Pond Boss Forums POND CONSTRUCTION Selecting a site I am a brand new member

I am a brand new member and am having trouble figuring out where to type in my questions. Is there something that says start a new blog?? If there is I am missing it. I'm pretty good on a computer but have no experience on forums. Thanks for any help. Flame

Welcome to the forum. Click on the area where you want to post your question. Now look right next to the "Watch: Why you should subscribe" button. See the "New Topic" button? Click on that.

Welcome to the forum.... Good to have another Texan


Pat W

Welcome, Flame...

Welcome Flame,
I am Shelby County ( Tom Sterling ) and my place is 9 miles south of Shelbyville on Hwy 147. If I can be of any help just yell.

Deep East TX? Longview area?

Welcome aboard!

Flame, welcome to THE BEST forums on ponds, aquatic and wildlife. A word of warning tho, there are individuals that divert topics, steal threads and yes, even plagiarize.
So far I'm a bit disappointed with you. Your first post/? was answered in 22 mins from one of the more informed guys on here (a Hoosier by the way) and greeted by four other Texans. Usually new posters do so and then post 3 or 4 mins later asking why they are being ignored. Your display of patience is admirable and probably essential to you being able to put up with many smart arses on here. One of which I am NOT. Hope to hear from you regularly, always looking for new forage. Best wishes, Bob-O (also Hoosier)

Welcome to the forum, Flame!

There are individuals that divert topics, steal threads and yes, even plagiarize.

Thanks for all your help. I found it under TOPICS OPTIONS. Spoke with Walter extensively yesterday. Am really looking forward to building my first pond. It will be 2 acres and construction should start in 2-3 weeks. It will be for bass fishing recreation and relaxation for my wife and I and the grand kids. Any advise would be greatly appreciated. Thanks,Flame

Shelby county. We are neighbors. I live 2 miles out of Pineland, Tx.

Flame, have you considered 2-3ponds instead of just one? You could have a 1&1/2 and a 1/2 or 2 1/4 ponds. the smaller the pond the easier to manage. You can have a more diversified fishing opportunity. A 1/4 acre pond that is deep and aerated can hold pretty many good sized fish and many many "Perch" that are easy fun for the grandkids.
Bruce, without the quotation marks you prove my point without my having to mention names. Thank you and keep up your devious non-quotes and nonsense.

I want a full 2 acre pond because we want to be able to use a little paddle boat to fish out of and joy ride.Also I want plenty of room to race remote controlled boats.

Good reasons. Hope it works out well for you and you and the family get many hrs of enjoyment from it. Keep us posted as it develops. Lots of pics also please.

Welcome and If I were you I would STOP and read a lot of the info here, Order Bob Lusks book: " Perfect Pond, Want One", read it and then start the build. You will see your goal(s) in a much clearer light. Plenty of experts here to help you just like they have me. I am very happy with my pond,but would have done some things differently. Anyway good luck and have fun and show us some pic's as you go,if you can. Do not hesitate to post any questions here, lot's of good answers.

Mpc what would you have done different?

Hello Flame. Welcome to the forum.

I'll tell you a couple things I do and don't like about my pond, and you can see if they fit your situation and desires.

I REALLY like the bench style dam we chose to use. Rather than being a typical dam, it has a 10' wide flat "bench" that was designed to sit at waters edge a couple inches above full pool. The original intent of the bench is to stop wave action from eroding the bank. But we did not end up using the bench for its intended purpose. Instead, we put a layer of crushed rock over it so now it is about 5" above full pool. We further put crushed rock down the bank about 3' into the water to stop bank wave erosion that the bench was originally designed to do. Why? I REALLY like to be able to walk or ride out UTV around the pond on a flat surface only inches above the water. Instead of standing on a sloping bank to fish we are standing on flat ground, or even can sit chairs any place around the dam on flat ground. I think having this flat surface right up to water edge, plus an all weather surface, allows us to enjoy our pond a lot more than we otherwise would (the pond is less than 200' from our house). This bench area does flood if water rises up more than 5" into the 8" overflow pipe during a heavy rain event, but rarely stays up over a day as the water goes out the overflow quickly. The downside is it takes more dirt to create the dam so could increase the total cost of the project. In our case the dam is around about half the water surface area so is a significant amount of area. If your dam will be small or in a remote part of the pond, this might not even be important to you. But I sure like it on our pond.

I created some shallow swimming areas for our smaller grandkids and some shallow area for fish spawning. Put down rock and covered the areas with gravel. I wish I had NOT done this, and in fact have been using my backhoe to dig out these areas as far as can be reached with it out into the pond, so essentially destroying what I can of them. They both became the perfect growing beds for Filamentous Algae (FA). Swimming areas and beaches are popular with some, and given enough work to keep them up they are probably great, but in my case they ended up not being used much and were covered with Filamentous Algae and the kids would not want to wade out through the FA anyway. We have a very nice, large dock and everybody that swims (even the smallest grandkids) like jumping off the dock to swim instead of going off the bank. So for my money, any resources considered for a swimming beach would be better spent on a nice dock extending out into the water with a good set of steps to get out of the water. That's me. Others may enjoy their shallow swimming areas just fine and I'm not putting them down. It just did not work out as I had planned for my situation. I suspect had I left the areas, the FA beds would eventually turn into weed beds. I'm currently deepening (working on it now, just as soon as I get off this computer ) almost everything around any shallow portion of the shore line.

Here is my introduction thread with pictures of my pond

That is all I can think of for now. Hope this helps with ideas and will add more if I think of any.