Pond Boss Forums POND CONSTRUCTION Creating habitat Forage fish hatchery pond

I have four micro ponds that range from .1 to .4 acres. I raised SMB and RES in two of them, and built them shallow [6' depth] and flat bottomed to help facilitate seining at season's end for collection. After several years of fighting various vegetation and having to enlist volunteer help, I moved away from the seining pond design on my latest reproduction pond in hopes I could alleviate many of the issues I was facing on the other seining ponds. The design of the new pond was based on Bill's advice above.

I built a .1 acre, rectangular pond with an 8" drainpipe at the lowest/deepest point of the dam. The entire pond is sloped like a bathtub to drain to this point. On the backside I have a 8" gate valve which controls the water release. On the end of the drainpipe I have a 90 degree elbow which I attach to direct water into a 8' diameter stock tank, which I covered with plastic 1/2" netting and secured along the sides. This Fall I opened the gate valve and all water/SMB flowed through the pipe and into the stock tank. Water went through the netting, fish stayed put. Once it was drained it was easy to net and collect all SMB. No seining, no vegetation issues, and the entire process took about 2.5 hours and there was far less handling stress on the SMB. Didn't lose a single fish.

If I was designing a primary, large pond again [2-5 acres] I'd create several growout/forage ponds like this around the perimeter of the main pond and have the drains feed directly into the main pond. Supplemental stocking of forage or game fish made pretty simple.