Pond Boss Forums POND CONSTRUCTION Creating habitat Having Fun creating Habitat

When I first moved in there were still cattle here. I have no problem with cattle and I love steak. But my little creek was a disaster. From years of abuse it was nothing but muck. The only things I found living were a few crayfish and salamanders or newts whatever. The lane was sloped and moving in my trailer slid sideways until stuck and had to wait for the freeze to move in the am. I set out to clean it up, Berm the run off and redirect it through the field to filter before running into the creek which feeds the New River. It is one of the best Smallmouth fisheries in the country along with everything from Muskies to Walleyes, and Trout. I dug it with my 4wheel drive tractor and a small rental excavator.
I put in three catch pools as I still get a lot of run off from my neighbor. The first pool needs to be dug out of silt bi-yearly and the second yearly. The 3rd is concrete lined and kept clean. I wish I had found you guys before I ever started on my ponds. I have now dug 9 Trout pools and 2 small ponds. I will show the ponds in another thread. I started out stocking minnows, Horny Heads, and Crayfish I caught in traps from the bold creek at the front of my property. As I put them in I threw the obvious pregnant ones up creek in my catch pools. It did not take long to have lots of babies. I have sat and watched adult minnows make attempt after attempt to jump up my little waterfall and make it to swim upstream. I built rock beds between pools in an attempt to get my Trout to lay eggs and reproduce but no evidence of that yet. All of my fish were either trapped or caught by hook and line to stock. My children, grandson, and I catch them and I use a big tub, aerator and ice and have had real good luck. We eat the ones that don't make it. I got wiped out once by Otters but aside from that a lot of fun. I have a few Trout now that are so big I am afraid they will die from old age and end up Raccoon dinner.
I will continue in another post as I type one finger and am afraid still of timing out and losing this.

Very nice! I agree that this is fun!

That's neat. How long did it take?

Looks like a good job-well done
From another one finger typing Virginian.

Thanks guys, I have been playing with this about 8 years. Trial and error for sure. We recently had a storm and flood water where I lost 8 or 9 Trout but at least not my biggest ones. The ones that got away are probobly in the river now so all good. It gives me an excuse to do more fishing.

This really is fun and I get a good feeling putting things back the way they were. My neighbors son caught a state record trout in the creek out front years ago. It is very damaged now from cattle up creek. The state will even help pay to fence and put in cisterns now but in the future I expect it will be law and one I think we should have. The cattle and all livestock do a lot of damage. It doesn't take long either and hard work and expensive to fix. I had good and bad yesterday as one of my younger Trout showed up but one of my big guys died. I wad afraid of that and am going to catch my other two out before too late. The one that died measured a little over 24"s and weighed 11 lbs. He had already been chewed up though so not certain what his live weight would be. Color faded out too as these big ones are gorgeous. Gotta catch and grow some more.