Howdy, all. Missus & I retired late last year & moved to a lovely property in rural MO. I'm retired Army & a displaced KS farm boy who likes to shoot/hunt/reload, ride my motor sickle & laugh at the antics of our small pack of wiener dogs.
So anywho, there's a 1/4-1/3 acre wet spot/marshy area in our SW pasture. Neighbor (& seller) said it was just run off from the pasture above. When it didn't dry out at all after several weeks without rain, I began to wonder if there wasn't a spring in there. Neighbor owns a dirt/rock/excavation company, so he brought his mini excavator over & dug an 8' deep test hole in the center & it was full to the top of crystal clear water less than 12 hours later. Bonus is that from about 4' down to as far as we've dug is great clay. He quoted me a great price to build the pond, so we are off & running. He's doing it in his free time between bigger jobs, so it'll take a little while, but I'm patient.
Majority of pond will be 8'-10' deep, with a gentle slope on one side & a couple smaller ledges around the perimeter. Wouldn't call the spring "strong", but with ~ 1/3 of the excavation done thus far, the water's risen a solid 8"-10" in 4 days with no rain. It gets a solid 5 acres of runoff (pasture- mown for hay, no livestock), so I'm thinking water level won't be a problem.
I'm picturing a fun family hangout spot (it's only 50 yds from the house, so a Tiki bar/gazebo & fire pit are also in the works), fun fishing for the fam & food, with big, eatin' size BG the primary goal. I like the idea of a bit more variety than the standard BG/RES/LMB combo, say maybe replacing the predator with SMB & adding some YP, but from all the reading I've doing here, I'm not sure I'll be able to pull it off in this small of a pond. I will aerate & add some structure, along with feeding the first couple years to kickstart things.
My goal is for the pond to become self sustaining & not be completely dependent on constant re-stocking, though I'm thinking of stocking some HBG, preferably Specklebellies, initially to get some eating size fish hitting hooks quickly. Past that, I'm not sure. Regardless, I'll put a few lbs of FHM in there this spring & let things marinate till fall. There's another spring that produces a small year round creek ~100 yds from the pond, so I figure the crawfish & frogs will show up on their own.
So what are y'all's thoughts? Any way to have YP as a bonus fish in a pond managed for eating sized BG? Could HSB help SMB keep the panfish populations in check? I really don't want CC, but wouldn't mind & can get BC. Not sure that any predator species short of LMB would spawn in my little pond, so I'd likely have to re-stock anything else periodically anyway. Or should I just take the KISS approach & stick with the tried & true BG/RES/LMB approach?
Thanks for havin' me. Looking forward to continuing to learn from y'all & getting my little pond producing laughter & yummy fillets.
