Pond Boss Forums POND CONSTRUCTION Selecting a site affect of flooding on ponds

Hi all

I am interesting in building a pond on my land. The problem I may have is that the small steam I live buy floods it every couple of years.

What affect will this have on the fish I may stock. Will they swim right down the steam and leave me with nothing?

Xroads, a friend of mine has a property with a very small stream (18"s wide) and many times when it rains hard he gets a dip net and goes and harvests nice BG and LMB hat come from someone else's pond. Not only you have that to worry about but every flood will bring in unwanted species. Pretty hard ta manage that kind of situation. Can ya build your pond with high enough sides to keep the small stream out? Hope ya can figure a solution.

no such luck.

The stream is about 100 ft wide, but usually only 1-2 ft deep. But when it floods, it becomes about 15 ft deep and would be impossible to keep out.

My other option is to turn it into a wetland and enjoy it that way.

100 ft wide is a large stream even at 2'. I wouldn't want ta be around it at 15'. Good luck, hope ya can make something work.
Back when I was young and even dumber me and the posse would always run down the road and toss a 10' Jon boat or canoe into this little stream that would get raging after heavy rains. Lost one Jon and one canoe. Almost lost a good friend.

Just a thought...when I was a kid growing up near the start of the Flat Rock River, I fished a lot near the covered bridge within biking distance of our place. A guy that lived there had dug a small but deep pond on the side of the river. The Flat Rock is mostly shallow along there. He caught what the Mother Nature's floods brought to his pond and loved it. I will always remember, one wet spring, the pic of him in the local paper with a 20 pound FHC he caught in his little pond.

...so I guess the effect of flooding on his little pond was free stocking!

Whatever is in the stream could end up in your pond. And whatever is in your pond could end up in the stream. Also, your pond might catch a lot of silt that is in the stream during high water events.

A client had ponds dug in woods that could flood. He didn't want surface water going into his ponds. The contractor used the dirt that was dug out of the pond to build up the banks, effectively making a barrier higher than the water in the woods.

The ponds are groundwater ponds, and will vary 5' or possibly more from wet times of the year to dry times of the year.

Thanks for the replies


The pond is about 100 yards from the stream itself, so the flooding is mainly water backing up.

It would be impossible to dam it high enough.

I still may go for it, and just realize I may not be able to keep it full of bass and bluegill.

It works out great for those who are not trying a raise certain species and just want to catch fish. There is a certain degree of fun in not knowing what is biting on your bait. The many gravel pits here get flooded 2 or 3 times a year by the river and are fun to fish. They never run out of fish and you occasionally catch a whopper. I have a picture someplace of me and my oldest son when he was about 7 years old and I'm holding a spoonbill catfish about 6 feet long that I dragged out of a pit.

I dont care if some swim down river, and I get some new. I just dont want every bass or bluegill to swim away every time it floods. If some stay and some go, I would be ok with it.