Hello All, My name is Joshua and I'm new to the pond scene. I have been reading on the forums for several months trying to learn all that I can and I really appreciate all the helpful information posted here. I'm in the planning process and any and all advice offered will be considered and appreciated.
So here is what I've got so far... My goals for the pond are drainage for my property and a place to fish for myself and my family. I would prefer to catch lots of fish over a few trophies. I also enjoy eating fish so the more options for consumable fish the better. I have lots of thoughts but trying to keep this post useful instead of a pile of thoughts all at once.
We have 23 acres and the front 60% or so is young dense woods/brush. We had about 3-4 acres mulched early in 2015. The North West corner is where we want to put the house and then the east side of the young woods is where I want the pond. I'm going to try and post a satellite picture of the property and maybe that will give us a place to start. I know I will need to give a lot more information before anyone can offer much help but all the decisions/information is a bit overwhelming. I guess first off what I am looking for is advice on the pond shape/size/depth.
From your pic it looks like your future pond will be roughly 5 to 6 surface acres in size. That size of an excavation will deliver a lot of dirt. Are you planning on selling the extra dirt?
Two first questions are very good ones! Water shed can you handle a 5 to 6 acre pond? And the dirt some of it can be used for the dam but that's a lot of dirt to move / do something with do you have a spot for it?
My first advice for you. Check soil make sure it can hold water, how far down do you have to go to hit good clay?
Make sure you hire someone that knows how to build ponds NOT just move dirt... Unless your doing it yourself?
Remember, bigger isn't always better when it comes to ponds the bigger they are the more expensive it usually is to manage it or fix it!!
Glad to see another Arkansan on the PBF!!
RC
The only difference between a rut and a Grave is the depth. So get up get out of that rut and get moving!! Time to work!!
Right now I'm thinking the pond will be around 5 surface acres. The property is fairly flat and at the bottom of a hill so water stands on a large part of the front half after a rain/during the wet season. My plan for the dirt from excavating the pond was to build up an area for our house/shop and generally just add some contour to the remaining front area while guiding the runoff towards the pond. As far as watershed goes, it's hard to tell just how much of the area above me drains directly into my property. I'll try posting a section of a topo map later and maybe that will help. There is a decent sized ditch that runs that direction on my property and I was thinking I might direct that flow into the pond as well, although some sort of settlement basin or a stretch of rip rap may be needed to prevent a lot of sediment depositing in the pond. I'll try and add a picture from after one of the last rains we had to show how much water stands there now.
Wow that's a lot of water, Looks like you may have that issue solved.... but 5 acres can hold a lot of water! I would double check for sure. It would suck to have a 5 acre pond and it never fills up past 2.5 acres...
Good Luck man, RC
P.S. I have a pond near Batesville not far from you!
The only difference between a rut and a Grave is the depth. So get up get out of that rut and get moving!! Time to work!!
Here's a picture of a topo map for the area. It may be hard to tell where my property is but there is a *264T at the north west corner of my place. North of my property is a new subdivision. There are ditches on basically all 4 borders of my land with flow from the north west towards the south east. I'll also add a zoomed out satellite image to help explain the layout.
Well after further research and a visit from the local NRCS I have laid out my ideal pond. Its big and theres a lot of dirt to be moved as my land is almost completely flat so when I begin getting cost estimates it may have to be down sized. I thought I would post what I've come up with here and see if anyone had suggestions for improvement.
Right now I have an island on one side that I want to be about 1' under water at full pool. I plan to plant some bald cypress trees on that. The island has 4:1 slopes on all sides so I was going to add a couple areas of gravel for spawning in the shallow areas.
The pond has a max depth of about 16' and lots of shelf areas at 8' deep. 3:1 slope on all banks.
HOLY COW, that's a lot of dirt. I was struggling with 9,000 cu yds, I cannot imagine having to deal with 56,000. Looks sweet, I hope you get your dream b/c it will be very nice when complete.
Good idea on the shelves, it saves quite a bit on dirt removal vs running a straight 3:1 slope to depth. May do a comparison against running a shelf at 6ft vs the 8ft and see how much it lowers your total cubic feet, could be an option if you need to cut money.
A very common suggestion on the forum is to take that one really big pond and make several smaller ponds. This allows for forage ponds or different species ponds. Construction costs would probably be less and not as much dirt to deal with. I see the benefits of both so it really is more of a preference thing.
What is your plan for all that dirt, cannot imagine you would have it hauled out? You could build Mt Everest in your own backyard!!!!
We have downsized a little to about 3.6 surface acres as of right now. It is a lot of dirt but I don't think I'll struggle too much to find a place to use it. As mentioned earlier our land is mostly flat and its kind of low compared to the area around it. We plan to have a few acres raised a couple feet for a house pad, shop pad, and yard. If theres any left I'll have them add some hills and contour to the land. We have a little over 22 acres total here. The plan is to eventually have one or two other small ponds on other areas of the land, we just need the soil from this one to build up a house pad and yard.
As for fish, I would like to start with a forage base of grass shrimp, BNM, and SFS. Then add BG and hopefully YP. Not sure how well the YP will do here in Arkansas or of where to source them. I would like to use HSB and possibly WCP as my predators. My thinking is that the YP will breed earlier than the WCP and help keep the recruitment numbers down some. Nothing is set in stone yet but that's what I would like to do. The HSB and YP would offer some fishing opportunities that are less common around here.
