Pond Boss Forums STOCKING A NEW POND Raising Forage and Bait forage pond

i have thought about digging out a small area below my pond to raise forage. i have a huge amount of water shed for my small pond. we got a few inches of rain today and pond jumped about 6" above full pool. i have a 12" pipe and it was rolling out of it. do yall think i could dig a 20'x40' pond and use rip rap rock for the dam? not sure if the forage would go thru the cracks of the rock or not during heavy rain.

If the soil composition is right, I don't see why not... Build the dam and include an outflow pipe, use fine mesh on the intake section of the pipe to prevent forage fish from escaping. Rip rap the damn, and take the proper precautions to prevent leaks in the new dam. A 20'x40' forage pond would allow you to raise a lot of forage. Make sure if you do construct it, its easy to seine to make collection of the forage fish easy...

i was actually thinking of digging the pond lower then the stream bed now which would create the pond without the construction of a dam, then put the rip rap in and create the dam with it.i was thinking that the water would flow thru the rip rap, but not the fish!!

Depends on how high the water gets during heavy rain... It may wash over the rip rap and so will your fish.

I already have a 3 acre pond just above my 12 acre lake that has a pipe running between them. I built it for ducks originally, but.... no ducks. I figure I could make it deeper and then stock it with Golden shiners and shad. How much deeper than the current 6 to 12 inches should I dig, and then could I just open the pipe to disperse forage fish into my bass lake? Does it need to be 3 acres though?

Forage ponds are a lot of work but will work. I have found that is easier to use the existing pond and use a blocking net. That way you don't have to move fish or worry about water quality in a small pond. The blocking net method does have its limits also. There is a PB mag article on the subject.

Welcome to the Forum Gator...

In Alabama you can probably get away with somewhat shallow water and hold fish through the warmer and colder months. Particularly golden shiners and fathead minnows. The threadfin shad are a bit touchier to water quality. In VA I have had fish do fine in a .2 acre pond that is only 4 feet deep. Shiners and minnows did great, never had any winter or summer kills.

What is to keep your predator fish from getting in and decimating your forage fish population if your regular pond overflows and your forage pond is below your regular pond? I'd probably try to put the forage pond above your regular pond with some way to keep predator fish from getting there during rain events. For my biggest pond, I built sediment ponds in the valleys leading in. I intended to use them all as forage and sediment ponds. On some, I didn't get the overflow pipe enough above full pond level to prevent predator fish from getting in. I still think that is a good approach though.