I finally was able to contact the previous owner! After they dug it out in 2011, the did NOT stock it and she was under the assumption that there were no fish in it until I told her today.
That does change things on my end. I was going to have a hard time doing work on a pond if it was stocked, if it didn't leak and if it was deep enough to prevent a winterkill.
There are two ponds to my north that drain into my BOW and I'm assuming that is where the fish came from.
Also, the 4" PVC pipe that drains into the 48" culvert drain is as loose as a goose. I can easily, from the boat, rotate it. I didn't play with it very much. If it were to pop loose I would lose about 2 feet of water very quickly.
I did get the name of the construction company that dug it out in 2011 and I will be giving him a call tomorrow to consult.
I'll be posting more pics in the next few days as well.
Thanks for the replies so far. I am definitely going to add a silt pond to my north no matter what I do to this current pond. :-)
Cheers!
Watershed control ponds are ponds with tall dams but a very low full pool setting and a small overflow pipe. The idea behind them is to hold large volumes of water behind the dam only temporarily while the water flows out the small overflow pipe to meter the water out slowly. They use them for flood control in a watershed district. But you could use a similar idea with dikes with them holding back the water temporarily upstream while metering it out slowly to your pond.
But consider the cost of anything you do compared to building a complete new pond. My suggestion is still build a new pond somewhere above the current one with either a sediment pond above it or changing the total watershed flowing into it (which would not be as hard as it first seems) to limit sedimentation.
By changing the inflow, you could also eliminate fish contaminatiin from above ponds. A definite positive.
