Hi, I've been lurking a bit to learn what I can and I've reached out to the local ag development office. But I have SOOO many questions. My husband and I purchased 11 acres to build on. This past week, we rented a dozer and had a lake (pond?) dug. Now praying for rain! In the meantime, we want to prevent erosion and figure out where to even begin. We'll be using the lake for swimming and fishing. It is somewhere from 3/4 to 1 acre, with a depth of 12ish feet. My husband has built a bed for spawning and a beach...although I'm seeing we may actually want a dock entrance instead. Looks like aerating is going to be needed and I want a water feature like a waterfall, because it looks great and we have the slope and can find the creek rock for it, hopefully.
So first question, what do we plant on the back side of the dam to start with? Should be be putting rock anywhere? I have photos but can't figure out how to attach them?
i have had 2 ponds built and both times we planted brown top millet, mixed with our permanent grass. the brown top will jump so fast it is unreal. i like bahia grass for permanent grass. i am not sure what grows well in you area though. either way erosion is gonna happen. i have put straw netting down, winter grass, etc and there is always little areas you have to dress up until everything gets established. i sure wish i could had centipede sod installed everywhere..too pricey though..
Planting something anywhere there is bare ground would be advised, even in the pond hole. This will help keep erosion to a minimum. I have used the regular ole' fescue and rye contractors mix from menard's. I used the Schultz brand and was very satisfied with price and performance. I put my seed out earliwer this year and fowent any straw overlay. I got lucky and no major rains washed my seed away. It worked well for me, but was a gamble not adding straw on top. Now is a little late to be seeding with the dry heat and all, but what can you do right? Can you get water sprinklers on it? If not, I have heard of folks spreading out bails of hay (NOT straw). This will help protect from erosion and also add seeds of various kinds of field plants to start the process of growing something. Hay bailed after the flied had went to seed will help a lot.
I put used carpet down (upside down - poor mans weed barrier)on my pond dam where the water level would be and down about 3 to 4 feet and then added a couple of layers of creek rock (2 to 10" size rocks) on top of it. This was to reduce the plant life at the shoreline and to reduce erosion from wave action. Rock is probably a good thing around the whole shore line, but a guy can only pack so much from the creek by himself.
Thank you all for the kind welcome and advice. I'm looking forward to learning as much as I can. Sounds like this weekend we'll be sowing a fescue and rye mix. I definitely do not want to see all our hard work and money washed away. Looks like we need to go ahead and get the water turned on out there and get a spigot close to the lake so we can use sprinklers. Luckily for us, we have an abundance of creeks and I've already been scouting ditches for rocks! I may just have to start driving the old truck around in the evenings and loading up every chance I get.
I'll check back in after we get grass going. Any other things I need to know right now in the early stages?
Many people wish they had put some structure and/or cover in the pond before if fills up. It's much harder to do this at full pool! You can see my attempts at adding tree stumps and rock piles in my photo. It's really a matter of personal pond goals that will help the decision to add structure and cover. Some do and some don't. My additions reflect the desire to have rock piles for cover for crawdads, minnows, and small fish while the stumps add comfortable places for fish to hang out and make catching them more challenging (snags and all!). Too much cover in a small ponds can increase over population scenarios because the YOY will have places to hide and avoid predation so hopefully I have not encouraged that. My rocks will give the fry someplace to hide until they are bigger but beyond that there are no Christmas tree piles or the like for extended cover. Live vegetation that is developing in my pond will likely give that to some extent, but I did not want to add any dense cover myself. So much depends on your fish stocking goals so study, read and ask a lot od questions here.
Just wanted to check back and note that we got ALOT of rain this weekend in southern Indiana. Our lake has about 6 feet of water. Muddy as all get out, but still it's holding water. We can now tell where the natural run off is and are planning on changing the trenching a little to divert runoff away from the beach walk in area and use that natural drainage path as our water fall. I'm curious if the muddy appearance is something that will settle over time or if it is going to take aeration and creating the habitat before it clears up?
Muddy waters after initial filling tend to settle down after a while. My was really muddy for several weeks, started showing signs of clearing, then went through a massive green algae bloom, it got a good overflowing which seemed to thwart the bloom, but ,of course, was muddy again. Not it's clearing up to a nice tea color which is probably due to the green root wads I put in before filling. The common advise seems to be to wait a year or so before worrying about water clarity. So much depends on what water runs into your pond, fertility, soil conditions, and such.
