I decided with the drought we are in to do some work to the pond. My budget is limited, so we decided to get creative. The pond is about 5 acres total but too shallow to deal with the recent droughts.
This is a photo that was taken in May of this year, which was the last rain over a half inch. All the water is now gone except for a small area next to the dam, where we had some work done about 5 years ago. The black lines represent the water line when full.
After reading all that has been listed here and in the magazine, as well as discussions with Bob Lusk during a World Tour, the plan went something like this.
We started with a Trac-Hoe and piled all the spoil in the middle of the pond. At first I wondered what kind of mess I had gotten into, but it started to take shape. On the second day, we the dozer showed up, but without an operator. The contractor gave me an offer I couldn't refuse. If I would run the Trac-Hoe, he would run the dozer. Took me a while, but I soon got the hang of it and I moved a lot of mud out of the pond while he dressed it up.
In the end, we maybe lost a half acre of surface area, but now we have an island, a peninsula, several points and shelves, and deep channels and layers. Next will go in cover, from cedar trees to perhaps on of those neat "Sputnik" bowling ball things. Hopefully there will be some room in the near future for a load or two of gravel and perhaps a beach.
Which leads to a couple of questions: How much pea gravel do I need to make a couple of good sized spawning areas? Do I need to make any special ground preps? What about a beach? Has anyone ever put in a beach before?
Thanks for all the help, everyone. Just by posting on this site, everyone helps a ton.
