Pond Boss Forums POND CONSTRUCTION Building a dam building a easy pond i thought

i think he had problems braking downhill. les drummond told me the contractor turned it over 3 times and got it stuck numerous times. it was built on the ranch and has never been hauled anywere. it was pulled from pasture to pasture by the d9 it was a d9h there was also another d9h with a winch to get him out of jams. he said the dozer looked like scrap metal when the job was done.

and yah the sweet drops of starvation are still fallin here still to wet to work. been having a private pity party for myself today i have never seen weather like we have had it the last 2 years.

I'll bet that's where the ruts came from - it was pushing the dozer.

rain quit saturday making some progress in the 115 degree heat index

when using scraper i pack around pipe with it then dig out where anti seep collars and pack them back with trackhoe. dont know if this good or not i just feel better doing it this way. sure glad my son can weld and owner volunteered to help him in this 115 degree heat. these pics also show some natural cover for fish in 3 to 9 ft of water we left in pond

almost finished pond with pictures of some structure etc. all thats left to do is berm at spillway and for nrcs to inspect. will post more when it fills up

Tim:

Is that cement poured around the standpipe to help keep it in place?

yes more for weight than anything the 6' foot tall riser has a lot of floating up potential and when the water is running full blast through the pipe it keeps it from vibrating to much

i mentioned les drummond in this thread a time or two. there have been books wrote about his family and how they got so much land in oklahoma. he was alive and doing fine when i began this thread and dead now. needless to say we should enjoy life cause you just never know what tomarrow brings. he was a fine man to work for and just be around. i never heard him say no to a fisherman wanting to wet a hook in one of his many ponds (hundreds of them). that alone is worth mentioning him in a pond thread. his favorite project was building a pond and i have had him sit and watch me for hours and hours always anxious to help put the pipe in. and at the completion of every one of them it was a ritual to find a good big rock and push it next to the pond so he would have a place to sit and fish with his grandkids.
i asked him once when he wanted me to bill him because i might be on the ranch for 4 to 5 months at a time and he said whenever you need it checks are cheap and it only takes me a minute to fill it in. that meant a lot to me and 15 years after that i can tell you he meant what he said.
the pond on this thread is for one of his neighbors bordering his 40,000 plus acres.

Neat story, Tim. Sounds like the kind of guy that any of us would have loved to know and like he would have fit in here in a heartbeat.

My father-in-law had access to a few of the Drummond ponds and we used to fish them quite a bit 10-15 years ago.

I was hoping we would have a chance to take my kids out there and meet the wonderful family that allowed us to fish, but when my Father-in-law got down on his back we never made it.

Needless to say it was not his back so much but cancer that made his back hurt. Once he finally got checked out it was already in stage 4 and we lost him this April the day after his Birthday.

So again follow what Tim says as in fact we never know what tomorrow brings.

very true. i was doing a fenceline for him right before i started this pond and he had just got back from getting cattle off wheat in southern oklahoma. he said i dont feel good i'm tired and i'm goin to my home in stillwater for the weekend. i talked to him again 4 days later and he said i'll never see the ranch again they are tellin me i have only days left and that i'll die in payne county. he had lung cancer everywhere. even more ironic than that about 2 months before he went in for the super checkup as he called it and was very happy that they give him a clean bill of health.
his son gentner will take over now and is very capable of doing so. he wont be as hands on as les due to his law firm duties but things will find a way to continue on. i will post pics of his ponds as i come to them now and then

Tim,

Were you able to finish these ponds, I was just wondering if you have an update.

Thanks

yes i,ve built 6 since this one. this one now has about 7' of water in it. go up a few frames for the finished pictures

we are finally getting some rain in oklahoma thats not all getting soaked up. here is a picture of this pond from a few days ago its still got over 5' to go to get full. the spring in it will raise it about a inch a week in winter.

going downhill, my guess is with that thing. you stop when you get to the bottom.

after almost 2 yrs we finally got some rain and it lacks about 2 ft

Tim, you do some great work. I was reading your posts on the Crites pond with all of the springs. I have a contractor working on a pond right now for me in southwest Wisconsin. It sounds like it may have been a similar situation. There was a spring that was present right in the area of the dam. It is definitely coming from uphill. The contractor made the core trench and upon filling it back in with clay, the downstream flow stopped behind the core trench. Onwards we went with the dam and all was fine until we got some rains that prevented any work for a week. Now there is noticeable flow just below the dam starting maybe 10 feet below dam. The water level in pond is not appreciably dropping (less than 1/2 inch per day), but there is constant running water (albeit not much) on backside of dam. The dam is not done yet. What would you do at this point? Would you go back into core trench and deepen it? Thanks for any insight, it is appreciated!

Matt:

I'm sure Tim will chime in here, but there's times when he's really busy and we don't see him for weeks.

I'm not an expert by any means, but my thoughts are that the leak was sealed until the water got deeper, increasing pressure on the leak, opening it back up again. Sort of a slow leak in a tire that'll leak down quickly when the pressure is first raised, but as the pressure in the tire lowers, the air leak slows down greatly.

If it truly is a spring, you could always shift the dam a bit to capture it, or avoid it. From what I read it is a crap shot of if the spring has negative or positive effect on filling a pond.

I wound up with a spring outside of the pond on the back also, thought it was a leak and was concerned. Now I know it is a legit spring, and one I am glad I did not capture as it is a nasty spring full of oily crud and natural gas (somewhat common in our area). The dam was placed right over a large diffuse area this spring was in, and directed it to a much narrower area making it quite apparent. Now I have the problem of it stinks and what can I do to put it to use.

well not real sure without a picture what stage the construction of the dam is in but yes it needs to be fixed because it will probably only get worse just as essup describes. Lots of questions as to why its leaking and how to fix it like 1) Is there a problem below core 2) Is this a compaction issue made when filling the core. With you seeing the water surface behind the dam I tend to believe its not below the core but only guessing. I would probably dig into the dam from the backside until I found the source of the leak then go to top of dam and deepen core or recompact it. But again only guessing dam height, construction stage of pond etc. all would have to be considered.