Pond Boss Forums POND CONSTRUCTION Renovating a Pond or Lake? Making an existing pond bigger

The plan this spring:

Buy some trees to plant around the pond to give some shade.

Finish my fish attracters.

Maybe get some gravel to put around my in-flow pipe from the ditch. Also some in the ditch so when the water comes in its running over rocks instead of just mud. ( I would imagine that would help with my water clarity problem).

More pictures.

Here is the island after we burned it.

Small update: I decided to take some water samples just to see if the sediments in the water would settle to the bottom. I took this on Friday and it looked exactly the same Monday morning. Nothing settled. So I'm guessing that clay is really mucking up the water.
I contacted my local county extension office to get my water tested and took a sample down there today.

I did do a little test on the water with some gypsum. I work at a lumber yard and we have tons of sheetrock. I grounded some up and put it in the water and within 2 hours everything had settled to the bottom. Obviously I don't want to go dump a bunch of sheetrock in my pond but it was interesting how well it cleared up.


I do have a question. I have a small ditch that runs into my pond. I was thinking about digging it out a bit and putting down some riprap to help clean the water when we get enough rain rather than it running through muddy clay. What's everyone's thoughts on this?

Thanks!

You could filter it through straw or hay in addition to the rock. It helps grab the bigger silt particles, but the water will still be muddy after going through. Clay particles are very fine.

Yeah I thought about that too. On this part I'm kinda thinking long term.

Looks like we are getting Rainman to come out and clear up the pond. I'll be sure to post before and after pictures.

The next day and now you can literally see everything in the pond. It definitely isn't as deep as we thought. It has very little structure as well.

What a great job. Looks fantastic.

Quite a difference.

Go Rex!

Had a little more fun over the weekend building some fish structures.



The white pvc you see-we made 9 of those.

We also got 5 ton of pea gravel and dumped it into the pond in several different spots for spawning bed in the future. We also lined the new bank with some 3-5" rock to help with erosion until the pond is full pool.

It will absolutely help. I'm battling this issue right now. I thought I was being smart by digging two ditches leading the water to my pond. Issue is my region is nothing but clay, so runoff is brown, brown, brown.

We did put rock around the ditch this weekend and put ag lime as well. We didn't have enough rock to lead all the way to the road ditch but got a little over halfway there. Did all this Friday thinking there was going to be a big rain Saturday and we got just a drizzle. haha.

Wasn't able to get too much done today. But did go out and plant a river birch next to where we will eventually put the dock. It's up about 10' from the bank up on a hill along the west side of the pond. I also planted a bald cypress about 5' from the bank in a low area in the southwest corner.

Haven't updated in awhile. After seeing there wasn't much in the pond we decided to stock it throughout the year. So far we have put in 35# of fathead minnows. around 300 BG and 400 RedEars along with 25 channel cats. We've been feeding twice a day (once in the morning and once in the evening) with the feeder only running for 3 seconds. Every time that thing goes off there are fish everywhere.

In the next couple of weeks we plan on stocking around 25-50 F1s or Tiger Bass (that number depends on what we are going to get). Then we are going to build just a small dock to put the feeder out on to get it off the bank and out in the water a few more feet.

Good to hear your plan is moving along. Congrats.

Went down to JW Malones in Lonoke, AR and picked up 50 3" F1 bass.

Always an exciting time, getting new fish.

I got some a couple weeks ago, but things went so quick hardly got to see the little beauties (they were delivered). Hope they are doing ok. Yours too.

I know. We went down and got ours. 2.5 hr drive then spent another hour at the pond getting them acclimated. They all swam out of the bag so didn't lose any that we could tell. Hopefully in a couple of years they get big.

So went out this past weekend and trimmed everything around the pond. I've just been to busy this past summer and fall and never had to chance to keep it up around the edges. But now onto the next project.

We want to build a small walkout dock that we can put the fish feeder out over the water. I'm thinking like 10' out from the bank and only about 5' wide. I've been doing a little research but haven't been able to narrow down what I'd like to do. I'm think about the blue barrels but not sure how many I would need. I think maybe just two since it wouldn't be real big. And that way I know I wouldn't be replacing the post every few years.

Whats yalls thoughts?

For a feeder, if it was me, i would drive some pipes into the pond bottom and use the commercially available ajdustable dock brackets that clamp on to the pipe.

Where you are talking about such a short distance from shore and a relatively small dock, I would think getting the flotation "right" for accounting for both a full and empty feeder would be tricky. If I was going to put a feeder on a floating dock, I would want it to be a pretty substancial size dock to account for stability and weight changes with feeder and people.

If you do make a floating dock, seriously consider commercial dock floats. Barrels may be free but they need extra lumber and construction to "contain" them under the dock. Commercial floats bolt easily to a flat structure. By the time you add the extra lumber and construction, the total cost might not be that much more for the far superior dock floats made specifically for the purpose.