"I also have Mikes book and his discussion about plasticity of clay. He says his most used test is getting one of the grandkids to make a ball out of the soil. Then throw it against the side of his pickup. If it sticks, start the dozer."

That is SO Mike Otto right there! Every time I hang out with him, I look for little round mud spots on his truck, broken toys, nails under his tires, and any other gifts a grandkid might offer.

At LL,2, we had two 1/10-acre hatchery ponds. Raised literally tens of thousands of fish over the 18 years we lived there. As a matter of fact, seined one of them with the new owner Saturday afternoon and moved at least 2,000 bluegills 5-6" long and stocked the other ponds.

I drained those ponds about every three years because they were so productive I didn't want to disrupt their mojo. About 4 years ago, I drained both of them and had Otto's son-in-law push out the silt and collection of years of fish waste.

The clay is so thick that it couldn't really dry out. The longest I let them sit was four months. The only cracking happened with the silt, not the clay.

Teach a man to grow fish...
He can teach to catch fish...