I thought if I posted some pictures of the drastic decline in the water level of my pond, then others that have less water loss will feel better about their situation. I am pumping water @ 10GPM from a well that is 900ft away through a 1 1/2" pipe & firehose. I threw a little fish food in the other day and some fish are feeding so I know they are not all dead. I know it is futile, but adding the water makes me feel better. FYI, full pool is about 5 acres, but the pond now is about 1 acre.

Boy that's a real bummer, I hope hurricane Hilary makes a right turn and gives you guys a good soaking.

wow david, i am dern near speechless, those are powerful photos. i share the pain, i have suffered severe drawdowns every dry season in my pond, but not the magnitude of yours. your water quality appears to remain in good shape, good luck...

holy crap; sorry for your loss

I don't feel so bad now after seeing those pictures. I've only dropped 40" since this Spring.

We are holding out hope for rain but the forecast is same story, different day. Today, they said the La Nina weather pattern, which gave us this drought is going to continue through the winter ....

David,

So sorry to see you are going through exactly what we are. It is just heartbreaking. Our pond is about 12 years old, 13 feet deep and 5 acres. Now, down to almost nothing, maybe 1 acre and 5 foot deep. We DO have an aeration system going though and I know that has kept our fish alive. We have some largemouth bass that are close to 10 lbs, still kickin. Gosh, days like today are really depressing, way too hot for comfort and not a drop of rain in sight. The hubby and I were talking tonight, what if we start seeing the big bass that we see everyday start to show real signs of stress? Do we try to get them out and take them to a big lake somewhere or just watch them die? I would post a picture, but can't figure out how to do it from my ipad. Anyway let's all pray for rain in North East Texas, please.

I think a lot of us will get the opportunity to restock before this is over.

David, what is the gpm of the well?

That is sad indeed. Here in Arkansas we are not quite as bad but we are low as well. I have seen it lower though. I would say I am about 2 feet low right now. Nothing compared to your situation though. Man that sure looks bad. The one pic with the dock and the boat on the ground says it all!! Sorry man hope you guys get rain soon!!!

I think I may have figured out how to post a picture! If it turns out, this is the new dock we've been able to build in a part of the pond that usually is about 6 feet deep. To the left is where the rest of the pond usually is, all the way back as far as you can see.


Almost dry pond by Roxannek1, on Flickr

Here's the same pond looking across to the trees on the other side in October 2009.


Pond 2009 by Roxannek1, on Flickr

Dang!


On a brighter note, now would be a good time to add more structure, rock, or gravel in places before it fills back up.

Yeah if ever there was a time to do work on your pond folks in Texas should be doing it! That before and after pic tells the tale for sure!

I'm headed home right now to continue digging. I have about 1/2 of my 1 acre pond cleaned out to original bottom thus far.1/4 acre has about 18 inches of water and the fish are still feeding but it's still dropping fast. DD1 the fish fry is not far away unless something drastic happens.

They just might fry in the water.

Interesting things show up at low water. I recently found an old wooden wagon wheel piece near my dam. Since this was an old stream bed, it's fun to imagine the happenings that got it there.

Anybody else find artifacts? Arrowheads and fossils, no doubt.

I found my remote control Helicopter stuck in a crack of muck yesterday. It crashed and burned into the pond last Christmas morning on it's maiden flight. Looks likes one of my Bass mistaked it for their favorite fish lure cause it had a bite mark and paint chipped. It was way across from were it went down.

We find out farm implement pieces and sometimes pertified wood.

Those RC helo's aren't cheap!

Yep, I recently found my Grandsons rubber alligator that he lost about 10 years ago.

I think that might make my heart speed up.

Accuweather is predicting 7+” of rain starting next weekend (Central TX- Evant area)…. So maybe there is hope…

Hope you get it Full Circle. They had rained predict for us next weekend but like every other rain chance it has disappeared. This drought is causing us to drop 40 degrees a day and its not even winter yet.

I know you’re right. I’ve seen a few of these predictions come and go, too…. 'Hope it gets better for you.

When our pond was real low during the past drought I found a complete fishing set up, pole and reel complete with line and lure attached partially buried in the mud. Other than that we found a few beer bottles. JWHAP wanted to sift through the mud in hopes of finding gold.

I was watching the Southwest Outdoors Report yesterday morninng. In Texas, the lake levels range from normal to 93 feet low with an average of probably 10 feet low. Lakes Travis and Meredith were some of the lowest being 93 and 51 feet low. In Oklahoma, the lake levels range from 2 feet high in Eastern Oklahoma to 28 feet low in the southwest part of the state.

The forecast for drought extends through at least 2012. By next summer I expect there will be lot of expensive boats on the market.

We're in no better shape in GA - our pond is down 6' and what used to be a 4+ acre pond is now less than an acre.

I'm right there with you in the "we-need-some-rain-right-now" club.

Jludwig, you called it right! The forecast is down to an inch or so…

The weekend came and went here and not a drop of water. Last Monday, they were upping the chances but by Tuesday it was gone from the forecast. Its very depressing.

This is very depressing. I watched a hefty storm pass within a 1/2 mile of me Thursday evening. I got less than 1/10" while my neighbor up the road got 2.25". I cant catch a break. I have been with very little rain since the summer of 2007. A bigger Tragedy for me is the loss of about 50-60 large Post Oak trees. The loss of the trees is partly my fault for not aggressively cutting the Cedar out. Every large Oak that is surrounded by Cedar is dead. The only up side is that I have been able to clean out the back pond which dried up.

This 23 acre oxbow lake held an average depth of 3.5' only 8 months ago. Now, it is necessary to treat the weeds growing on the exposed bottom to keep them from forming a jungle. Note the inset photo of the cracks in the lake's bottom (cap included for scale-reference).

I've mowed the bottom of our 3 acre pond twice already and it's time again.

The 7+" that was predicted is now down to .01" - so cruel...

My dentist is on Lake Fork and he says the water is a good forty feet from his dock.

Formerly a 100 acre x 4' deep levee-lake south of Houston. Water pump couldn't keep up with the evaporation-rate. The brown vegetation isn't from herbicide treatments. Turtles, gators and buzzards had a feast on the resident fish population as it went dry.

This is a short clip of our current state of affairs. The fish are still making it but the water is going fast. I have been cleaning out the dry areas of the pond with my small kubota and also removed some berms left by the big equipment when we extended the pond in the past and had a higher water level preventing the contractor from digging any further. Considering our 3 acre pond has to fill before this will get any water things aren't looking good for my pets.

You would think Houston would be the last place to be dry.

It's going to be a busy spring for fish stocking if it ever rains before then!

Rocky, Is the upper pond dry?

Not yet but it doesn't look much better than this one. We plan to move as many as we can to it first and harvest the smaller fish to eat. The upper pond would have been in a little better shape but we drained 18 inches off at full pool to put water in the lower pond. We only got one good rain last spring which filled the upper pond but did not get enough to over flow to fill the lower pond. If we had not drained the 18 inches off the lower pond would have been lost months ago.

I am in N.Texas and I noticed that a pond[3/4+ acre] I have with many lilies is much higher than others in the area due to evaporation protection. I was planning to cut them out but now it may be my best cattle water source.

Hey men for the Rain ponds are running round! Sorry Dave no fish fry now.

How did it end up raining Rocky? I know on radar I could see the storm went from Mexico up to Canada.

I got 4.5 inches. The problem is that it was mostly a farmers rain. It rained hard for about 20 minutes. Then it settled down to misting, sprinkling and light rain all night and this morning. Not much runoff. I caught about a foot of water. Still down about 9 ft.

Rocky, if we don't get a hard rain, you can come to my fish fry.

Ques: Is the pond half empty or half full?




Ans: It depends.

Just have to ask the man upstairs that question. I was still digging out the pond on Saturday 6pm. Water started running in around 7 am on Sunday. Both ponds are brim full this morning. Local farmer said we got around 6 inches. It was slow and steady with enough down pours to get water flowing.

I saw that rain going through Texas that's great news Rocky! Hope it helped some of you all out!

Rocky, got a pic of the lower pond? Upper looks good and I'm envious.

No pic but lower pond reached spillway this morning.

Up in New England they call that a boil!

It's amazing how the drought has affected the entire food chain. In the rainy past, I had to knock down cobwebs on the dock every day; now there are none. No bugs to catch in the web, no spiders. And no swallows darting around.

However, the fish are sure enjoying the legions of grasshoppers who don't correct their tracjectory until it's too late! Splash, gulp.

At least there are plenty of grasshoppers

They are nutso this year. Killed a lot of vegetation as well.

If it's green, they'll try to eat it.