Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations Designing a new pond

Having a quality fishing pond has been my dream for many years. My goal is to purchase about 20 acres here in Iowa and build a minimum of a 1 acre pond.
The main species I want are BG, LMB, CC (for my brother in-law), and perhaps stock a few bonus walleye.
The Iowa DNR reccomends a pond depth of at least 8 feet, but I have seen alot of fish kills in ponds that were less than 12 feet during hard Iowa winters, so I want the maximum depth to be 16 feet.
Land here that would be acceptable for pond building runs about $2000 an acre. So there's about $40K just for the land.

My main focus is for large bluegills for the dinner table. The catfish would be for fun night fishing and my brother-in-law loves to catch and eat those critters. The bass would be there for catch and release (and bluegill control) and a few taken for food. The walleye are just a dream novelty fish, if I had a few dozen 2-3 pounders swimming about I would be happy.

Here's a basic layout of my idea and structures (to scale). The pond will be 200' by 400'.



The brush piles would have to be replaced every 3 to 5 years which will be easy since I can drag a few x-mas trees out on the ice. The pallet structures should last 30 years if I get good oak pallets. I put in three sand/small gravel beds to aid in bluegill spawning. And the large rock/rubble piles for cruising gamefish.

I tried to add as many desireable bottom features as possible while keeping it simple. An underwater hump with a rock pile on top, a sharp drop-off, shallow areas for spawning, structure near the dock for openwater fishing, and deepwater structure for icefishing.

Any suggestions or rough estimates on what it would cost just to dig the pond and add the sand and rock piles? The pallets and brush would be added at no cost by me.

Thank you Chris for making my image available on the forum.

In addition to just the game and sportfish, I hope to have a decent crawfish and bull/leopard frog population. My family loves to eat both of these (especially the frogs) so would it be feasible to create a 1000 square foot pond about 4 feet deep connected to the main pond by a 2' culvert? I would probably add this small pond in the upper right corner (where the square is). I would put large rock around the shoreline and a few waterlilies in it.

Costs depend a lot on how much digging would need to be done. Do you have a picture of the site?

I would build the crayfish and frog pond where the water enters the big pond. It could serve as a silt pond.

Other than that it looks like you have a good plan.

IowaNate -- good plan! I'm sure you could grow fish here.

Just one thought for brainstorming. What if the pond had one peninsula (point) that stuck out about half way? I can see increased shore access for angling. I can see something that will cut down wind and waves (although being only 1 acre, maybe it doesn't matter), and I certainly can see it adding fish habitat to the pond.

What do other Forum members think? On a 1-acre pond, would one peninsula/point be good, or would it just remove some of the surface area for the pond?

Dave, I thought about the pennisula idea and could probably make the pond slightly larger to keep it at 1 acre. The pond will need as much shore fishing access as possible.
Are there any simple figures on how many pounds of fish a pond can hold? When it gets established I hope to harvest at least 100 pounds of BG, 20 pounds of CC, and a few LMB per year.

Nate -- a pond of average fertility in Iowa with no feeding would probably support about 50-60 pounds per acre of LMB and maybe 150-200 pounds of BLG. If you figure that allowable harvest is about 40% per year, then you can see that you can perhaps eat 20 pounds of LMB per year and 50-60 pounds of BLG per year. These are just averages -- ponds can vary a little, and actually be a little lower or a little higher. However, this should help you with your thought process. Sounds like you want to keep your channel cats at low abundance, so that is very doable.

If you feed, that will maximize your production of fish for eating.

Yeah, the CC aren't a high priority fish for me...but they can be fun for night fishing. I would not do anything to encourage spawning of CC, as they would be "put and take" fish restocked every few years. My brother-in-law is fanatical about CC.
I recently had a guy here in Iowa (who has done some pond digging) give me a rough estimate on the construction of a pond this size and it was around $30K.
I was looking at keeping the cost of the land and the digging under $80k, so I think I might even be able to make the pond slightly bigger.
I read alot of threads already about WE in ponds, and it seems I could have a very small "put and take" population of them. A dozen WE between 14-18" would be thrilling for me.
Once again though, I want this pond to be primarily for harvesting BG.

Nate -- you've obviously already got a good handle on things. Sounds like a good plan for the channel cats. As for walleye, I'm sure you've heard that they are not well-suited to small ponds. However, having a few in there as a "bonus" fish is indeed something you can do.

IANate,

I would contact Matt Clark, I haven't seen him on here for awhile, but he is in the southeastern side of the state and might be able to help you a little more. 30k for 1 acre pond, in our area seems a little high, especially with the economy the way it is (less demand for excavating). I was hoping to eventually put in a 3 acre excavated pond for that.

Also since you are in IA, we have damn good dirt, you might see if they will build you a pond in exchange for the dirt (assuming yours is fertile). You might be able to get your pond dug for free this way.

IowaNate,

You might want to reconsider the slope. From the looks of your drawing, the depth will be just past your knees 10' out. Shallow water promotes algae growth as well as other problematic vegetation. I would recommend getting to 4' deep as quickly as possible.

Iowanate, I'm going to disagree with Blaine about deepening your slopes. Right now it looks like you're showing 5:1. Generally no steeper than 3:1 is recommended for safety reasons, it's very difficult to climb out of a pond with steeper than 3:1. I have two banks that are 3:1 and two at 5:1. I see no difference with weeds on either bank. For swimming, I find even the 3:1 difficult to climb out of. Keeping your slopes at 5:1 will save a lot of money on dirt removal that could go toward enlarging the surface area. The larger surface area will allow your pond to support more fish than deepening it. Mowing 3:1 is a little hairy too, 5:1 no problem.

Consider using various slopes in various areas of the pond. Make the slowest or shallowest slopes near the dock where most human activity will occur. Usually once the pond fills and bottoms become softened with water the bottom slopes of 3:1 or 2.5:1 are soft enough for someone to dig their hands into to help them crawl out from falling into the water along the shoreline.