Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations Rain at last....!

.4 inches in the rain guage - counting the June Bug.....!
First rain since firat week in May - maybe sign of drought breaking?

http://www.crh.noaa.gov/radar/latest/DS.80stp/si.kfws.shtml

Click on this link, George for an accumulated precip map. These maps are great for making you jealous of your neighbors because it always shows that someone near you got more.

Click on the short range loop and you can see where the storms are going too. I've been watching many of them fizzle in my area just before they reach me!

Cecil, I'd have thought you got rain middle of the week - there were all these big storms up around NE Indiana, I was sure at least one of them would have hit you.

We got big T-Storms twice (Wed, Thurs) with a total of maybe 3" of rain. 35 Miles west of here in Columbus, they got 6"-10" with flooding.

Theo,

They were in the area but we were always on the edge or like I said they seem to fizzle out before they get to us. We could hear the rumble of the thunder and get a very, very, brief shower, but alas we never got a good soaking. Just a few miles down the road they had a gully washer. Maybe Monday?

I was glad to get the rain we got, but only because it managed to catch me in between hayfields. I've got one and a half fields cut now, hope to get no rain through at least Tuesday. The pond has only been down about 4" max. this year (unlike all those poor folks in TX, etc.) and would have to drop a foot before I would worry too much (and then mostly because it might be getting too low for waterflow to the cattle trough).

George, gloating is a sin.

Dave, a few years ago a friend of mine and I had an invitation to fish the stock tanks on the Waggoner Ranch, which is south of Electra and Vernon, west of your place.

As you know the ranch is second in size to only the King Ranch, and covers all or parts of five counties. I recall one unfenced wheat field that is 14,000 acres, on the north end of the ranch. It goes downhill fast as you go south � everything will bite, sting, or stick �ya.

We �pond hopped� the first day, fishing numerous ponds, and set up camp on one of the better ponds, and continued the next day before setting up camp again. The second night we had a leisurely supper of fried fish, potatoes, and black coffee boiled over a campfire.

Our second night camp was thirty miles from the nearest black top road - about 10 pm we saw lighting in the western sky.

We broke camp in record time and when we hit pavement the storm hit.
We had logged more than 300 miles and never got off the ranch.

The water was runnin� curb deep when we got back to Vernon�!
The locals were happy and you might say they were �gloating�, and it warn�t no sin � it was a million dollar rain for those dry country folks.

If we had delayed our departure, it would have been several days before the cow-hands could get to us � you know all about that red clay mud�.!

Maybe one of these days you'll get one of these "frog stranglers"���!

George Glazener

George, regarding getting to fish the Waggoner Ranch, gloating is a sin. I think envy is one of the original seven deadly sins which I have an abundance of regarding that kind of opportunity. I can only imagine getting to hunt there. I understand that for about $15K or so that access is available. The Nail Ranch is managed by a Fort Worth Bank and only those with a lot of extra cash get to go there. I think $25K is the price.
I heard a couple of years ago that the Waggoner has been broken up. Like so many other large ranches, the old folks died and the progeny wanted their cash.

Yes, the heirs are fighting over the prize, as is happening with many of the large ranches.

Others are surviving with hunting operations and dude ranches for rich Yankees.

George, heavy rains are hitting Northeast Denton County. They came from Oklahoma and missed my place at Bowie by about 20 miles. Nothing new about that.

Tropical Depression forcasted to be minimal hurricane by Friday to hit SE Texas...that's one way to break a drought. Man, I've sure got mixed feelings about this thing, but we need rain bad.

We need rain badly here too, but you can have the TS! The NWS forecast has it passing right over my house. Last time one passed overhead, I lost 6 big oak trees in my 1 acre yard. 2 of them were twisted off 10-15' up, the other 4 uprooted. Not 1 branch hit the house, but my yard was totalled.

Bob, with 1.5 acre pond under construction!

You pond should be filling up nicely about now!!

We are supposed to get the remnants of Dennis from Wed through Fri this week. We sure do need it. My pond has lost 6 inches of water in the last month!!!

Not here in northern Indiana!

Not sure if it will get that far north, but Dennis is due to give us a soaking in the next few days. There is one good thing about the dry conditions though. I haven't had to cut grass in 2 weeks!!

Around here (S.E. Iowa) even the goats are fartin' dust....

It just started here. I was feeling like Cecil, I could see it coming but then it would swerve around and miss us.

I feel like someone put up a force field around my town. All over upstate NY they have had rain but in my area of North western NY we havent seen a drop in over 6 weeks. My pond is down nearly 3 feet. I am starting to think of paying for a rain dance or something. I was hoping Denise would come this way but once again its going south and west of us.

Assuming a pond has no seeps or springs feeding it, does anyone have any idea how much water one could expect to lose to evaporation over a months time with no rainfall? The reason I ask is I see on here that people mention drops in water levels measured in feet, yet my pond only lost about 8 inches after 6 weeks of zero rainfall.

Temperature, relative humidity, amount of direct sun light and wind as well as aeration can all impact evaporation rates. I know here we went about 6 weeks with little to no rain and the week before the rain finally came we were at 90 degree days for a week. That week we lost about 6 inches but all the weeks before we lost much less (inch or 2 per week). Having a bog area behind our pond appears to act as a reserve to slow down level drop and also slow up replenishment when it finally starts raining again.

My pond in Thailand has no watershed and the dry season last about 5 months with hardly a drop. The pond is dug into solid clay and when the water level is back in the dug basin I lose about a foot a month to evaporation, no chance for a leak in the clay. Go from 12 foot deep and 5 acres to 6 foot deep and 3 acres. But when the rain season comes it pours and returns the water level. The pond is only a little over two years old and so far it seems to work well as most tropical fish spawn prolifically in the rain season and with the water level up in the grasses it gives the fry a place to hide out and gain some weight, as the water retracts back into the basin the forage fish are limited on hide outs and feeds the predators while keeping the forage fish population in check.