Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations Own a Small Pond or a Boat and Big Lakes?

My wife and I are currently looking to buy a house that has some acres along with a 100% private pond on the property. Finding a piece of property with a private pond, as well as a house that we both really like, is not a very easy thing find here in Greenville, SC area. My wife had the idea that if we couldn't find a house with a pond I could maybe buy a nice Bass Boat to take to all the numerous big fishing lakes that surround our area here in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mtns. I grew up my whole life basically fishing smaller 1 to 6 acres ponds - I have never spent anytime fishing the bigger lakes, so there's a side of me that wonders if I would enjoy it as much as I enjoy fishing the smaller ponds. I would love to get some feedback on the Pros & Cons of fishing the small ponds compared to fishing the bigger lakes. Am I crazy for not jumping on my wife's suggestion to buy a nice new Bass Boat or should I hold out until we find a house/private pond combo that we want to buy?

Drue4Bama, I have worn out three boats and five outboard motors the past 25 years chasing LMB and striped bass – I prefer a pond.

Public waters are getting so crowded these days with uncaring fishermen that it’s not fun anymore.
Now I spend many mornings on our ponds with flyrod in hand, roaming the pond banks and watching the sun come up.
Life is good...

Drue4Bama, I personally like haveing my own pond even if it is just a small one. I would love to have a place with a large 5 acre + lake on it, I would be in heaven. We live in SW Missouri and have plenty of large lakes to go to "if" we had a bass boat, but like you we enjoy the smaller lakes and have a small 2 man boat we fish with when we can. I would rather fish the smaller lakes as there is much less congestion on them and they seam more peaceful. I am sure you will get some other opinions soon.

My 20 ft. Ranger hasn't moved in 5 years. My wife recently counted my tackle boxes and found 10 of them. They are also pretty low mileage since I stocked my ponds. She stopped counting rods and reels at 25.

There is a downside, several in fact. The pond fish can get hook shy unless you have a pretty large one. Like a boat, they can get expensive if you do it right. And, like golf (they tell me), it can be pretty hard to always do it right.
I will someday have to sell my land with ponds. Then I'll fix up the boat and get a deer lease. I dread that day.

For me raising fish and getting them grow into large sizes is actually now more fun than catching them. Like many others here, I have done a lot of fishing and catching in both private and public waters. The new challenge is to produce fish that are larger than those found locally and have exclusive ability to catch and manage them. Raising fish to large sizes can be more challenging and rewarding than catching them.

My vote is to get your own pond, hands down. 4+ acres would be a minimum size for me, but more like 10 acres, and I would never really need to fish anywhere else save for the occasional specialty fishing trips.

Boats depreciate.

Welcome to the show, D4B...
You will, no doubt, encounter elevated bias to pond ownership within this forum. If you're here to gather a fair vote as an aid to making your decision, you are already showing Pondmeister characteristics as you exercise justification. Don't get me wrong; this is a good thing. It's a mental exercise used by all good pondmeisters. Your overt display of mastery of this fundamental building block tells us all we need to know. You will soon be one of us. Don't fight it.
-
My wife and I went thru the boat phase, but geared more toward recreational boating as opposed to fishing. We got out with about 1/2 our shirt; goodbye. We then moved onto ownership of a small vacation home on the waterfront. This turned out to be a wonderful choice, but one issue. We still had neighbors. We cashed that in for what you will soon be seeking; pond-able property. It took a total of almost 4 years to find it, but we finally happened across our diamond in the rough. I've been hooked ever since.

The first for you, the second for D-ski.

Welcome!

I sold my 15 horse Johnson a couple of years ago and the boat is sitting in garage ready to install an electroshocker boom for use on my ponds. I haven't fished public lakes in at least 3 years and don't miss it. Between waiting at the ramp for the bass tournament guys to launch all their boats, to dodging jet skis and feeling like I'm sitting in a hurricane when I'm anchored, it just isn't worth it anymore. The regular fisherman is being pushed out of our local lakes. I see it in my taxidermy business. Weekends on the public lakes are impossible. People tell me to just go on the weekdays. Why should I? I have a business to run on the weekdays anyway.

Yes, the downside to a pond is the fish get hook shy, but that can be countered by harvesting some fish, changing the species, thinking out of the box i.e. stocking hybrid striped bass periodically etc. Everything you need to know is in the Pond Boss issues or on this website.

With my ponds I can fish whenever I want (usually wait until harvest though since I sell my trophy fish) and don't have to deal with selfish people.

BTW with what local anglers pay for a bass boat you could have more than one pond here! I have four ponds and they cost less to build than a typical bass boat!

Pond's get depreciated, too, sometimes - but that's a good thing.

Thanks for all the feedback, but I did fail to mention one thing. My wife and I already own 9 acres that is connected to a 10 acre pond. We hope to be able to build a house on this land one day. I do not privately own the pond, but I share ownership with 4 other people. There are 5 multi-acre properties of 8 acres or more and all the properties meet in the middle of the pond. The 5 property owners share financial responsibility in any pond upkeep. It is a very healthy 10 acre pond that is underground spring and mountain stream fed. It's loaded with LMB, Brim, Bluegill and some Catfish. It's a good situation, because we all have restrictions set up on the acres, so that nobody can sub-divide their acres - So there's no chance of a growing population. The only draw back is that other property owners do let friends and family fish, so it holds me back from wanting to invest much money into adding a new bloodline of fish or anything. I probably shouldn't worry, because there's probably no chance of fishing out a 10 acre pond that has been there since the early 1940's - Plus it's over 35 feet deep in the middle. So maybe I should be happy with the 10 acre pond that I am a partial owner of, even though I don't own 100% of it. So maybe if I buy a house without a pond, and get the new Bass Boat, then I could have the best of both worlds... or is having your own 1 to 2 acre 100% private pond better than anything else?

Hi Drue. First off welcome to PB. I haven't fished public waters in years so I can't really comment on that. I was hoping DIED would weigh in here because he is an active fisherman on both his own pond and on public waters. If the public waters in your area are real crowded then you may not enjoy the experience as much. One way that you might be able to see if you like it would be to plan a fishing trip to the area that you are thinking of purchasing property and renting a boat and experiencing the lake for yourself.

I have a 2-3 acre pond that is completely on my property. Part of what I really enjoy about it is that only my family and friends fish on it. Its secluded and quiet and the fishing so far has been very good. I think there are pros and cons to owning a portion of a pond versus the entire pond. A 10 acre pond is a very good sized pond that has enormous potential. Based upon what you said it seems as though the pond has a good mix of fish. I think it would just depend upon the mix of neighboring owners.

Most every pond large or small will require some management in order to keep it a good fishing spot. If the fishing on the 10 acre pond is good and the relative weights of the LMB and BG are good then you may not need to do much of anything. If the fishing is not good and/or the relative weights of the fish are not good then some management may be in order. Same is true if you have a vegetation or water quality problem.

The main disadvantage that I see in a co-owned pond is management by committee. Trying to get a group of people to (1) agree on anything and the (2) open their wallets can be a real pain.

The main disadvantage of 100% ownership of a pond is that you have to do all of the work and spend all of the money.

Tell us more about the 10 acre pond...

How is fishing on it?

Any idea about the relative weight of the LMB and BG?

Post some photos if ya got them - I'd love to see a photo of the place.

awlrighty JHAP (and howdy).....FWIW i enjoy owning both a boat and a pond. i guess my comment for you drue would be why make them mutually exclusive (expensive property/pond OR expensive bass boat)??

you can raise nice fish in a small pond, and own a "not so expensive" boat. for the pond, there is nothing like a personal honey hole. i am so attached to my little puddle and the fact i can catch fish on my property.....its an AWESOME hobby (maybe one day turning into an amateur profession).

for the public waters aspect, we have the luxury around here of quite a few lakes/reservoirs that prohibit water and jet ski's and are pretty much for fisherman only, plus its just plain fun to get out on larger water and explore or fish or lounge around at one's leisure. we have a 16.5 ft aluminum w/ "nice enough" features (windshield, steering, live well, fairly good storage, trolling motor, fish finder, all weather flooring and top, and 60 HP outboard)........and we didnt spend an arm and leg for it.


my couple cents.....

edit post.....i forgot to mention....one of the primary reasons to own a fishing craft......coming up soon i will be spending a week up at a place called Eagle Lake......it is an amazing place in the NE corner of CA, a remnant of the once great Pleistocene lakes that covered the west (aka Lahonton and Bonneville). it contains a special and rare variety of trout (eagle lake trout) that developed a resistance to extremely high salinity as these fossil lakes receded after the ice ages. it also contains a type of forage similarly rare called a tui chub. the fishery is heavily managed and reportedly REALLY GOOD, i cant wait, being one of the boat owners entitles me to all expenses paid i just hope my brother and i can get along for an entire week w/out fighting

I think this is a good place for advice on this topic because a lot of us have done lots of both types of fishing. As for me, like DIED I have an adequate boat and I have a pond. I do both. Before I had a pond I fished as often as I could but it was never enough. I chose not to live on a lake due to the high taxes we pay for such property. When I want to explore big water I go to a public lake. When I want convenience and/or solitude I fish my own pond. I fish my pond almost every day. I fish public lakes 4 or 5 times a year. If I had to give up one or the other I'd give up my boat. There's nothing like fishing my pond. I think what really is attractive is that it is private and it's the fruit of my own efforts. Also, I can fish my pond without leaving home. I can fish for an hour without losing 3 hours of time with my family. D4B has some of these advantages with your co-owned pond so I'd say you have the next best thing. It would be my second choice to a my own private pond.

After D4B put more details out, I would have to get a sense of the private 10 acre pond, and the neighbors.

Would four other people mean four other families, and then how many of them took any interest in fishing? And then how many friends coming by to fish?

Depending on what those details are like, it might not be too far from my own pond situation. We own the whole pond, but we're absentee land owners. Other people do fish it without our permission, and anyone could throw any kind of fish in there (however, my pond is connected to a good sized year round stream, so I can naturally get all kinds of rough fish).

If the variables were not that bad, you might be able to get as much enjoyment out of it as if it were your own.

If you were willing to pay for stocking and improvements, or if another land owner had similar interests and would contribute, that might be just fine.

Again, for me, I own our property with three partners (wife, my brother, & his wife). All like to fish, but none of the other three take much interest in the management & stocking. I pay for everything, and don't ever bother to get the brother & his wife to contribute (I do stick them with the tax bill, but that's a minor inconvenience compared to the stocking dollars in my case). I wouldn't mind having someone else to share the fun of management and stocking.

It's not a thankless job; the fishing if off the hook, and everyone likes it.

Thanks for even more great feedback. I am currently out of town with my job and I'm having to use a business center in our hotel to get online. When I return home on Sunday I will respond to the new questions asked and also try to post some photos of the 10 acre pond we share ownership of. Full response coming soon.

Thanks again!!