Pond Boss Forums POND CONSTRUCTION Selecting a site No-stuck pond construction method w/ Skid Steer

I don't think I've posted before. Greetings fellow water pondsmen, and maybe a few ladies? Not sure...anyway.

I have 45 acres in Western Colorado and my piece is pretty wet most years from April through August/September. I have snow melt irrigation shares and I also have a natural spring that comes out of my property about the halfway line and travels down a good 1/5 of my land.

So I'm making 6 small 12-13' oblong/roundish ponds, about 3' deep, on an area where the natural spring feeds for 5 months a year. I got stuck on the first one I made because after about 18-24" I frequently have "quick-sandy/wet-clay" that sucks even my 18" tracks into it if I'm not careful and have the cuts too steep.

I looked and looked for a safe no-stuck technique to make small to medium ponds in areas that are kind of damp, or have stuck-prone soils like mine...clay, sand, muck (when the water is flowing; like concrete when dry). Couldn't find any clear direction. So I made one up.

I'm connecting 6 of these small ponds together with about 10 yards of space between each. They follow natural contours of the slope and will eventually dump over my boundary and on to the next pondsman or tributary creek. The Colorado River is about 2 miles away as a crow flies. From the first and highest elevation pond to the last, the drop is maybe 20-25' elevation.

Does anyone have a solid technique for making 3' (at center) small round ponds? I'd like to hear them. Mine is this:

I select the next pond site by looking at the natural grade and where the water wants to flow to. I first spin around left and right on the center of the spot to make a clear space among the sage brush, waterlogged cactus, alfalfa, cow poop piles and prolific weeds. Then I extend that another 2' or so around it by basically driving around in circles with the blade scraping the topsoil off. I place all cut to the downhill side of my pond footprint, and curve it around that 1/4 section of the pond edge. I cut toward the next-to-lowest elevation border of my pond from the next-to-highest side of the pond, making a ramp that cuts downward to the next-to-lowest border. The water source is then hitting my pond's upper edge perpendicularly and filling it from there. So I make an entry and exit ramp on the next-to-highest side of the pond that slopes down steadily so I can't bottom out my skid steer in the muck, or get the rear-end jammed against a steep pond wall. The ramp is typically about 30 degrees slope downward from original grade. As I dig toward the next-to-lowest side I have some liberty to spin inside the pond footprint because I make it about 4' wider than the track loader's footprint. I do just a little at a time to prevent from losing flotation and getting stuck in the semi-round hole of slick clay and wet silt. Most of my 84" wide buckets are 1/4 to at most 1/2 full. The driving ramp I make looks like a beach when the water is filled in. I back out the dirt and rotate to the section where I'm mounding it at the lowest side. The mound builds the low side up to help keep more water in and I don't have to dig as much for that part. I make the end of the mound at the spot where the water will overflow (like a spillway basically) toward the next small pond in the chain of ponds I'm installing. The water supply from the dirt-filtered spring is maybe 2 gallons a minute across the soil...just a couple of inches wide in the little supply channels I flip out with the bucket.

The first pond I made I dug from two opposite ends but my experience was lacking. I made it almost exactly the width of the loader's bucket (about 2" wider than the tracks) and eventually got bogged down from the lack of moving space, tracks filling with mud, and bottoming-out the rear of the track loader on packed or virgin soil mounds that were near the ends and the middle. After MUCH digging for 3 hours with hand shovel I escaped to dig another day. I vowed to have learned my lesson! lol

Does my explanation make sense? I'll take pictures of the progress of the next one tomorrow or Friday.

Sometimes it's just easier to bring in an excavator.
Reminds me of the old saying "when the only tool you own is a hammer, everything starts looking like a nail."

Hows western Colorado? Are you in the red clay area or adobe? Have family still on the western side of the divide.

Only 3' deep in Colorado? What are you planning on stocking?

No fish for these small shallow ponds. I'll dig deeper each dry season until maybe 4-5'. Just making bird and ground critter habitat, cow drink holes, and waterfowl landing pods. In fall/winter they will be paintball conquest park fix holes for the kids and I, lol.

I doubt a hoe could do these little ones better or faster. Hour for each.

It's nice here. I think I have all the soil types.

Have you considered installing a temporary drain line as a bypass around the dig site? Let it dry out a little prior to and during digging.