Pond Boss Forums POND CONSTRUCTION Creating habitat Newby - South Central Texas

WOW - What a site! Thanks! Lots of good info.

We just completed construction of a .5 acre tank that is 11 ft. deep in the bowel. It is in heavy clay land and will be used for livestock and wildlife. The surrounding land is all brush and native grass/weeds. We will be seeding the dam and area this week with bermuda. We have two big tractor tires we will be placing in the middle of the bowel. We want to stock it as time goes on and it fills up.

What are some good suggestions to begin with. Thanks, and I will be back!

Welcome to Pond Boss, rvrrat14! Glad to have you here.

My first suggestion would be to explore the various sub-forums to find a category that matches your immediate needs. Then you can browse through all of the great topics that have been discussed over the last several years. That would be a great start.

Enjoy your time here!

Bruce

That looks bigger than .5 acre! Very nice!

Are you going to try to keep fairly steep slopes along the sides? Sometimes there's an inherent contradiction between the side slopes of a wildlife pond, and a livestock pond.

It will stay as is; about 5:1 slope. On the front side it may be a bit more; less slope.

The norm, for safety's sake, is 3:1.

IF that's true, the 5:1 is flatter than 3:1, so we should be fine.

I would think typical slope is 4:1, just my opinion. I did 3:1 and find that pretty slick when it's wet in our clay area. Actually, I'm 150 ft across and 18 ft deep, in some fantastic Cameron Texas clay. In S Texas, deeper is better if your recharge is only runoff. Our droughts and hot summers can eat up the water pretty fast.
Where's South Central Texas?, anywhere near Cameron?. I see the clay in the picture, red clay, must be closer to Houston?.
Overtons fish hatchery near Jewit can help you with some good starters.
That dozer looks familiar, it's not Ted and his brother doing this job, is it?.
Pray for rain, you got allot to fill, good luck.

Great Project!, I would put the tires in what will be about 3-5 feet of water, and tell us what you want to do with the pond fish wise, catfish, BG etc.

I was under the impression 3:1 is typical, and I built mine 5:1, lots of dirt but love it.

Welcome to the group. I'm also just north of Houston. Keep us updated on your progess. Let us know what part of south Texas.

Tank is west of gonzales. Contractor out of Cost. We are very please with how it turned out. Want to let it fill and normalize. Will put tires and other structure in and around as it fills. After that will be wanting to establish it with forage fish and then cats and maybe bass. Several tanks around us and am sure birds will bring in native forage and plant life, etc. Sodded dam this week prior to rain chances this weekend. Keeping cows out for a bit to let grass get going. All suggestions are appreciated

Having cattle myself, I would suggest (if it's not too late) a pipe running out below the dam to fill a livestock trough, and then fencing the cattle out if you really want a good fishing pond.

My cows just hammer any vegitation and erode the dam. The fishing is still good, but it's impossible to really manage the ponds with much hoof traffic.

On the other hand, I like them to be able to get into the water to cool off. They also easily crush any cattail infestation that might start within a week of me letting them in there.