Pond Boss Forums POND CONSTRUCTION Renovating a Pond or Lake? old family pond makeover

Good day to all, and early Happy 4th. I found this site about a week ago and can't stop reading. It is amazing the amount of knowledge on here.
I am wanting to renovate an old family pond and I'm not quite sure where to start. I have lots of ideas, but... well you know. The pond has been left alone for about 15 years. It is about 1 1/4 acres and has no signs of life other than a few turtles and a few pond perch. As of now, it does not leak and has a good amount of run off into it. I think it's about 7' deep. There is zero structure to it and zero plant life inside the water anywhere. I don't know about the chemical properties of the water or the soil under the water. I'm sure it needs lime and possibly fertilizer. I also know that I need to get rid of the few small trees on the levee.
I think I would like to draw it down and kill what few fish are in there. Not sure how far to draw it though. While it is down, I would like to add some stucture and some size in the shallow end. I am an avid fly fisherman and would like to add 2 wading shelves on either side of a land pier that I would also like to add. The 2 shelves would be approx. 3' deep when full. I would like the added wading shelves to bring the total surface area to about 2 acres. I plan to add a pier extending from the land pier. I also want to put a few dead trees and some gravel beds for CNBG in cirtain spots. It will be stocked with bass and bream.
I would welcome any info or advice from any who is willing to share.
Here are a few pics, as I know you guys and gal like pics.
Thanks to all, Phil.

Levee side


Shallow side


Future Wading shelves and pier plans


Edges look like this. This is also the spillway overflow.


Water and bottom look like this



View from overflow. My truck parked on the future land pier.

Welcome to the PB forum. Lots of info and ideas here. Start with your goals and focus on water quality (soil test) and forage to meet your goals. It sounds like you have the renovation and structure down. Do you know how much change in water level you have over the year ? I would also check the depths to be sure. Very shallow ponds tend to have stratification problems (low DO) in the south. You might do a seine survey and fish a little to be sure what is there - you might not need to start over.

A man who does his research before posting and knows what we like! Now that's what I'm talking about... Welcome to the forum!

Looks like you have the makings of a fine fishing hole. The more water you can pump/drain out the better. It means less use of toxins to kill the remaining fish or just hydrated lime. I think you have a lot of good ideas.

As you have specific questions, find the appropriate sub forum to post them in and that will give you the best chance as getting a good answer.

Welcome, FW, beautiful spot, excellent thoughts.

As ewest mentioned, having specific goals can best guide your renovation, as well as generate the most help from members who have either tried and succeeded-or tried and failed. A lot can be learned in either case.

I'm guessing you'd like a fishery with great FF for bass and BG....correct? Other goals?

Thanks for the reply's. I forgot to mention that I have been on a couple of scouting trips this year in this pond with Zero results. Was there at daylight one morning and didn't see much activity except a few pond perch chasing a spider. I realy have 2 main goals for this project.
1. Have a place where my dad and I can flyfish whenever we want. He is the reason I fish this way.

2. Have a place where I can take my son, Kody(3 1/2 y/o) and my daughter, Peyton (1 y/o) to drown as many crickets as they wish.

I plan to syphen out at least 50% of the water that's in it now so I can add some structure to the bottom. Right now I am in the planning stage as I get all my ducks and $$$'s in a row. It might be late spring before I start unless I hit the lottery.

Phil

Ewest, The water level stays pretty full for most of the year. It is this low now because we haven't gotten any rain at all in 6 or 7 weeks. Also the temps have been 100+ for the last 3 weeks on most days.

Phil

I know about the temps and lack of rain. We are just up the road from you. We had 100 F days and .5 inches of rain in June. Usually the temps are 90ish in June and normal rain is about 5 inches.

Depending on what is in the pond you may not need to drain it at all. There are plenty of ways to do structure in a full pond. See the structure archive.


http://www.pondboss.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=92463#Post92463

Where in MS are you?

Phil

Featherworks
welcome to the forum.

This may be a good time to start all over drain all the water clean it out and re stock.

Listen to Erick He is close and has lots of good experiance.

Jackson.

3' deep wading shelves will be prime areas for aquatic vegetation to grow. This could cause problems. There are options (grass carp, chemicals, manual removal) for dealing with the vegetation.

Welcome, Featherworks! That's a beautiful pond you have. A couple thoughts:

That looks like a typical, very fertile MS pond; I doubt you need any lime. You can test the pH to make sure, but from the water color it looks like you've already got a very respectable plankton bloom, which generally doesn't happen in acidic ponds that would need lime. You may not even need to fertilize. Check the water clarity, and if you do fertilize, you could probably get away with half the normal recommended amount per acre of whatever pond fertilizer you use.

Regarding the wading shelves: you'll be fine as long as you keep a good plankton bloom. Vegetation won't get started even in shallow water if you maintain the bloom because the sunlight can't penetrate far enough into the water to grow it, and it dies. Looks like this is already happening as you have some pretty shallow water but no vegetation problems that I see.

Am I correct in surmising from your mention of crickets that you have a strong interest in bluegill? If so, you live in a great region for them - definitely get some CNBG in there. And if you really want huge bluegill, both for the kids and for your flyfishing, don't keep many (or any) bass; they'll keep the bluegill well-thinned at all times, and the bluegill that live will get huge - enormous in MS. Lastly, plop an automatic feeder on one of those banks, fill it with Aquamax 500 (or 600 once the CNBG get past 5") and set it to feed two or three times a day, as much as they'll clean up in fifteen minutes. In a couple years you should be catching CNBG over a pound. And if you release some of the largest ones, in another two or three years after that you should catch some approaching two pounds or better.

Walt, thanks for the input. And yes, the main thing I want is big bream. I also want bass too, but mainly bream. I am trying to figure out to go about geting the ph level tested. That part is all new to me. I also heard somewhere that if I put dye in the water(not sure if I want to do that or not) that it will help darken the water and help cut down on unwanted weeds.

Phil

You're very welcome, Phil! If you want big bream, skip the dye. It kills plankton, which are a bluegill's best friend, and the base of your food chain for every species in the lake. More plankton equals faster growth, especially for the bluegill. If you dye the pond you'll cut their growth rate at least by half.

Proper fertilization will do the same thing a dye will as far as keeping vegetation from growing; it's the exact same principle, blocking out the sunlight, but it's microorganisms that your fish eat blocking the sunlight rather than a dye that that they can't eat and which kills the microorganisms they can eat.

If big bluegill/shellcracker are your primary goal, release every bass you catch. The bass won't grow as large, but within two or three years you'll have an armada of young bass that will ensure that most bluegill fry suffer a horrible fate, and the bluegill that live will grow like mutants because there's plenty of food for them. You'll rarely see a bluegill under 7" or 8", and within three years from now pounders should be common, sooner if you install an automatic feeder. In your region, with CNBG and daily feeding of a high-protein food (Aquamax 500 or 600 is 41% protein, and is largely fish-based so thus higher quality and better-utilized), two-pound 'gills are a very reasonable expectation within a few years.

You can test the pH with a kit you can buy at a swimming pool supply store. Looking at your pics, though, I doubt you even need to worry with it. If you had very clear water, or some type of problem readily evident, that would be another story; but judging from the pics you've got yourself a classic fertile MS pond, probably sitting on very fertile soil.

One last tip: if you truly want to grow monster 'gills, make sure you release some of the largest ones, and if you can bring yourself to do it, release most of the large males. Studies have been done in which it was found that bluegill growth slows dramatically once they reach sexual maturity, and that males generally get larger than females; so if you release the large males, they keep the smaller males from entering the spawning nests and spawning, and thus the smaller males mature later and grow fast longer. But releasing some of the larger fish in general, whether male or female, is important if you want to grow trophy-size fish, because it takes them a while to get big, and they can't get bigger if they're removed.

Good stuff Walt

Thanks, Otto! It's nice to be appreciated.

One last thought, Phil: set your automatic feeder (you're selling yourself short if you don't get one, if you want really big bluegill), to feed two or three times a day. In December through February you may need to drop it to once a day, though if the water temp stays in the sixties down there that time of year, you could probably feed twice a day even then.

Those snapper tracks in the pics of the bottom or muskrat? Don't see a tail drag and it looks like whatever it was was dragging its belly. Hopefully snapper, although it seems to wander in shallow water too much for a snapper.

Judging from the amount of turtles in the pond, I would feel safe in saying they are turtle skids, but you never know?

Phil

Another thought, Phil: I really like the idea of the wading shelves, especially if you make them at least three feet deep. Bluegill love, love, love flats, which is essentially what you'd be making; you might end up not wading them much because they'd be covered with big bluegill much of the year.

The other reason I like the idea is simply that you can do more with more total acreage - the pond will support more fish, and the fish will also grow larger in a larger pond than a small one more often than not because there's more open water for them to graze plankton and invertebrates in, and just more possible food (zooplankton, invertebrates, etc.) that can be produced for them.

Walt, Thanks again for your input. I guess now it is time to figure out when to syphon out some water and how much. I am so ready to get started on this project, but my wallet is not.

Phil

I'm excited to see how it develops. Be sure to post pics as you go! (And invite me to fish three years from now when your CNBG start getting huge.)

Go Phil Go

Hi Featherworks
Your going to have a lot of fun on this project. If you have a contractor in mind to do the dirt work, you should start draining now. I would drain it as low as possible if you have a drain pipe or are able to siphon it down. You will have to eliminate all of the fish in there with a chemical (rotenone) that is not cheap, so, the less water volume to treat the better. If you have to spend money pumping the water down then you will have to compare costs. Also, the longer the mud bottom is exposed to the sun the drier it will be when the equipment shows up. Dry dirt can be moved much faster and cheaper than wet dirt. By the way, starting over with all new fish is far better than trying to make do with what you have and adding more to it, especially when you have specific long term goals for your fishery.

-HH