Thanks for the welcome!

Figures I'd forget to mention the size. I would like a 100 acre pond but since I only have 45 acres to work with I'll have to start off with a half acre. Seriously, I would love 10 acres of pond/lake but realistically that's not goign to happen without truckloads of money.

I figured on starting with a half acre and little by little making it bigger. The next question is what do you do with the spoil you take out? I plan to waste the spoil on different areas of the property and raise the ground levels there. For that i will need to buy a single axle dump truck for cheap to make life easier. Of course everything is going to hapen in moderation but maybe I can figure something else to sell on eBay to buy it quicker... lol

As far as NRCS is concerned they are guiding me to the right areas to dig but to be in any pond program it can not exceed I think 3 or 4 foot depth otherwise I can dig to China if I want but not be in a program. I became sort of friends with the local NRCS guy and he's been very helpful and is working on a plan for me as we speak. I'm also planning to plant 5-8 acre of woods and put in warm season grasses. So this project of mine will be a project for a looong time. But better to start now and have it look like something 5 - 10 years down the road than not at all!

The goverment is a good source of informatiopn. They are not as dumb as they appear and since our tax dollars paid for their testing and data we should take advantage of it. But one must be careful as to not get stuck in a program that you can not get out of.

Anyway, thanks all and be sure I will be asking a LOT of questions from you.. ;-)