BD,
In your video, I noticed they are using the rip-rap. That's more cover than many might give credit. It would be very good for small GAM just hatched, for example.
I don't know how many have seen or remember the early footage of the pond from way back in Dec 2023, but we ended up lining probably 60-70% of the pond with riprap. Our location got squeezed with a couple of challenges. First up was the underground limestone that we luckily avoided. Second was the pond is located at the very corner of the property. Due to the terrain we created an L-shaped dam. The third one was a 24" gas line that crosses the property on a diagonal and in order to make sure we didn't have water in the wrong locations the L shaped dam became more of a U shape with a peninsula added in.
The riprap installation was to hopefully discourage muskrats, slow erosion, some aesthetics, and habitat for the critters in the pond. It turned out looking like the vid below.
RipRap Bonanza!
