Pond Boss Forums POND CONSTRUCTION Selecting a site I am not giving up yet

I'll just throw in my 2 cents real quick but it seems you are on solid ground with essup.

I was able to rent excavator and skidloader to work on my ponds. I rented the excavator for a week, unlimited hours just pay for diesel. With help from friends there were days we ran the machines 14-16 hours a day. In a week we cleared out a 1 acre pond and dug a 1/4 acre pond 3 feet deep average, dug a forage pond and frog pond using the clay from the ponds to line the fish pond. That went well.

The other foot dropped, I rented the skidloader for a month, unlimited hours to move clay. I went out July 1 and 2 and ran the skidloader for 14 hours each day. the next day a hired guy 10/hr as essup mentioned, and within 10 minutes he tipped the skidloader and the owner could not get it up and running for 3 days. Over the month people including me tipped it 3 times, stuck in mud twice and broke hydraulic housing costing the owner 10K to fix which wiped out the $ I paid him.


There is no easy or cheap way to do it.