I'm very interested in this topic right now as I am in the process of buying the family farm. it has a small drainage ditch running through the property which has only been dry a hand full of times in my life time. My problem with it is the amount of water shed that drains here. It would be in the hundreds of acres. My main question is how much is to much water flow. How do others deal with high flow water sheds. The water in the worst of times would raise a 1.5 acre pond 2-4' during a 2-4" rain. The 2-4' would then slowly drop over the course of 24-48 hours. If I can handle the up and down swings is my only real problem the amount of fish that would get washed down stream?