Prior to the last 3 or 4 days of rain, my pond was about 16 inches low. we got a significant amount of rain in the last days. My rain gauge goes to 5.5 inches. It was full today so I have no idea how much rain I got in the last 3 or 4 days. Since every pond is full and the creek s running, I got enough. Water is still running out the sides of the hills into the ponds.
It's not about the fish. It's about the pond. Take care of the pond and the fish will be fine. PB subscriber since before it was in color.
Without a sense of urgency, Nothing ever gets done.
Boy, if I say "sic em", you'd better look for something to bite. Sam Shelley Rancher and Farmer Muleshoe Texas 1892-1985 RIP
It's been raining here for several days. The weather radio is talking flooding and flash flooding all the time. The highway past my house has been closed because of flooding in a nearby creek, but my pond still has about 2 ft to go before it's full, although it has come up about 2 1/2 ft. It's been misting and drizzling all day, but I'm afraid I've got about all the real rain I'm going to get for a while.
I probably don't have as much watershed as the pond needs. My place was built in the '70s, and the pond may have been built at the same time or shortly thereafter. There is another pond about 150 yd above me that is probably much newer and in the main drainage that feeds my pond. So my pond will probably never get much runoff until that pond spills, but it may take all winter for me to find out. Judging from the vegetation around my pond, it filled last winter, or at least not many years ago. I'll be interested in seeing how fast the pond drops when the rain stops.
I live about 30 mi almost straight north of Springfield. I don't own the land where diversion would be effective. Just about all my land drains into the pond now.
My farm and pond is in Erath county Texas about 15 miles northeast of Stephenville. We had 7.5 inches of rain over this Thanksgiving holiday. The attached pic shows my 1 acre pond now full and overflowing. To the left in the pic is the spillway which runs into a creek feeding the Paluxy river. Across the spillway you can see the top of a 4 ft fence I recently added to stop the loss of fish. 2" x 4" heavy wire faced with 1/2" x 1/2" wire cloth.
Yep, about 200 pecan trees but I'm not much of a pecan farmer. Harvests have been spotty over the years due to pests and droughts. The agricultural tax exemption is helpful, though. We'd sell our Fort Worth home and move to the farm full-time but our grandkids are still in grade school and we are called on a few days each week to help. Maybe someday...
On a related note, My newly renovated pond is about 0.3 ac but only about 1.6 ac of grassy watershed as far as I can tell from Google Earth Pro. The area is nearly flat from N to S until the actual pond basin is reached, then drops about 6 feet as it passes the width of the pond. Terracing to obtain an additional acre of watershed might cause water to back up and cover an acre in our hayfield about three to six inches deep. Maybe I could make the terracing act like a detention pond, and drain away after it has dumped water to the main pond. I still lack 16 inches to get to full pool, and we just had 2.8 inches of rain from Thurs-Monday. Full pool is at the grassy emergency spillway, which is really just a slow back up into the hayfield edge until it spills out of the pond watershed. Kind of concerning about fish loss, since the spillway would not have much current until it gets well away from the pond.
DG, I planted 4 pecan trees on my place at Bowie about 20+ years ago. The drought a couple of years ago killed every one of them. I planted next to a spring fed creek in a low area that I figured would be OK. 5 years of drought also killed a lot of cedars and post oaks.
When the Grandkids turn into teens you'll be able to leave town without anybody knowing you're gone.
It's not about the fish. It's about the pond. Take care of the pond and the fish will be fine. PB subscriber since before it was in color.
Without a sense of urgency, Nothing ever gets done.
Boy, if I say "sic em", you'd better look for something to bite. Sam Shelley Rancher and Farmer Muleshoe Texas 1892-1985 RIP