Pond Boss Forums POND CONSTRUCTION Renovating a Pond or Lake? What a mess!

So, I have unfortunately found myself the owner of a piece of garbage pond on a piece of garbage farm in southern Virginia. Due to family obligations, I am going to be forced to renovate this place and I have no idea where to start.

The pond is shallow, destroyed by years of cattle wading in and out, and the dam is disgusting looking to me visually. You can see tires sticking out of it. Its a real eyesore. There is a pond across the street that overflows and comes under the road and feeds into the head of my pond, so I will always have whatever garbage fish are in the pond across the street in my pond as well.

When a pond is this far gone is it better to destroy it entirely and start over?

I had a dream last night that I was flying a stealth bomber and I got to nuke the pond. This brought me great delight! LOL.

If this were to be redone, I would want to expand the pond toward the road so that the pond would envelope the mucky garbage area where the neighbors overflow comes on to my property.

I would also want to kill everything in the pond and start over as a smallmouth bass pond instead of a largemouth pond. This far north, I just don't see the value of largemouth bass.

Any help that you guys can give me would be great. I know this pond has tons of stunted garbage largemouth, bluegills, redear, flathead catfish (at least one giant one) white bass, and some other garbage. Its a mess.

The red arrow shows the neighbors little garbage pond that overflows and comes under the road and makes a disgusting mucky area in my pasture above the head of my pond.

The blue arrow shows the mucky area.

The green arrow shows the pond that is the bane of my existence.

My guess is that the pond is about four acres.

All of the buildings and trees on this property will be removed within the next year. So consider the whole place a blank slate. I really can't wait to push these buildings into a pile and toss a match in there.

Has anyone here ever inherited a place that they despised? I can't be the only one.

I just measured it on Google earth and it says that the area is about 95,000 sf, which means its less than three acres. I guess that I was wrong in my estimate.

Sigh, that makes it even worse LOL.

Welcome to Pond Boss.

Since you have a blank slate, is it possible to alter the course of the junk coming in from the neighbor?

What other run off areas do you have?

Just a thought, but if you truly feel that awful about the property/pond, will you ever be satisfied?

Why put time and money into something that invokes such feelings of disgust? It seems to me that no matter the outcome, you will always harbor feelings of resentment and anger. So having said that, do you ever envision a scenario whereby you would enjoy and appreciate having a pond?

It's been my experience that if I'm forced to do something I absolutely do not want to do, I seldom if ever feel any sense of pride or accomplishment while doing it, and the finished product/experience reflects that.

Hey Spark you got that right! With that said the land looks nice. Are you going to rebuild a home there or just tear everything down?

Expanding towards road in muddy area will not keep fish from other guys pond coming in. You will have to devise some sort of holding area for that water and filter it if it's that bad sometimes. Unless you just plan on dealing with it.

I would drain it as far as I could, kill everything off drain it some more and then you will have to let it dry some. It will have to be dug back out to get rid of all the muck which is not so easy when it's wet you could sink 4 feet in it! On a 3 acre pond it won't be a quick fix I don't think. I am no expert tho on redoing ponds that's for sure! I am just giving my 2 cents.

Like Spark said tho you don't sound very happy about it anyway so do you really want to put forth the effort that will be needed to fix? Are you going to fix and then resell?

RC

Welcome to the forum!

Try using this to measure the pond and area: http://acme.com/planimeter/

I'm with Dave. If you are going thru that much renovation, can you make a "stream" that will take the neighbors overflow around your pond?

If the water level in the pond seems to be pretty stable, and staying high, the dam is probably has a good core and is watertight. But, if it has a metal overflow pipe in it, and it's approaching 20 years old, replace it because it will fail sooner rather than later. If the water fluctuates a lot, then you'll have to re-do the dam too.

There's lots and lots of information on here, keep reading and asking.

If you want a SMB pond, diverting the water from the neighbors LMB pond will be mandatory, or you will have to restock SMB because LMB will out compete SMB.

Cutting the dam, letting it drain, then pushing the accumulated muck and junk past the backside of the dam is the easiest way to go about it.

Why not just list it with a real estate agent at an absurdly high price for 6 months.
If you sell it, great buy something you like. If not, this will give you time to decide what you want to do with it.

Welcome to the forum! Once you decide what your goals are, let us know, and we can collectively provide some direction based on our personal experiences that should help you be successful. Love your ideas on SMB fishery - per Esshup above, you'll need to divert the overflow from adjacent pond or an SMB fishery will be difficult to establish and manage. It can be done, but will require shifting management techniques and some very aggressive on site work [culling LMB/BG, etc.].

Let us know how you choose to proceed-can't wait!

What are your goals for the place (land and pond)?

It is rarely a good idea to cut all your trees.

There is potential with what you have.

I am going to try to answer everyone's questions. I don't know the best way to do it, so I am going to be using the quote function. I beg that all of you be kind and helpful LOL. I am going to start the replies now LOL.

I am not satisfied with it, but I am working on finding a way. This is something that is important to my mother who is not young and not in good health. As her son I am trying to do the best I can. Also, for reasons which I will leave out, I feel like I am being called here.

So, at the moment, I am not enjoying the land, the pond, or anything associated with it. I am trying to find a way in my world and a place in my heart for all of this.

I do not believe that I have much of a choice in doing this and I am seeking the blessing in it. If any of you are praying people will you please say a word for me to the Father that my eyes get opened to the blessing here? Thanks!

I don't like to answer a question with ambiguity, but I don't know. I don't know the answers to any of the questions that you posed. LOL.

The overflow from the neighbors pond goes under the road in a pipe and dumps out on my property right at the road. It flows through that mucky area and goes into my pond.

Thank you for that information. I have been fishing in that pond for over 20 years, going on 30, and I have never seen it low except in the heart of terribly hot summers with little rain.

I don't know about building a stream. I can put about $20,000 into this and that is my absolute maximum budget. I don't know what I can fix or do with $20,000 as I have never been a pond owner before.

I am thinking of approaching the neighbor, who uses his pond to store bait for catfishing purposes, and see if he will let me kill his pond and stock it with the same kind of bait that will be in my pond.

If he lets me do that, I will have a pond where I can grow golden shiners, lake chub suckers, crawdads, fathead minnows and that kind of stuff. He will have plenty of bait for fishing and I won't have to deal with his garbage.

He does not fish in his pond. I believe that if he were allowed to fish in my pond that we could come to an agreement LOL.

There are plenty of praying brothers and sisters. And the others will root for you with nice thoughts and cheers.

I salute you for wanting to honor your mother. I have an aging mother and I know all about doing things I'd rather not .. just because it serves her.

If you are called to renew the home and pond, then follow your leading. It may also renew your thinking through the whole process.

Giving a dollar amount to do work is very difficult due to regional differences in charges for labor, equipment, etc.

One place that you can start to gather information that is free (well, you are paying for it with your tax dollars)is the NRCS office for the county that the property is located in.

http://www.nrcs.usda.gov/wps/portal/nrcs/sitenav/national/states/

As far as my goals for the property, I am planning on retiring and raising animals. It will be like a homestead/small integrated livestock farm.

I plan on raising jumbo brown quail and land snails for the restaurant industry, which will bring in a little income.

I plan on having a few goats, sheep, pigs, cattle etc. Its not going to be anything extravagant, but the pasture is worth much more to me than the woods are.

I will be leaving the healthiest looking fruit and nut bearing trees (if there are any) and the rest of the trees are going bye bye. I am much better off with grass for my purposes than trees.

The pond will be a source of enjoyment for my nephews. I am hoping that they will have lots of smiles and good memories there fishing like my brother and I did as children.

I was thinking small mouth bass because I don't know if I will fish the pond enough to manage it for largemouth and bluegills. I would much rather be able to cast a line and catch a handful of really nice smallies than cast a line and catch stunted largemouth after stunted largemouth.

Oh and to answer the question about whether or not I will be rebuilding a home there, the answer to that is yes. I will.

There will be a home, a detached garage, a work shop, a building for raising quail, and some other structures.

Now you're talking.. This is the mindset I believe will see you through this. The willingness to think, plan, and envision. To see beyond today, and work for tomorrow.

Welcome to PondBoss!

I have also heard from people that there may be a spring at the head of that pond in that mucky area.

That remains to be seen and will have to be explored.

Wow sounds to me like your already hooked and you don't even know it!! You have a decent budget I would think you could get your pond back in order for sure! Good Luck and keep us posted. I like you have no idea the cost of repairing / redoing a pond... Thank goodness I have not had to cross that road yet!!

RC

Honestly, I don't think I will ever get hooked on a pond. I don't care enough about it to get hooked. I have just worked to hard in my life to look out my window at a piece of garbage. I've been an insurance broker pretty much my entire adult life. I married the wrong woman and got divorced and she got pretty much everything. I just want something that I can be happy about. That's it. The pond is there. It has to be fixed.

The best fishing lake in the whole state is five minutes from this house. So, the pond to me is fairly useless LOL.

If it wasn't already there I would never even consider putting a pond on my property. I would much rather have the land for grazing animals. It remains to be seen if I will come to be happy that its there. That could happen, but at the moment I'm not hooked LOL.

The worst part about this property will be watching all of the deer hunting dogs die every year. My dogs have been trained to kill every dog that comes on to my property. They will do their job without fail. These good ol' boys run deer with dogs and they run packs of hounds that sometimes get into the dozens. I have six boerboels. I have seen two of them kill nine beagles in less than a minute. I don't even know what kind of massacre this is going to be next deer season. I will put up signs, and I will warn the locals, but I'm sure that it will not be good. LOL.

"Lol"??? I wish you the best.