Hello to the good folks on this site. I have registered today and look forward to the vast information of so many that are a part of this site. I live in NW Mississippi in the hills. Thirty minutes up the road is Memphis. Our soil is mostly clay and holds water like a bottle.
I am underway of a pond renovation. The dam is approx 1000 feet long and an average of 40' high. I personally built the dam in the late 80's. I moved around 90 thousand yards of dirt. I bought a cat D7 (old) dozer and a John Deere 5020 and a 6 yard pan. It took six summers of dam construction and one year of lake bed work. I stocked HBG, F1 LMB, grass carp, FHM and CC. I made two mistakes that was tough to battle as my objective was trophy bass. I learned after the fact that HBG are 90 percent male and the spawn was too little for the bass. I got the state to help with my situation and their advice was to start over or fish as many cats out as possible. I took the second option and it worked but took two years to see the change in the bass. Our largest recorded bass caught was 13.5 pounds and a slew over the 10lb mark. I hope to grow larger bass on this go round as I have learned that bass need a ready buffet without having to expend energy to eat.
I have drained the pond and have started working on interior dam renovation. The years of wave action has taken a toll on the water line against the dam and dirt has to repair it so tractor clipping is safe down to the water. This is a major dirt moving process that will require approx 10 thousand yards of material. I hope to post some pics and further my progress reports to all that are interested. Good luck to all of you that share the interest in pond management and fish production.
Welcome to Pond Boss! Sounds like you learned from your mistakes, but I must say that catching a "slew" of 10 pound plus LMB is a mistake I'd like to make. Not to mention a 13.5!
1,000 foot dam: wow. How large is your BOW, if you don't mind me asking?
Hello Anthropic. 25 acres when full. It is a watershed BOW which catches the water from 300 plus acres of hilly pasture/woodland property. From July through October (dry season) it will reduce to 20 or so acres. During the wetter seasons, it is normally full to spillway level.
