Hello all, I'm James. As the title says I'm a new pond owner of an old pond in East Texas. I'm a city boy that got convinced by my 3 boys and East Texas wife to buy a 14 acre property with about a half acre pond. The place is beautiful, heavily wooded and isolated at the end of a country road. Initially I thought how cool it would be to have our own fishing pond. After all once the fish are in there, what else do you have to do but sit back and enjoy. HAHA. I found this forum about the time we were closing on the property and after reading through the posts I'm wondering what did I get myself into. Now when I look at the pond I'm a bit overwhelmed just trying to figure out where to start.

The pond is about 40 years old. The couple we bought the place from were in their 70's so nothing has been done as far as maintenance in years if ever.

Some of the issues that I see and there are many. Water levels way lower than the banks and dock indicate it should be, water levels fluctuating drastically, one to two feet in a couple of days, weeds and grass growing right through the middle of the pond, eroded banks, trees growing in the water, trees and vegetation covering the dam, no aeration, probably stunted fish and one 5 foot alligator to boot.

I realize it won't be an overnight fix, so I just have to keep telling myself it'll be a life long commitment, as we see this place as our retirement home. Eventually my boys will be old enough to help, They're all under 8 yrs old. So it'll be awhile.

We've already enjoyed the pond as it is, catching LMB and some other pan fish that I haven't yet identified. Skipping rocks, hiking around the place, and playing with my son's remote control boat, that is until we saw the gator.

My goal is to have a clean healthy pond for fishing. Not looking for trophy bass just fun, easy catch and release fishing for my boys and the occasional fish fry, preferably some sort of pan fish.

Not sure where to begin as far as maintenance, but will try to post in the appropriate threads and tackle our issues one at a time. I appreciate any help from the forum. Makes me feel a little better to have a group like this to ask for advice.

Thanks for reading, future posts wont be as wordy:-) Will see if I can post some pics later.