All, I just joined this Forum after looking around on it for the past couple of days. I’m very impressed and discouraged with the level of knowledge that everyone seems to have about building and maintaining ponds. I’m discouraged because I’m starting with zero knowledge and I appear to have a steep learning curve. Normally, I would take the time to educate myself on something like this before attempting this type of project, but not this time!

I’m currently in the process of having my small pond dug for LMB fishing and my operator (35 years of pond building experience) suggested that if I let him line the bottom with some ‘blue shale’ that it will last longer and help keep the water clear. I can’t seem to find any reference to this on the Internet so I was wondering if ya’ll could help….. Is this a good idea assuming it isn’t going to break the bank? What are the pro/cons of doing this?

Thanks,


Jeff