I have been inspired for some time by everyone at this site living their dreams of building ponds. I just bought my dream piece of property in Oklahoma. 280 Acres of pond building heaven!
There is a 15 acre government built watershed lake with a 31' damn. It is really nice and is fed by 3 major creeks in east central Oklahoma.

The lake is very muddy and I believe does not clear too much even in the summer. The property is about 15-20 miles west of the area in Oklahoma that is more rocky where ponds tend to clear well. The area of the property is typical Oklahoma red clay and there is a lot of sandstone.

I have looked over for some time the postings on muddy water and reviewed the solutions of hay, gypsum, etc....my question is how do you correct this long term. The lake has good overall grass surrounding the impoundment but the owner has put in grass carp to keep the vegatation down around the edges of the pond. The creeks seem to be where the muddy water is draining into the pond. 8 years ago the spillway was raised 5 feet by the state as it has silted in pretty good. I am planning on building more ponds on the property which will help control the silt into this impoundment.

Is the key to do something to the creek beds to improve the filtering of the primary water shed runnoff???

I recognize when big rains come I will be muddy but how do I get this pond to clear more in the long term???

Also, after the spillway was raised 8 years ago the owner re-stocked the pond with:
313 Florida Bass
313 Hybrid Bluegill
313 Black Crappie
300 Channel Cat
200 Copper Nose Bream
188 Big Bluegill
8,000 Flathead Minnows

What do you think?? Aren't Crappie a bad mix if your goal is trophy bass??

Your thoughts are appreciated....