My family is buying a house that sits near a 1 acre pond that is spring fed and stocked with Blue Gill. All I know about it right now is that it was dredged out some years ago to a depth of 15'. The soil is clay and this past summer, with the very dry season, the level dropped about 1'. We will be taking ownership of the place this coming spring and I would like to make a swimming area in the pond. Also, when they did the dredging, they hit an artisan well but then covered it back up with a hunk of clay. I would like to find that well and either increase the pond size or make a chain of ponds. I will be studying up on this forum and any help, ideas, suggestions are appreciated. Is is possible to have a good swimming area and still a good fish population? Thanks

Welcome.

Was this spring inside the pond area or somewhere else? If its inside the pond, I would just leave it alone. You have had good luck with water levels, sure would hate to see you begin troubles.

David,
They had a similar thread about about 6 months to a year ago. You may try to search for it using the "search" tool.

Welcome, from one David to another!

http://i1130.photobucket.com/albums/m528/daviddrab/300px-Artesian_Well_zps7a065306.png

I think this may be what you're talking about when describing your artesian well that is "capped" with clay.

The reason most would probably advise against removing the cap is that as you can see in the picture if the surrounding water table (noted by the darker shade of blue in the picture) were to fall below your pond bottom, it would actually start to act like a drain as the water rushed out to find an equilibrium with the surrounding and lower water table. That would be bad news. It sounds like you have a great situation currently only having lost a foot during last years drought conditions.

I too would highly recommend not disturbing things and creat new ponds if you want in the same way. I dont know a lot about this, but it does seem that you would want to be very cautious about new pond locations due to the aquifer shapes/locations.

Hope that helps!

Thanks for the replies. I was not aware that I had recieved any replies. Do I need to subscribe to my own threads to be notified of posts? If so, where do I do that?

I am not sure where they hit the artisan well but I will look into it. The current spring that feeds the pond is in front of the dock in the pic and does not flow but saturates the ground. There is a wet land/spring area on the bottom left of the pond that stays wet all year ( might be good for expansion? ). I found the google app that measures surface area and the pond looks to be closer to .6 acres. Thanks for the replies. On the link, hit the satellite option and it will show you the pond, in the center of the photo. You can zoom in and out pond

It looks like you don't need to hit the satellite option. The link appears to go right to the "earth" view.

First, watch the thread. Use the Topic Options drop down menu at the top of thread to do this. Then go into My Stuff -> Edit Preferences. There you can change things as you like them including getting emails when anyone replies to one of your watched threads.

It's certainly possible to have both swimming and fishing in the same pond, but be aware that some commonly stocked species tend to nibble on swimmers. Whether or not this is a deal-breaker depends on the intestinal fortitude of those doing the swimming.....my family doesn't mind it.

I second the thought of keeping an eye on the spring. If the water weight/pressure in the pond exceeds the weight pushing against the water that is in the spring, it will start flowing backwards and you will lose water out of your pond.