Pond Boss Forums POND CONSTRUCTION Renovating a Pond or Lake? Not sure how to ask this but here it goes.

I am lucky enough to have access to some heavy equipment on the weekends if I need it. IE: bobcat excavators things like that. My question is this.

If we come a bad dry summer again and I have 10 to 15 feet of my shoreline showing what would be the best plan / way to make my shore deeper? I have read that best case is having a 2 foot drop or close to it right at the start of my shore. I guess my thinking would be with the Bobcat Excavator get near the shore reach out as far as I can, and start to scrape along with the bucket? I may not be able to get it 2 foot deep at the start but it would be better then what I have now which is 2 inches deep at the start. Any suggestions on this or videos you could point me to would be great!

Thanks for any responses,

When my pond builder created the building pad, I told him that I wanted the exposed shoreline to be 4:1 so it is (barely) manageable for mowing. I then told him that I wanted the balance of the slope underwater to be much steeper to minimize cat tails and shoreline vegetation growth. He balked. He told me that I was creating a hidden disaster waiting to happen. He continued to explain the illusion of a wide, consistent exposed shoreline that suddenly changed just beyond the viewable area, and all the unknowing lawn tractors that just might slip down below the waterline, the unknowing guys or kids wading out, etc.

Hey Ski,

So if I understand you right what your saying is the steep shore could be dangerous?? I guess I wouldn't go that steep anyhow, but I would like my shore to be deeper than 2 inches. Even if I could get it to 10 inches to a foot at the start I think it would be better. I have a lot of shallow shore and a lot of bait fish and frogs know they are safe in it. And Mr. Blue Heron loves it!! I dont want to get rid of all of it as I know it's a safe haven for smaller fish but I would like to get rid of 50 percent of it anyway. I have 2 long shorelines and would like to keep one shallow and one a little steeper.

Fundamentally, the message I got was that changing the slope of the shore from what you can see to something steeper where you cannot see can be dangerous....like gettin' outta bed and stumbling to the bathroom at 2am and not knowing that somebody left the crawlspace trap door open.

I cut a drop off of 3ft in my shallow end last summer when I added a new overflow pipe. It got the dogs a few times but thats just a good laugh. I think its safe as long as you keep the drop off reasonable. The fish like it in the cold and hot temps. When I stock trout in the fall they seem to hang out there alot as well.

I may try it if this summer is as dry as last. I could have done a 100 foot of shore easy this last summer. Just was to busy with building a cabin. Oh yeah which we will be starting again this April. Looking forward to starting that back up again too! Thanks guys for your replys.

It all depends on the soil too. It might just slump in towards the center of the pond when the water starts filling it back up.

RC I'm just starting to deepen the shoreline of my pond with my small diesel tractor-backhoe, scraper blade, front bucket. Water source is nearly all irrigation delivered May to Oct. Pond at full pool is 6" to 3 feet deep just off the bank with agradual slope out to 9 feet in center. My attempt will be to deepen some of the shallows. I'm condsidering piling some of the mud into islands, either exposed or submerged, and building aome sort of retaining wall around the islands with rocks, chicken wire fencing or something else to keep the mud from gradually spreading back out. I'll try hauling some of the spoils up out of the pond with the tractor bucket, though this will be slow going.
Water level drops 4 feet from Oct. to the next May and exposed shoreline drys out pretty well. This part of sw Colorado is arid.
If I only get the tractor stuck occationally, I'll keep smiling. Read catmandoo's thread back in 2010: Dry Season Pond Maintenance -- and Tractor Bathing; and the current thread: http://forums.pondboss.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=279813#Post279813
I'll photograph my work and post on the forum.

4corners,

Hey thanks for your input. I would like to see what you do. My shallow goes from 1 inch to 2 feet but by the time I get to 2 feet I am six or more feet from shore. After that it drops pretty good. My first 10 to 12 feet from shore is my issue. I have access to a Bobcat EX. that reaches 20 feet so I have the equipment if I want it, just not sure how to go about it. Then there is the dealing with the muck problem I still have to figure out too.

thanks

About five years ago I rented a backhoe and dug some deep 6' ish spots next to shore in several spots. It worked well, but an excavator would have been ideal. The spots attracted fish and became the best places to fish. I tried to hire a guy with an excavator but he said he would not dig in a pond that had water in it. (?) Flash forward to today and the spots have sluffed off and are not as deep as they were when first dug. With the recent rains the pond has filled and actually went over the banks. I marked some low spots that held water and have plans to rent an excavator to expand the pond a little. This area will have a standard taper in it.

Digging in water really washes out the grease in the pivot points, and might contribute to extra wear in those areas even if they are greased every 4 hours. That combined with having the soil wash back out of the bucket with the water, having the water wash soil back into the pond when the bucket of water/soil is placed on the ground, and not being able to really see what you are doing are some of the other problems when digging in water.

Not to mention a really muddy pond due to the suspended dirt while digging.

Yeah I would not dig in water either! I would wait till my water level is down far enough from lack of rain then do the digging. Even if I could get it 12 inches deeper around the edges that would be better I think. Like I said I wouldnt do it everywhere I would leave a shallow area for minnows to spawn and hide if need be, but I think I have to much of that right now and not enough of the other.

thx,

You would suprised how fast you can lower your pond with a 3inch trash pump!

You got that right!!

Make sure that you have a good place to put the junk that comes out of it.