Pond Boss Forums POND CONSTRUCTION Selecting a site starting the dream

The "Dream" inches closer and closer to completion. The picture show the main pond 1.5 acres and 25 feet deep and the second pond about .5 acres and 10 feet deep.

What is missing??? The forage ponds. I commented to the excavator that he should have finished the main pond using all the clay that he needed before building the forage ponds because if there was not enough clay to finish the main pond, what good are the forage ponds. We then decided that we should raise the dam 1-4 feet more to widen the main pond. Without calling, they knocked down the forage ponds and took all the clay. Yes, the dam was raised 4 feet but I told him but I would have liked the choice of raising the dam 2 feet and forage ponds or raising the dam 4 feet and no forage ponds. Without the forage ponds and marsh there is no water control for the run off and with the heavy recent rains has already started to erode the banks of the second pond. The ecavator is behind and profit is dwindling so he is ready to be done. He says he will stay and finish. I think we have two more weeks of work if he brings back the equipment.

We still need to dig a marsh of some sort to control the water but there is not much if any clay left. We are trying to dig a shallow trench, 200 feet long by 40 feet in front of the second pond. I am hoping for a nice 0 entry to about 4 feet. This will control water and give me a place to still grow out minnows. Not exactly what I had wanted but it might work.

We still need to slope the backs of the dams a bit.

Big disappointment is that they will not riprap the ponds. Somehow, the 3000 tons of rock was or is not enough. They decided to truck some of the rock off site even when I told them not to do that until we made sure I had enough to finish my job. They did it anyway. I would be livid (I was all weekend waiting for the excavator to call)except now I do not think I should pay full price for a job that was bid to have 5-6 ponds albeit 4 were very small and riprap around all the ponds. Without the riprap, there should be a significant price reduction. The problem is that so many mistakes have been made they have been spending time and money just re-doing things over and over. But, as much as the excavator is trying to do a good job, re-doing mistakes and the costs involved are not my problem.

I need to seed the dams, move out the structure from the house, finish the beach area, install well and electric just to mention a few things.

patience.

Finally we have started phase 2. Phase 1, i.e. the construction of ponds is not quite finished. They just need to lay down some rock on the path and fix one problem but everything after that is done.

Well is in and electric is almost run to the well and down to the pond. Trench is dug for the man-made stream (long term project)

I had several high school and college kids come out on Saturday to plant 100 blue spruces, install structure, build garden beds, plant grass seed, etc... They worked really hard. We are headed up to plant another 100 trees in two weeks.

Structure around the pond. This was a lot of fun to place. We also built a number of Smallmouth beds based upon America's favorite pond magazine - Pond Boss


Here is a picture from the top of the land showing all three ponds. If you look carefully, you can see some of the trees that now border the property.



thanks to all for your help over the past 8 months.

Looks like it is coming along nicely. I like the structure you put in the pond.

I love the layout.
I'm certain that you put the details of the drainage in previous posts, but please indulge me one more time by explaining how many acres drain in and how the water moves thru the ponds.

How about a few rock piles in the big lake ? Looks good . Hang in there over the last weeks.

We have made some changes to the original layout. I have decided not to use Golden Shiners in either pond, relying on fatheads and blunt-nose as the minnows. SMB, WE YP in the main pond, CC, RBT in second pond. With that in mind and construction issues, rather than 3 small forage ponds and a marsh area, we combined them all into a larger marsh (runoff pond) and forage pond. The forage pond is about 100 by 50 feet and the marsh is 50 by 50 attached to the forage pond.

The watershed is small. There are about 5 acres draining directly into the forage pond and couple acres which will partially drain. The forage pond was not built where I wanted it to be built so it sits about 30 feet away from the catfish pond. We will dig in a culvert to move water from the forage pond to the catfish pond. Water will then move from Catfish/trout pond to the main pond based on the same idea. Land slopes downward from pond to pond.

Ponds will be filled from the well. I will someday build a stream from the trench we dug the runs from top of forage pond (where well is) to main pond with gates to direct the water to each pond as needed.

Article in Pond Boss about making streams might be helpful hint hint.

Rock piles are on the list for the next work day.

Jump in with anything else I have missed.

One more day of working at the pond. We planted another 100 trees, moved rock, planted raspberries, blackberries, day lillies, russian sage and 100 purple lilac. We finished the structure in the main pond. Grass seed from 2 weeks ago is up and growing. Need to put down another 100 pounds or so.

Electrician will be out today to hook up metering base and well. I really, really hope to start filling this weekend

Top of dam looking up the hill



Looking from the bottom of trench out to main pond



Top of land overlooking 3 ponds


silly picture but shows the double row of small blue spruces


Excavator has not returned calls for over a month. Still owe him 10K as last payment but there are about 4 hours of work to finish project. I am done waiting. I contacted another company to come in and finish. I will subtract what I pay them from his final bill.

Pushing forward. Soon I might have to change my signature.

What fun!!!

13 acres,
3 ponds,
living the dream

Lets collectively cross our fingers...the electric inspector is heading out today to check the hook up. If everything passes, the electric company will energize the lines Monday. The well could be turned on Tuesday and the long process of filling begins.

No more 'hole in the groundmeister'. I could graduate to (dare I be so bold) 'pondmeister'.

YOO HOO!!! Graduating to a big puddle !!!

Congrats Kurt on the evolving dream!

I admit it. I have too much time on my hands and not enough water in the pond. Another idea looking for feedback...

I still have quite a bit of rock, crush and run limestone, on the property. The pond is fairly oval (no points, bays, coves etc..). I was thinking of having a loader load up the dump truck with rock and pour the rock into the pond from the water's edge out about 15-20 feet, thus building a rock dock or rock bar about 20 feet long, sitting about 2 feet above water level and a dump truck wide. It would give me a dock area so to speak to sit/stand and fish, it would be overlooking the beach area so a place to keep an eye on the kids. Because of water fluctuations, I am not putting in a dock for a while. The rock dock would provide habitat for crayfish if they show up and other things.

what do you all think???

A rock pier sounds cool. You could also just spread it in areas for SMB beds and use it as rip rap for the crays.

I think that's a very good idea. Get it in now before it fills up.

+1

If you have it, you might as well use it, plus that limestone can contribute to your water quality.

Went out Sunday to fix some minor mistakes along the dam. Turned on the power and started the well. Nothing happened. Luckily I was out there with my electrician. He checked everything out and found a mistake in the main panel done by the electric company. He fixed it and, and, and (wait for it) and WATER IS FLOWING TO THE CATFISH POND!!!!!! wow.

Went out Monday to mulch the spruce trees. We have not had a drop of rain for 32 days. Water level is way down and a few trees did not make the transplant. With the well working, we watered the trees. Hopefully we can save most of them.

This is a long process but worth it someday.

I like the rock pier idea.. Just make sure you use rock that will have voids and cavities so the crawfish can hide in there. To dense and you will just have a rock pile with no habitat, you could start with big rocks under water then top it with finer rock for an easier surface to walk and sit on.. Just a thought.

"Article in Pond Boss about making streams might be helpful hint hint."

There is one!!!

"I still have quite a bit of rock, crush and run limestone, on the property. The pond is fairly oval (no points, bays, coves etc..). I was thinking of having a loader load up the dump truck with rock and pour the rock into the pond from the water's edge out about 15-20 feet, thus building a rock dock or rock bar about 20 feet long, sitting about 2 feet above water level and a dump truck wide. It would give me a dock area so to speak to sit/stand and fish, it would be overlooking the beach area so a place to keep an eye on the kids. Because of water fluctuations, I am not putting in a dock for a while. The rock dock would provide habitat for crayfish if they show up and other things.

what do you all think???"

Great idea - see pic below using dirt (we don't have rocks in that amount)just extra dirt.

That is exactly what I want though more rock than dirt. Great pics.

Quick update,

I have rented a skid loader for next week to finish the last remaining work before winter. Much of the work is left over from the excavator not finishing.

We need to finishing laying rock in several areas to complete the walking path around the land.

Build a 15 by 15 pad for the main shed.

Move the boulders found when digging. I want to sit around the beach area.

Fill in the 300 ft trench.

Scrap out the upper section of the silt pond, re-line with clay, expand the lower section of the silt pond.

Fill in a few gulleys in the the main pond caused by spring rains.

haul out some of the fallen trees laid by the farmer several years ago.

build the rock pier.

I have 86 machine hours Monday to Sunday, we are driving with flashlights if we have to.

Should be fun!!!

The catfish pond is about 1/3 full, hoping for a localized 100 feet of snow in the Judah Wisconsin area this winter

Final entry (probably) for the year. Let me start again by thanking so many of the forum members for their patience, insights and advice over the past 12 months or so. I can safely state that I know more about ponds, stocking, habitat, weeds and other stuff than I did 10 months ago. I still have a long way to go but what a fun year!! Thanks everyone even JHAP.

We rented the skidloader and for a week moved rock and dirt. We filled in the 300 ft trench, re-built parts of the path that wraps around the 13 acres, filled in a few erosion points, built a nice pad for the shed next year, and spread dirt.

Next year I will build the rock piers, finish the road, compact the rock along the road and path. It will be a never ending list.

I spilled some of that diesel on myself just to test out DD1's thought. It made me smell better but my wife was not too impressed.

"I love the smell of diesel in the morning. Since I often spill it on me, I get to enjoy the aroma all day." Dave Davidson1_________________________


Thanks again to everyone. What a great website and magazine. Still a lot of learning and work to be done but all in all, I think it has been a pretty good year.

this was almost a credible post

Would you say that it represents .547 of a good post?

(Currently my good post count is at 46.453 and I'd really like my post count to get back to whole numbers).

Never mind, I just received the .547 in another thread!

And well deserved Sir

Well, I am back. After a wonderful winter off it was time last weekend to head out to the land and check out the past year's work. Big pile of rock is still there, most of the blue spruces survived and the catfish pond is leaking.

Everybody's nightmare has come to pay me a visit. It is too bad there are no threads here concering leaking ponds (wink).

The backside of the catfish pond about 4 feet high, water is trickling out through the soil. There is still snow in WI so it is hard to tell exactly what is going on. My wife (she is not available) after hearing the news said, "I do not miss the money since it was in the bank so spend what you need to fix it". "You can not spend the kids' college funds or our retirement but do what you need". Now that's a wife!

I do not think it is end of the world but it will just delay everything. I am talking to some people and at this point here are the next steps. Please give ideas...

1. Spring will still be planting. I have 500 shrubs from state of WI arriving soon, another layer of grass seed, re-plant 20 more blue spruces and seed wildflowers.

2. Once May arrives and the soil dies up a bit, I still need to move rock. Rent a track dozer with large bucket to move rock and finish building road and path around the land and the rock pier.

3. Rent a large roller and crush the rock on roads and path.

4. Using the roller, roll and compact the back of dam and catfish levee, (settling and winter have caused some of the problems) level terrain around ponds and roll the banks of both ponds.

5. Later in year when catfish is dried out, rent sheepsfoot roller and re-work basin in both ponds, compacting to proper compaction. The basins are holding fine but as long as I have the roller, we are going to roll everything. I realize there is a limit to how much soil can be compacted (Pinney did a long thread about it, over my head) so I am going to hit that limit. I do not want to do this again next year!

6. Rent a track hoe and skidloader and dig out dirt from the forage pond which has several good veins of clay material still available. Move the dirt to the catfish levee and rebuild the levee from the inside. The banks of the levee are very steep and impossible to roll as they are so I am going to change the grading and add about a foot of clay at the end of the catfish pond. 1 foot X 15 high by 30 long.

7. Buy DB200 and add it to the catfish pond then roll the DB200 with a roller working the levee especially hard. The doctors recommend at least 2 applications so, after rolling, add another layer of clay to the levee and another application of DB200 to the entire pond, then roll it like theres no tomorrow.

The moron with 3 big holes has spoken. What saeth oh experts out there?

talk to you all soon. Have a great time at the Pond Boss Expo, maybe next time for me.