Just thought I'd share my structure attempts from last weekend. My wife and coworkers are considerate enough to say "that's cool", but I know you all will really appreciate it.

I started with Osage Orange root wads and some cedars that were removed from the old dam and added some rocks that were exposed from all the renovation and some from the creek. I began by placing the wads in the 4 foot to 6 foot deep areas (located with a transit). Then I retrieved some wet clay silt mud from the bottom where the pond had ground water seeping in and used it like mortar to construct rock stacks that created a bowl or pocket for ready mix. This mud mortar was mostly packed in from the outside so that the ready mix could ooze into the crevasses from the inside and hopefully hold most of the rocks in place after the mud mortar eventually washes out. I also drove some large nails into the limbs of the root wads where the concrete would be poured to give it a little more holding power. I have read that the wads do not typically move or float around, but my pond will have 3 feet of freeboard due to a large watershed and I could not resist the extra effort to ensure their stability.

Once the small rock walls where constructed, I started adding the ready mix and smaller creek rock as it filled all the while adding extra roots or limbs. I think you will enjoy the results without the back aches and sore hands that I am currently recovering from. With all the rock on my property, I'll have a hard time not gathering more rock to add to the piles...





EDIT: after the change in pbucket's 3rd party hosting rules, I have tried to add my photo's back to the thread and it may be a bit disjointed.

QA -

That looks good. Are you building any structure in to your pond bottom with contouring any humps, ledges, points, etc?

Thanks!

Three quarters of my 1/4 acre pond is going to end up as a steep sided 10 foot deep bowl. It does not lend itself to any bottom contouring. However, my dirt man may very well be there now adding a 30 foot long, 4 foot deep, 7 foot wide channel to the shallow end. At first, the shallow end merely tapered from 6 foot to nothing, but I have decided that bottom contour it's more important than breeding ground.

Nice work. Vertical relief is an important structure trait on a smooth bottom ( even if the relief is only a foot or two). If I had a choice I would rather have a standing log vs a lay down on the bottom log. Angled logs with a rock pile are good.

Neat. Just neat.

Great work! Is that a gun sheath on your 8n? Any other mods to it or implements? I've got a 1951 8n, those are great little tractors.

Thanks folks,

Mark, the scabbard or sheath is for my 410 which is for the copper heads. It's come in handy a couple of times. The box mounted to the hood by the scanbard straps is my hillbilly radio that uses my phone for music and when I get a call the ring is broadcast by the speaker. My 49 8n also sports the 12volt conversion, a model A horn, and foam filled tires all the way round. No more mods needed, Ford did those little tractors right! As far as implements, I have the mandatory brush cutter, scoop, single bottom plow, trailer hitch bar, and post hole digger. I have learned that any more implements means more work for me, so I should stop there.

Back on topic...my dirt man has finished my pond so I now wait for the rain, but he ran over one of my structures that now has to be re worked. Duho! Now I'm racing the rain and the earlier sundowns.

Just happen to also have an 8N.

Very nice indeed and a whole lot of work. I hope you are anchoring those trees down, they are very buoyant and once they float up you cannot put them back where they were.

I have added a little more minor structure to share with everyone. It probably falls under dam construction, but should add some structure at full water level for the little critters.

I got the carpet idea here at PB and I just so happened to have enough to do what I wanted across 80% of the dam...



At full pool most of the rocks should be wet which will leave about a 10 to 12 inch drop from the top of the downhill rocks to the dirt, at which point the water should be about 18 inches deep.

It's time to pray that the pond lives at full pool !

I have added some more pond structure to share. This effort was inspired by the recent thread about "Your biggest mistake" and other threads that talk about adding structure after the pond has filled up. I know that I have been very impatient to see my pond fill up, but I currently think it has been a blessing. Adding the spawning bed at full pool would have been a real pain so here it is. I got sandy gravel from the mostly dry creek and many larger rocks to give it a perimeter. The bed starts at what should be 1 foot deep full pool and extends to about the 5 foot level. The gravel and rock retrieval from the creek and its placement took about four hours with the help of my little tractor and its rear scoop attachment.



I have also been moving the dried muck from last years pond renovation to it's final resting place which has yielded plenty of rock to add to the pond for the crawdads and smaller fish to hide in.

You can have a lot more rocky materials if you want crayfish to do well. Keep it not deep but in shallower water 0ft-4ft depth similar to the rock zone on the dam shoreline and rock around your overflow pipe.

That ought to work well.

On the piles of rock you might want some vertical height as things that lay flat on the bottom tend to get covered in muck over the years. If the fish actively use the bedding material, they will tend to keep the area fanned clean.

Any individual rocks I placed on the bottom are more like just mud bumps now. Piles with some vertical height tend to stay rock piles instead of mud bumps.

Thanks for chiming in Bill and snrub! My place has no shortage of rock as I will be final grading the relocated dry muck this week which will undoubtedly lead to another trailer load of rock and I like the idea of adding some piles here and there. As far as rocks in the shallows for the crawdads and for use in keeping shoreline vegetation down, I can add that after the pond fills up with out too much added effort should it come to that...I can only pick up so many rocks is s short period of time before I start hating ROCKS, but I am very grateful that I don't have to pay for them and I get the natural variety compared to quarried stone.

What I found was easy to get and install, was some wooden pallets stacked on top of one another. Strap the pallets together and weight it down. Sure they won't last as long as rock piles but they seem to work great while they last.

I am currently looking for pallets for the first years FHM installment. If I find enough, I will add a few weighted stacks, otherwise I will probably just float them around the banks and anchor them to shore as temporary structure for the minnows to use for there spawning structure.

If you have enough stone, build some stone "houses" with roofs. Before I came to this site and our pond had not yet filled, my family went through the basin of the pond and set up stone tepees, huts, etc. for critters to live in. When I slid a action cam down into the doorway of one of the circular huts last year, the inside was full of fingerling perch and/or fathead minnows. They loved it.

It was approx 4' in diameter, 2' high with a stone roof, doorway, and "windows".

By raising up the stones this way, it will take a long time for the muck and debris to fill in the holes.

I like the way you think liquid. It's not a matter of running out of rock around here...It's running out of backbones - and our rocks are boulder shaped and not to conducive to friendly stacking, sure wish I had some flat stone on the place. I may have to settle for some nicely stacked cinder blocks with an organized pile of rocks over it. Thanks for the ideas.

On another note, my goals for the pond are yet to be fully decided upon as I think I have decided to give the next year to building the forage base (FHMs). I believe my ambition and my pond characteristics lend themselves to a BG pond with the overpopulated LMB OR a HSB and HBG setup (both with RES). I realize those two are quite a bit different, but if I go with the first (LMB, RES, and BG) how much cover for the YOY is too much? Is there a happy medium? All in all it may not make much difference as I will likely add cover and structure until THE rain comes and fills it up (any day now) which may mean the pond has what it will have. I have read that 20% is a good number to shoot for, but I am not convinced that is all that necessary if you are relying mostly on predation (is that a word?)to keep BG overpopulation and stunting at bay. On the other hand, can you have too much or too little structure for the hybrid route?

Noel,if you ever make it to St. Louis I can probably come up with some pallets you can have at my work.

Thanks Bobbss, surely I can find some locally, I'll keep you in mind in case I flounder around here. I also have a fair amount of scrap lumber. It might come down to screwing a bunch of boards together for nests.

I didn't think it would be worth your trouble,but wasn't sure where you live.If it ever is just let me know.

Nice work ! It is good to have some structure at all depths. A very good one is rock piles with logs sticking out at angles or straight up.

See below for a pond with rock piles at all depths. Do this with a few logs sticking out to make more vertical structure.

Hello.

I prefere natural structures.

If you cut a tree, how many time it take the big log to sink in the water, by himself.

I suppose it depend the type of wood.

Last year I put 3big Hemlog (Tsuga canadensis) in the water, after 1 year, they are still on top of the water, but they start to sink a little bit.

A+

I put an old milk can in mine last week for the CC to nest in. Has a nylon rope tied to it and staked to the bank. Don't know if my brooders nested in the culverts last year or not. I haven't been able to 100% confirm any CC recruitment.

Those Gulp Alive Waxies will determine if you have any CC reproduction later this summer. I have caught quite a few 8-10" CC with them.

Wet a line tonight and the BG were biting pretty good. Nothing big but caught several in the 7-8" range. Took feed also. Activity is picking up. Planted corn in the field today and yesterday so I think spring has sprung in this neck of the woods.

Is this earlier than usual for you to plant corn?

On the earlier side, but not terribly unusual. The weather and forecast and ground conditions all have to be right to start this early. Last week in March and first week in April I would consider to be optimal, but it still depends on the current weather and forecast even then. If it was cold and wet and predictions of more cold and wet we would not be running.

I have found a source for pallets and should be getting some this afternoon. They are broken ones apparently, but hopefully not destroyed. I should also be spending most of the weekend picking up rocks. Maybe I'll have some more pics to share on Monday. I'm starting to run out of decent shoreline for structure and it is not because of too much structure. About 2/3's of the pond banks are very steep and I'm afraid any structure added there would just end up in the bottom. We'll see what the weekend produces.

I added a good bit of structure on my steep sections, by simply driving in steel posts/pipe/etc into the bank perpendicular to the bank wall every so often to create a stop. Then I could pile rocks or whatever I was using to my heart's content. I made some teepees out of old tires on my steep bank, but the same could be done with 'natural' structure.

I limited this so I could be very aware of where that structure was. It's been productive so far.

I recommend galvanized steel or aluminum if you have access, to virtually guarantee the structure will be there long after you are gone. Even steel will last a very long time under water, but aluminum or galvanized pretty much gets you 'forever', or at least as 'forever' as any of us need worry about.

Alright, I got the pallets in yesterday and the top of the top pallets range from 2 foot below full pool to 3 foot, however, the pond is not full yet and I wanted the lower pallets to be touching the waterline. From what I have read about FHM nesting structures, they should be in the top 3 to 4 feet of water column. I may move them up as the pond fills or just add another pallet to the stack, but 1000 FHM should go in next week and I wanted something in the water for them immediately.



There are 7 sets of double stacked pallets where each pallet is separated from the one below by junk bricks or pavers. I think the minnows will like them!

Your lmb will probably make spawn beds next to them also. My pallets are 5-6 high. Made it easy to screw one pallet onto the next. Most lmb I have caught have come from close to my pallets.

Great pictures! I should have done more structure than I did. One of these days maybe. I put in a couple, plus there several trees that have fallen in.

Well, I added a third pallet to each stack, but should have added more weight on top as the recent rains have filled my pond and seven pallets ended up floating around the pond. One cinderblock is not enough to hold a 3 pallet stack down, CLOSE, but not quite! That means at least 3 stacks have been compromised. Hopefully only three. I plan to locate the stacks when the water clears up and/or go swimming and try to add more weight to the survivors and rebuild the floaters.

This is my "Eat Crow" post. I thought one block would do it and hopefully it did for some of the stacks. I guess I was pushing the safety factor a bit too much.

I would zip tie them on or attach them somehow also. Short scrap board through the blocks with a couple screws would do it. Top heavy buoyant wood has a way of ending up flipping over. Trust me, I know from experience.

Something that is really handy when making structure is 3' long heavy zip ties. Usually these are very expensive when bought in a big box store a few at a time. But if you go to a commercial heating and airco store and ask them for a bag of zip ties to connect insulated ducting they are very reasonable. I think they come in bags of 50 or 100 but a bag will last a long time and bought in bulk that way they are not that much more expensive than the foot long zip ties. Very thick and heavy duty.

Actually you might want to end up with the blocks on the bottom. This would hold the wood up off the bottom a ways tipped to one side. It takes a year or two, but the pallets will eventually water log and sink. I had some I wanted to float and after the first year had to add some foam insulation to keep them floating.