Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations Options, starting direction

Am looking at buying some land with a couple of ponds on it.
my goal is a decent sized (2-3 acres min.) pond that can support fish. Trout would be my ideal, but LMB and BG would be ok. Fly fishing heaven right out my back door. The ability to achieve this goal will determine if I buy this land. This land has been unattended to for at least 3 years. The owner has died and estate is selling it, they have no detailed knowledge of anything on the land and of course the realtors are no better. They don't know a pine tree from a spruce tree. The realtor told me that if a pond has ducks in it it'll have fish in it too.

issue number 1 is 2 of the ponds right now support fish life. Lots of minnows can be seen cruising in the edges of these ponds. I don't know of any other fish life at this point. It should be noted that one of these ponds feeds the other pond via. gravity. There is a over flow stand pipe in the top one that runs into the lower one with a 6" pvc pipe. I would say each of these ponds are approx 1/2 acre or less in size. the flow out of the pipe is approx 2-6 gpm. Both these ponds are on a slopping hillside. in this area and by just cursory observation the hillsides are sand/gravel, some loam. I am wondering if the top one is spring fed. any way to tell? Would like to expand either one or both of these ponds. any general thought or words of wisdom.

Issue number 2 would be expanding other existing ponds or building a new pond. The other existing ponds are shallow and void of fish life. What I call duck ponds. These ponds are basicly scooped out areas in the low areas that filled with water. The land has a creek flowing thru it now along with a significant amount of wetlands on either side of the creek. these ponds are on the edge of the wetlands. Wetlands being that cattails and other water loving flora can be seen growing here. I think it would be very likely that if I dug a hole in the land near the creek it would fill with water. As this is in WI any concerns with regulations on digging in wetlands for a fishery/wildlife pond? Am sure that daming the creek would be nightmare of regulation. Any help here on this?

Again I'm looking for a starting point that I can help me make a decision on buying the property. Maybe a person who can take a walk thru and give me an informed opinion?

Welcome to the forum!

I guess my first question would be, do you have the finances and/or equipment (possibly both) after the purchase of the land? We were in a similar situation when we purchased our property, we did so with the plan of enjoying our pond as is for several years before we did any major renovations due to lack of funds available for pond. Even still, we have probably spent 10k just rebuilding the pond cabin, running electrical, stocking, dock repair, aeration, etc.

Second question is have you contacted the DNR about WI wetland restrictions, and probably your county as well? I would start there to see how much red tape is involved, or if even doable, as this is Wisconsin. Hope that helps!

I would agree with what BeanDaddy has said. It would be nice if you could hook with someone from that area to walk through it with you. Perhaps someone knows of a pro pond guru up in that area? Might check the PONDBOSS resource pages for someone near you?

If you have flow from the one pond into the other, and there is no feeder creek/spring flowing on the surface into the first pond, and there is no runoff from recent rains going into the first pond, I would bet that it is spring fed. There are both pluses and minuses with that scenario.

I would get a small boat and throw in those ponds to get a depth measurement of each one. You will want them pretty deep up in Wisconsin. You may have small fish in each one, but they may be winter-killed each year and the only thing that can survive are the small ones.

Edit-- It don't take a real big pond to grow nice trout. I have 1 acre and have dabbled with RBT for two years now. In my area, you have to buy them every fall and get them out by June-ish. I can get them to about 3# in that time frame. I would think you might be able to keep them year-round? Cecil has raised some real beauties in ponds that are fraction of this size.

I am also going the way fish n chips is, with seasonal RBT. However, I couldn't resist getting a few RBT this spring to see if they will make it through the summer with aeration going 24/7 (so far they are doing great, but the hot summer has not yet kicked in). My BOW is approximately 12' deep at center, 1 acre, I have 3 dual disk vertex diffusers with a Gast 1/3 hp compressor. Your ponds may also be ground water supplied, which is similar to spring fed, either one does tend to get water level fluctuations like mine, sometimes as much as 5' difference from full pond to low, spring fed may have much cooler temps, and less of a funnel effect. What part of WI are you looking at, maybe I can offer some recommendations on suppliers if you are near me?

Existing ponds on a property can be an asset or liability depending on the condition of the ponds. If the ponds need renovation and rebuilding then they become liabilities and an extra expense not assets in the current condition. Cecil Baird does raise big trout in 0.1 ac ponds. Spring water or well water fed flow through is the key component to raising trout. Thus you could easily build a small trout pond and use other fish such as perch - walleye, bass - sunfish. Do due diligence and lots of homework. Lots of good experienced help and advice that is evaluated & moderated are available on this forum. We tend to correct misinformation.

Small minnows could be small sport fish or actually minnows-shiners. Most likely they are small sunfish.

Bill brings up a good point about liability. I remember a few past posts where the potential buyers of a pond properties did their homework as far as what was wrong with the pond. They then "educated" the realtor on the cost to make it right(which could be as much as building new), and got the price reduced on the property.

Bean- I got a few of mine to go till August. I have no aeration at this time. My pond is spring fed. From what I understand, aeration will mix the water temps more quickly. Right now, the trout that are left in the pond, are going deeper by the day to stay cool. They rarely surface for feeding now.

Beandaddy,
I have the financial resources to spend on a pond. I've lived the American dream in a small way.

I'm in Sheboygan county. Where are you at?

I have done some reading at DNR site about ponds. The property I'm looking at (at least the one mentioned in the original post) doesn't have any special interest ( DNR designated waterway) to the DNR. I would still need to go thru a permit process to get a OK from the DNR. Need a permit if in a wetland or connects to or is within 500 ft of nav. waterway. The creek is a nav. waterway. The first pond is not within 500 ft of the creek, all others are. The first 2 ponds are not in a wetlands, all others are. To apply for the permit requires some work and cost. I'm going to call DNR and see if I can get a hold of a water specialist. I'd like to get a some info on what they look for and time frames for permits. I'd like to know what I can do before I buy.

I'm not too keen on a constant put and take situation. Would prefer a self sustaining situation.

As far as the minnows go, I'm pretty sure that they are some type of minnow, I know what small Bass and Sunfish look like. These minnows were approx. 1 1/2" in length. I didn't see any other fish other than the minnows. I did see what might of been redds along the shore line. Hard to say for sure if they were redds.