Bit of a recap, I asked back in 2006 or 07 about managing skinny bass in a pond that had big BG, dozens of GC, the occasional WM, RB, and some old CC. Bluegill, Largemouth Bass, Grass Carp, Warmouth, Rockbass, Channel Catfish just to clarify. The biggest bass was a 7lber I caught the day before Easter but usually the bass were never bigger than 12". After 2 1/2 years of harvesting bass it got to be that some were reaching 13"-14". Now that we have this property I no longer go back and fish there anymore.
The property I live on is the side of a hill with a slope in the open land with some hills in the forest and a larger seasonal creek on the border opposite of the road. The two places that we have to build ponds are at the top above a secondary creek that flows over a rock shelf from one direction and through our upper pasture from the other side. Farther upstream in the forest there is a hole that keeps water even in droughts so we believe there might be a spring but it doesn't flow much water. We have some pasture in the upper portion and it is close to the houses too so it would be ideal for a water supply. Based on one of my estimates we could fit a 1/2 acre pond without going to far into the forest or moving the pasture. Down below we have another spring beyond the pasture that holds water during droughts and there is room for a pond in the former forest that was claimed by the 2009 Jan ice storm. But that is a future option. The lower pasture is actually pretty swampy year round so we may have to divert the runoff just to keep mosquitos down.
The property had ponds before we lived here but after they checked for coal they were filled in and the property was only used for hunting after that. The land isn't fertile and we won't be fertilizing it. We get plenty of rain and we get large amounts of runoff. We have plenty of clay but there is a shallow rock shelf so I'm pretty concerned that we'll be limited by depth or the pond will leak especially below the rock shelf. I'm thinking that for the upper pond I'd like to have a silt pond put in the pasture above the actual pond since there are animals in the pasture and I understand that is not good for drinking water. One of the houses have a leach field near the top of the watershed but I am going to finish out a ditch to completely diver that off from the pond watershed. I'm going to have the wider part of the creek below the pasture widened and deepened to maybe get 7-10' deep with 1/2 acre. There would probably be a sloping beach from the east side but a steeper bank on the opposite side. I'm going to use rocks and tree limbs from the property for structure.
We have a dozer guy to dig the pond but from what I can tell he isn't a pond expert. For example his pond was too shallow, 6' in a small area just before he had to redo the dam from leaks and it was down 2' so maybe 8' deep which is way too shallow for Kentucky. He does know heavy machinery and he claims to have well over a hundred years worth of experience in a dozen different fields from lumber, to plumbing, from house construction, to farming. 100 years at least from my dad's math
. I believe there is a saying that any dozer guy can dig a hole in the ground and it can be a pond but it takes a good pond guy to build a good pond. And considering he stocked his pond with *gasp* Hybrid bluegill and in addition to his dam problems I think I'll take his advice with some salt. What worked for him may not be what we want/need.
We are sharing the property and therefore the pond. So I've been trying to adjust what we actually need to do from what I want. Sportfish like bass are't a big priority. We're pretty close to Lake Beshear and Barkley/Kentucky so I'm not looking for a trophy fish pond. I'm thinking of experimenting with black crappie since they're good eating and they don't get too big. The old lake would have been a good place for big crappie but my grandparents never did anything to it so I gave up on it. I considered yellow perch but they are non-native and therefore illegal to stock in Kentucky.
I've tried to think of a good forage fish base but the best plan I came up with was to stock 5lbs of fatheads, a couple dozen gambusias, and 100 redears in the spring(maybe fall for the redears). Then in the fall stocking 100 Black Crappie, 30 Rainbow trout, and 100 Channel cats. I'm not too sure about the rates for Channel cats or rainbows. Channel cats are cheap and rainbows are seasonal so that is why the channel cats numbers are high and the rainbows are low. I believe that normally it would be better to stock more rainbows but they're just a trophy fish anyway and too many would just be a waste until I know for certain how trout fare in the pond.
I've included a picture, the property border was already there so I just left it and painted lines for the large seasonal creek and the other runoff creeks. Our watershed is mostly unused land but our neighbor does do some haying of fields and he might use chemicals. I would hope he wouldn't but it's his land. The left pond that is where I'm looking at putting the upper pond and the shaggy mess to the right is where I'm thinking of for the second pond. I don't want the upper pond on the drainage from the neighbor's land since he might use chemicals and we've had green sunfish in the creek a couple times so I know his ponds has GSF.
I'd appreciate any tips advice on the upper pond primarily since we're pretty close to getting that done. I've been building this pond in my head and on paper for years adding up stocking rates and prices with different fish so I'm pretty excited. I waited until the year of to actually ask here before I got too excited. I value all of your advice and even your guys' experiments. So I'd appreciate any help you all might have.
