Pond Boss Forums POND CONSTRUCTION Creating habitat Adding Small Auxiliary Pool

Several earlier posts last year described the construction of my 1 acre pond. It is about full (down 1 foot from overflow pipe). I will be renting a miniexcavator for some work on the pier/beach area, and now I'm thinking about also adding a small pool above the pond. This image shows what I have in mind. It would be about 20 feet diameter with a small spillway at the end of the ditch as it enters the pond. The purpose of this pool would be to serve as a sort of 4 foot deep refuge for frogs, crawfish, etc where the large bass would not get to them. Not sure how to train the little critters to stay in the safety zone. This image shows what I have in mind. It is based on an aerial photo taken before the pond filled. The red outline is just where I am planting grass. The blue outline shows the wet weather branch and the proposed additional pool.
http://www5.vetmed.auburn.edu/~branch/images/pond/IMG_2091_labeled_cropped3_800_cropped.jpg

This shows the current view and proposed pool from the east side.
http://www5.vetmed.auburn.edu/~branch/images/pond/IMG_3269_labelled_800.jpg
This shows the view from the west side.
http://www5.vetmed.auburn.edu/~branch/images/pond/IMG_3276_labelled_800.jpg

Does this seem like a reasonable idea. Or would it likely just become a mosquito-infested swamp? And is such a project too much for a miniexcavator (Gehl 383)? The Gehl rents for $210/day. The rental company does have a larger Hitachi 120, which rents for $400/day.

I'm assuming that you want to get it done in a day. I thnk you might be pushing it with the smaller one, depending on how much work you have to do on the other pond, and how far you want to move the dirt that you dig out.

The smaller fish will like it, but how will you keep the LMB out? I've had them swim in 4" of water to get to a small pool like you describe, then swim back out for deeper water if I walked up.

I was figuring a weekend rental. That would give me two days, but the rental could spill over if I need more than eight hours running time. What I really want is to buy something like an old Bobcat 325, but I would have to figure out how to convince my better half that I really need this to do all the little landscaping projects she has.
I would be using a lot of the dirt to fill in two low areas just a few feet away, and loading the rest on my dump truck to start a topsoil pile.
I was thinking about a small dam or just a small pile of rocks in the existing stream bed, so the water from the branch would have to flow over or through the rocks. That's the part that worries me. Not sure it would work.

I figured this subject had probably been discussed previously, but I haven't found anything yet.

The rocks would work, but I don't think the smaller fish would navigate thru the rocks to find the pool. You could place some in there tho!

If you were doing the work over a weekend, then I think the smaller one might work. Make sure that the small one will pick up high enough (and hold the dirt in the bucket) to clear the dump bed sides.

If I had a choice on bucket size, I'd go with the largest one that the machine can use and still pick up at full extension.