Before:



After


We ended up not wanting to lose those 3 trees, so we built an island around them and extended the pond behind them. Don't judge the floating pallet..its a makeshift boat dock for our pond hopper..gotta find something better...any suggestions?


This last image shows we extended the initial end of the pond, and ended up just making a small round island in the center..


The general depth of the new area should be 1-3 feet when full, perfect for bass ambush areas..

While the area was being dug, the bulldozer decided to go for a dip in the pond..
it took 2 trucks and just tow straps to get her out again... We called a wrecker and for them just to come out for 1 hour was $300... luckliy it was high enough out of the water for the engine not to flood...so it pulled out ok. So thankful for great neighbors!

Looks good! The dozer dunk was fortunate not to do a lot of damage!

A friend of mine had a new pond dug a while back that was connected to the marsh on Spring Lake. After the 2+ year process of getting the blessing from all that you need to up here for a pond in this situation...

Contractor came out with a pretty much brand new track hoe (first real job with that rig). They laid down a bunch of logs over the mushy area and worked backwards, which seemed to work well for a while and all was cool.

Ummmm, now that they made some big enough changes in the dynamics, that track hoe got wet! Hevi Lift came in with one of their choppers to pluck it out! No way to get to it except overhead. That cost a pile!!!

How did you pull that out with the vector angle from your truck?

@jkb The dozer still ran and by pulling it to the right, we were able to pull it up into that little channel and the dozer ended up getting traction at the top of the lip of the pond and driving out...I don't know how you would get it out if the motor died...winch maybe or a chopper which seems insanely expensive haha.

I dont have pictures but the dozer on my project to a dip to. The operator got to far down on the bank sideways and it slid all the way down into the bottom of the pond with a couple foot of water in it. Luckily the track hoe was still there and was able to grab the top of the dozer blade with the bucket and pull him back up out of it easily.

One thing I learned on my project is that tracked skidsteers and dozers arent that hard to stick. But track hoes and back hoes can go thru an amazing amount of mud and muck by pulling and pushing themselves along with there arm.