New member/new levee........just completed dam of 27,000 cu yds and waiting on rain to finish filling.Found this site in mid project AFTER my two stand pipes were erected.

Pond will be for family and fishing and have a low stocking of CNB,RES,FHM in Feb,will add more since pond has filled dramatically in last 3 weeks.Bass to come in June

Welcome to PBF Chasin170


Looking forward to hearing about your project.

Bill D.

Went out today and tossed a tennis ball over into the stand pipe and I'm about 3 feet from being full.Will be about 14 acres (10.5 now) and max depth 20 feet with average depth about 6-7 feet.I put in 2 8in pipes.Probably would have done a siphon job after my reading here but it's done,so I'll roll with it.Watershed is 160ac without a natural spring

Initial stocking of 2000 CN 1000 Native and 1000 RES is light but only had 5 acres of water in Feb.Also 4000 FHM were added.Will try to get 2000 CN and 2000 FHM in asap.

This weeks project is breaking down about 50 waxed cardboard boxes and floating them in the immature timber for my FHM.Anyone tried this?Any tips would be appreciated.

Chasin170,
Welcome to Pond Boss...tons of good info and helpful folks here. Post some pics of your project when you get time.
stickem'

love to see some pictures glad to have you

Welcome and sounds like a great project. Give those fish time to spawn and grow before adding predators.

See structure archive for cover ideas.

Chasin, welcome to the forum!!! I think the waxed boxes will disintegrate pretty quickly since only the inner corrugations are not waxed. If you could find a way to seal the edges, they would probably last a lot longer. If you wanted to create a "bottom draw" system, you could slip a 12" pipe over the top of your current stand pipes. Set the new pipe only a couple inches higher then your current pipe...that way water leaving will be drawn up from the bottom, inside the outer pipe, yet in heavy flow, it can easily top the outer pipe and drain.

Thanks for the response!Yes,I notices that on the boxes when I broke them down last night,I will cement the edges on a few and shove off on their maiden voyage tonight.

Re: pipes...I put two inlet pipes about mid depth (7 feet under full pool) to help draw deeper water and for security purposes if something every happened to my standpipe(s) I would at least have half my water.

Wish a put valves on inlets for further protection from water loss in stand pipe failure but I didn't

Additional 2000 CNBG/2000 FHM by April 1 to original Feb Stocking will add LMB in June.

PH 6.8.... Will delay fert until water stabilizes from rains and get into my feed program.Trying to walk slowly as I have alot of cover and trees in the pond that will I guess add to nutrient load.

Will get pics up this weekend up.Feel free to comment or criticize regarding anything I'm doing....Thanks

Suggest you think about when to stock LMB. You need time for the forage base to establish first IMO.

Later in fall or next spring?

I need a little education--Have read the post about the cardboard boxes a few times and was hoping someone would explain what their purpose was where they came from and why they are used?

Mike, we meet @ PBC and discussed pond seepage and Bentonite. Just so you can put a face with a name here. I believe the waxed cardboard is used by laying it on top of the water for the FHM to use for spawning. It will eventually go to the bottom of the pond and will be biodegradable over time. I tried to locate some here in Shreveport @ 3 box companies but had no luck so I went with blue Styrofoam sheets to float for the FHM.
Tracy

A could place to get the waxed cardboard is either a butcher shop or a store that sells a lot of produce. Often, meat and produce are shipped in waxed cartons.

Thanks Bill, but I called several of those types of places but it was going to be a hasel to get them that way. Had to be there before they discarded and was going to have to make several stops. The blue sheet I spoke of were not expensive and I can reuse them next yr, if I have any FHM left. lol
Tracy

Grocery stores is where I got mine.

Instead of waxed cardboard look to see if you can find some used agricultural seed signs - plastic cardboard - and durable. The grain elevators or seed salesmen often have lots of that stuff they throw away. I get a lot of it for a little coffee money donation at the local grain elevator.

Great idea,with the election year I may even "volunteer" to remove some signs as well...floating face down of course..:)

Erosion Mats

east view

brush piles

I left about 4 acres of small/medium timber in some shallower water.It will be a mess to fish but I dozed a path around the periphery so I can get a boat back in there.That cove continues on about 300 yards more up in some small pines/sycamores/elm

How close to being full is the lake?

Mike,about three more feet.Water will be up about 1/3 on the full width matts and under the ones I cut in half (wish I hadn't done that btw)

A couple of spots in the 1/2 width mats on the east side I'm getting runoff cuts in the clay so will need to address that and add matts and then top it off with bermuda sod when it gets dry enough to work.The Bermuda will be tougher than the Kentucky Fescue that I presently seeded and grow down toward the waterline in a dry year much better than the fescue

Lookin really good!

I think the water will drown out the pines. Not sure on the other trees. Willows would like the wet.

Yeah,the water will make short work of all the trees .Placed 2 TH feeders out yesterday and with water temps 58 and me chopping at the bit I started a slow "get to know your feeder" course with two 1 sec sessions daily of 7:00a/7:30p.Will run that until the fish tell me differently.Really great info so far by the mods/posters,thanks for your interest.

keep up the good work and keep us posted

Water temps have warmed to upper 60's low 70's still nothing but turtles hitting my TH feeders.Getting the slightest algae response at base of feeder (6 in water) from the wasted food.(Feeding 1s twice a day for 10 days now).Ph 6.8 and alkalinity isn't specific enough on my strip to determine.Hardness very low.

Any recommendation of a more specific alkalinity meter/test would be appreciated.My supplier is having a had time catching his intermediate CNBG so I'm sitting on 2000 (intermediate) CNBG 1000 fingerling RES/1000 fingerling native BG/4000 FHM....10.5 surface acres moving to 14 with more rain

Have ordered 2000 more intermediate CNBG but it could be another month.

At this very early stage I think I will not fertilize until I can evaluate feed program/waste contribution to bloom and raise my alkalinity in the late fall with additional lime.

Seems I need to evaluate myself as a manager as well for a year/or two before committing to fertilize.I'm proactive by nature so sitting on the side of fertilizing has been tough but just too many things point to waiting.Any suggestions fire away....