welcome fellow pondmeister, i too had this happen during building my pond in iowa, there we call this a side hill seep. water soaks into the ground hits clay and has to work sideways to the path of least resintance
i too had a small hole 10 feet arounmd 2-3 feet deep that always had water in it we opened up the side with a hoe during pond construction and this thing ran all the time, it is now under 15 feet of water my land is sloping on two sides and the pond built in the middle of old crick bed i think most of my seep was coming off the cornfield and seeping into this crick
nice topic though interesting keep us posted
