; besides leaves in water etc. Thinking is roots will not have to go through core of dam(as trees on backside) to get to the water and most of major roots head to pond/water side and not into dam.

Not sure how you would plant a tree in front of a dam and not have it be in the water. The safest thing is to have no trees in the vicinity of the dam.

Just say no.

I kept the trees that are just outside my dam. The dam is several dozen feet thicker than the drip line of the trees, so I'm taking a chance that they wont go that far.

There is a creek on the other side of the trees that is just a dozen to two dozen feet away for them to get water from. I don't know what the tree will do, but the path of least resistance seems to be pretty common in nature.

For me, it's just as important on how my pond and lake look as it is for growing fish in. I spend more time looking at it than anything else and I find trees around it to be very pleasing to my eye. I find a dam with nothing growing on it but grass, and nothing behind the grass covered dame to be less than apealing.

Eddie