Pond Boss Forums POND CONSTRUCTION Selecting a site Drone footage of pond build - Livingston Co., MO

With the pond filling, there were a few more projects to tackle before last winter hit. We had decided to put a small shelter area on the island and I wanted to build some Smallmouth spawning structure, if for nothing else, added structure for fish in general.

For the shelter area, I dismantled and relocated a 14' diameter grain bin. I used five 4x4 treated posts to support the top ring and roof. When you are working by yourself there is a fair amount of redneck ingenuity involved. Eventually, I was able to get the ring raised, secured, and the roof put back on in 3 different sections. Getting the holes to line back up proved pretty tricky. I used some treated spacers and old barn wood from my wife's grandfather's barn that was torn down to wrap the posts to give it more of a rustic look. We are happy with how it turned out and aren't sure what the plans are yet for the rest of the island. We definitely want a fire pit and sitting area somewhere eventually. A project for another day.

For my Smallmouth beds, I used large plant pots left from landscaping and buried them so there was a good 6-8" sticking out of the ground to keep them from silting in anytime soon. Then flat rock was stacked around the pot and built up around the shallow side of the bed to support a black locust log that would sit above. The pot and area around it was filled with river rock to create the actual spawning bed. The logs were placed on top of the flat rock and wired on each end with 100+ lbs. of chunk rock. I made 6 of these total all over the pond, facing different directions, and in depths from 3-6 feet (at full pool). Like I said earlier, even if the Smallies don't spawn on them, they should be great structure for all fish alike.

Also on the list of things to do was add on to the drain pipe. When the pond was built, I wanted to leave it low to have flexibility with the island, dock placement, dam freeboard, etc. Since all of this stuff was taken care of I was able to add about 16-18". Again, working by myself, redneck engineering to hold the pipe in place was necessary.

I forgot to add, a little ancillary benefit of not having rain for so long meant that a large number of the stumps that were piled up in various spots dried out and lost any remaining dirt from the root ball and floated to the surface with all the rain in October. I was so mad and feel like had we gotten rain when the stumps had some moisture and dirt on the root balls they would have stayed in place, but I could be wrong. We went around on the Miss Behavin' and sunk several of the best stumps by wiring rocks or landscape blocks onto them. It didn't take much to send most of them down to their watery graves.

We had received some more runoff in the form of rain and snow by this time (Jan. '19) and the pond had come up another couple feet. At this point I felt like we were in the clear; most projects were done and we could relax and let the rest take care of itself.