Pond Boss Forums POND CONSTRUCTION Selecting a site Shallow pond depth...is it feasible (1st post)

I'm in the process of purchasing 60 acres of land in Middle TN and have been trying to figure out what my odds of having a successful pond built would be. I was hoping to build something in the 1-1.5 acre range. I had some trench pits dug today and am attaching a photo of the locations, depth to bedrock, and soil information as well.

I was hoping you could give me some inputs on the feasibility of this holding quality fish (tentatively looking at BG/CBG and NLMB, along with a few catfish).

My biggest concern is the lack of depth to bedrock (between 22 and 65 inches) and subsequent ability to keep fish alive during hot summers and cold winters. I wouldn’t mind a second opinion from you all. He says he'd have to dam it up so I'm assuming that would add a couple of feet. (minus clay depth I guess...) I just don't know if it's going to be deep enough to work.

Also with the soil description and it being on bedrock would 1ft of packed clay be sufficient to hold water or would you recommend a liner?

Here are the pictures I promised. I look forward to your thoughts.Thanks

Tony,

I am not a pond construction expert, but I am a geologist so I will try to give you some more information.

SOMETIMES bedrock will hold water. I have a thick shale bed on my farm that does hold water. However, bedrock will typically leak water by two mechanisms.

First, the rock itself may be porous and will slowly allow impounded water to leak out. Secondly, bedrock is frequently fractured or jointed, which also allows the water to leak out.

You may try filling one of your deep clay holes with water to see if it holds. Unfortunately, it would only take one leak anywhere in the pond bottom to cause your pond to lose water.

As to the clay blanket: yes, I believe one foot of clay compacted in lifts would probably seal a shallow pond. A pond liner would also provide a seal.

However, I think your pond would probably still be too shallow for your goals to be easily achieved.

Switching gears on new ideas - does your watershed to fill the pond have a significant elevation change? Do you have a creek or other available water source to fill your pond?

I am asking because you are going to have a lot of spoils when excavating a 1.5 acre pond. You can actually build up a big berm as high as you like, and finish off by lining the sides and bottom with compacted clay. You could certainly do a 10-12 foot deep pond in that fashion.

The obvious problem is that your pond will no longer fill with surface runoff water.

If you have an elevation change on your property that is greater than the height of your berm, then you could build a shallow pond upslope to catch water and then run a closed piping system to transfer the water to your primary pond. Likewise, you could also pump from a stream to fill and maintain your pond if that water was available for even part of the year. (Check your state regulations on that one.)

I hope that gives you some ideas for a workable "Plan B" for your property.

Your eyeballs on the actual ground are better than some guy on the internet. However, if you do come up with a possible viable plan, there are plenty of experts on Pond Boss that can answer more questions.

Good luck on your project!

Thanks Rod. Right now there is a “blue line creek” just south of where the pond will be. I’ll try to upload an overview of he property with the pond in a quasi circle and our proposed home site as the red X. There’s probably 70 foot of elevation from the top off our property based on topo lines. Not sure how much I can pull fr the creek both legally and the fact that unless it rains, it seems to be a dry creek for the most part.

The elevation change and the creek are great news.

We can pull from a creek on our property (in Kansas) for a recreational pond below a certain size limit. You need to confirm the rules in TN.

A deep pool in the creek can provide a lot of water at a low rate when the creek appears to still be trickling.

The "v" on your contour lines also looks promising. Any deep soils up the hill? If so, you can build a forage pond up the hill with a large amount of freeboard on the dam to capture big rain events. Then gravity pipe that water to your main pond. That would allow you to build a deeper main pond.

I assume you want to look over your pond from the home site. That will be a trade-off against a deeper pond if you use berms to build that pond above the slope of the land.

Still, you do have lots of options based on your satellite view. Just throwing out some ideas while you are still in the planning stages.

So are saying to add like a shallow bluegill pond just north with overflow into the bigger pond?

If you build an upground reservoir type pond as noted: "build up a big berm as high as you like, and finish off by lining the sides and bottom with compacted clay. You could certainly do a 10-12 foot deep pond in that fashion."
Those type of empoundments often leak through the embankment wall because the berm was not enough compacted the best way using a form of sheepsfoot roller - large heavy knobbed form of equipment designed specially for best soil compaction.
Maybe even consider down sizing the pond to 0.7 ac if there are benefits to that smaller size of pond for your situation. BIG high quality fish can certinally be raised in 1/2 - 3/4 acre of water when it is managed well and does not leak.

Thus you want to take extra steps to get the basin and embankments VERY WELL COMPACTED. Maybe even have them use or rent a vibratory sheepsfoot compactor that is especifically designed to be the best method for compacting soil/clay. That is why those machines exst. If it were me, I would for a type of no leak insurance, also utilize and incorporate into the basin some of the enzyme soil sealants such as SoilFoc during the construction phase. A leaky pond is a big headache. Just look at all the leaky pond threads on this forum. Trying to fix a leaky pond can cost as much as it did to build the pond.
https://forums.pondboss.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=575123&page=1

Before commiting to construct with a contractor, I would be contacting Michael Gray middle TN expert and well experienced pond builder for an expert second opinion. He writes articles in about every PBoss magazine many of them about building ponds dealing with bedrock conditions common in TN.. Tell him Pond Boss Forum suggested him to you. You will get the best bedrock basis built pond from him.
mgrancnstruction@yahoo.com

Yes.

If you want to build your main pond "above grade" to create the additional depth, then you will need some type of water source. IMO, if you are paying some extra money to create a water source, you might as well get some extra value for your property and fishery goals by having that water source also be an asset for some other needs.

Bill,

I had a long conversation with Mike Otto (Pond Boss pond builder expert), about that type of pond on my property.

He agreed that building "above grade" does increase the likelihood of leaks. He also said that heavy sheepsfoot roller pulled behind large tractors are great for compacting long, mostly straight runs, but not very suitable for compacting the sides of smaller ponds.

He said the vibratory soil compactors (e.g. Cat CP44) are excellent for that type of work. The operator should just keeping working up and down the slope on slightly different runs until they walk out of each lift. Install multiple lifts as needed - especially if you are transporting excess clay spoils out of the pond basin.

(I couldn't find my most recent quote, but I believe a few years back the 100 HP size was about $2,400/week, PLUS transportation, taxes, and insurance - all of which significantly increase the cost.)



Tony,

However, I believe by far the best advice you have received in this thread is the recommendation of a local expert by Bill Cody.

A LOCAL expert plus his eyeballs on your actual ground is by far the best solution to you creating a viable and useful pond on your property!

A vibritory sheepsfoot compactor used as FishinRod described above would IMO be good price paid for minimal leak insurance for building an upground pond. I believe M.Gray noted above would be an excellent person to contact for a quote for building a pond on bedrock subsoil conditions. Ask about the possible use of polymer soil sealants during construction especially the bottom basin covering bedrock. . The entire embankment perimeter may need a core trench as used in dam construction.

I can share my experience, but I'm just a homeowner, not a pond builder. Maybe something might be useful. I bought 9 acres in central Ohio in 2023 and had an experienced pond-builder dig a 1.25-acre pond in April 2024. Test holes found bedrock at 4 feet-6 feet throughout the proposed pond area. The bedrock is limestone and shale. There is a lot of good clay. The builder made a gently sloping berm or dam around all four sides using the clay spoils. He did not use a sheepsfoot roller because he thought compacting the clay with his excavating equipment would be sufficient with all of the good clay available. If I did it again, I'd probably opt for the sheepsfoot roller for extra insurance, but I was trusting the pond builder who had built ponds all over the area for 30 years. He left virgin clay of about 18" throughout the bottom but skimmed it down to 6-8" where I wanted the deepest part for a dock and jumping platform. The main dam side of 240' is about 4 feet high with the other sides being around 2-3" feet tall. Three of the sides have a core trench. The max depths will range between 6.5" to 4'. Having built this type of pond with embankments on all four sides with no hope for runoff, we knew getting it filled would be a major problem, and it was. For a year, the level fluctuated between 2-3 feet. In June 2025, I had a well built for about $8,000, 100' deep, and I've pumped about 12 gpm 24 hours a day every since. I am about 8" from max depth as of today. I don't know if there are any leaks at this point, but I can say that filling it is taking longer than a simple calculation of volume and fill rate, which I hope is attributable to a very hot summer and the well water slowly saturating the pond walls as the level rises and the clay walls sealing as the water progresses upward. There is a constant 12" high saturated dark "ring" around the perimeter walls as the level rises and the walls soak in the new water. We have only stocked it with bass and bluegill that we have caught from other nearby ponds, but at least some of the 3-4" bluegill very surprisingly survived over last winter with complete ice and snow cover and only 3 feet of water. I have been told by pond owners around me (not experts) that 6-7 feet of water in central Ohio is deep enough for bass and bluegill to survive winters, but I don't know about fish management, so I don't know what kind of quality of fish you can maintain. I now have 2 aerators running 12 hours overnight based on what some others say in the forum, but I am really just guessing because the advice is not all the same. The last pic is from a couple of days ago after seed and straw.

Nice tws3! Hope you get enough water to keep your fish happy.

Any pond built up "above grade" is not going to be able to collect surface runoff water in most situations. In fact the pond berms are actually going to divert water away from the pond.

However, having earthmoving equipment on site does provide another potential supply of water. You could build a low catchment pond near your main pond. Build it with a deep sump to make it efficient to drain the water from that pond and pump it to your main pond.

Even it if was very expensive to run an electrical pump (long AC line or solar array), you could go out the next day after a big rain with an inexpensive trash pump and move a lot of water to your main pond.

I believe Tony and tws3 are both going to view their main pond from their house. A catchment pond is probably going to be ugly for much of the year when it goes dry, so it might be best to build it "behind" the main pond and out of sight. Another option would be to build it with a high freeboard to store lots of water, and then pump it down to a level that would still sustain attractive plants. (Make sure you do NOT use any invasive types of plants that could be spread by pumping water from that pond. My wife likes the look of decorative lily pad ponds, etc. - but I am not one of the good "plant guys" on the forum, so ask others for plant selections if any readers of this thread want to try that option.)

Annual average precipitation in Mid-Ohio is around 38" that's 3ft 2". Lebanon TN annual precipition is 52" per year - 4ft 3". That is a lot of direct rain water added to a pond. The well compacted and sealed ponds in my Ohio region go down around 12" during a regional drought that we are in currently. If T.Roda gets a well sealed pond built, the pond should need an overflow pipe. it should fill to full during spring rains and the water level will only drop around 12"-14" going into winter conditions and increased annual rains in Fall, Winter, Spring will usually fill the pond to capacity before summer. If, and it is a BIG IF, TRoda's pond is a leaker he may need to consider FishinRod's good idea of building a water catchment pond to help keep the pond full.

Hey Bill, just getting around to seeing this post. I laughed when I read it…Michael Gray was recommend to me and ironically I met him this morning at my property for a site assessment. He’s going to give me a way ahead and try to get a plan worked out for me. I appreciate all the advice!

For anyone for whom this might be helpful, here's a quick update to my 1.2-acre "upground" or "above ground" shallow pond built over bedrock in Delaware County, OH.....When I started pumping water from my new well into the pond on June 15, 2025, the pond was 3'1". With some heavy snow yesterday, December 2, 2025, the pond finally maxed out and flowed into the overflow pipe at 6'5" (deepest areas). My well pumps about 12gpm and I've been running it 24/7 since June 15th. That's 170 days. So I've added about 2.9 million gallons from my well. It has rained about 18" in that same period (650,000 gallons in a 1.2-acre pond). I'm not sure how to accurately calculate the capacity of the pond, given slopes and varying depths, but I'll just take a guess at 5' being the average depth. If that's true, then the capacity should be about 2 million gallons. There were some days/weeks long stretches during 90-degree weather and a drought in August when I was hardly gaining any depth. I flipped off the switch to the well pump last night and now I'll monitor the level over the winter/spring so I can better manage it in future winters/springs. If I see I'm losing a lot of depth, I'll know I have a leakage problem. A reminder - most of the bottom has 18" of virgin clay compacted over the bedrock with the deeper parts skimmed down to 6" of clay, and no sheepsfoot roller was used. I previously said there was a core-trench on 3 sides. I don't think that's correct. I think only the main long dam was core-trenched. I have a fishery a mile away, and the owner said he'll help me stock it in the spring.

tws3 - With the upground relatively shallow pond finally full of water, watching and monitoring the water level until mid June will tell you how well it is holding water. In late winter at ice melt off,,,,, the water level should be still near the overflow. Usually in stable water ponds little water is lost during winter with cold temps when the ground is usually pretty well saturated with snow melt and rain water, thus usually little water is lost due to evaporation until the weather starts to produce fewer rains and more evaporation occurs in warmer temperatures. Then more water is noticbly lost due to evaporation. In early spring,, find and establish a water high point marker so you can watch the water level as it changes. In my experience, a well sealed clay bottom pond in Ohio will lose only about 12"-13" during a summer due to primarily evaportation and regular rainfall. Water level down more than 13" at the end of summer indicates the amount of leakage. When no sheepsfoot roller is used to interconnect and knit the clay layers together, sometimes years later, the water under some hydraulic pressure will gradually find or work its way between the flat compacted lift layers and then start to move out of the basin. Widths and thicknesses of the flat clay layers has an influence on how fast the water seepage will find its way out of the basin. If the pond holds water well after 8-20 years the construction methods were done well.

Fish stocking.

Before adding adult fish from a neighbor's or a friend's pond,,,,, Do lots of good homework about the Pros and Cons of using that method to stock a new pond (aka bucket stocking) . There are MORE disadvantages to using this method of bucket stocking than there are benefits. There are numerous posts from members here on the PB Forum for not to and to do the moving fish from one pond to another. I think Bob Lusk has a new video about this topic (below). I will look for some info and add it to this post.

WHAT IS THE REASON OR REASONS FOR STOCKING YOUR NEW POND WITH FISH FROM ANOTHER POND????

One main factor about doing this pond to pond fish movement is what are the goals for having the fishery?. Decide on those goals first,,, which is an important reason/s for stocking the bucket fish, what fish, and how many fish. Stating out with an unbalanced pond can cause significant fish density balance issues and highly impact the future growth rates and BALANCE of predator and prey issues of the fish. First fish stocking densities are important,,, fish density ratios of all species of the moved fish for the pond going forward are important to have a quality fishery. An unbalanced fishery can cause numerous future problems that are hard to change or fix. The larger the pond the more difficult it is to correct issues with predator and prey balance and fish lack of good growth issues.

If you want my opinions for adding new adult fish from another pond provide why you want fish in the pond (GOALS) so the provided advice can be specialized or customized for your new shallow pond conditions.

Listen and Read the entire posts:
Population dynamics


Stocking – pay clost attention when 6 minutes into video


Transplanting Adult Fish
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/t6XQf8ogX-E

Thanks for all the info, Bill. I'll study the videos.

My reason for stocking fish from other nearby ponds....I plead parental exhaustion. It gave my 15- and 12-year-old sons something to do while we were in the process of building the house. No strategy or plan was involved, and it wasn't a lot of fish. I hope to develop a real plan now that we are living there and at full capacity and listen to advice from others, because I really don't know what I'm doing.

I'll have to ask my pond builder why he did not use a sheepsfoot roller. Given his 30 years of experience with building many of the nearby ponds, I guess I just trusted that he knew what he was doing. So far so good, so I don't have a reason to doubt him. Yet.

Thanks again, Bill.

tws3 - Understand this upground Ohio pond will be for general recreation and for some casual fishing for the family. Maybe even some swimming or small boat activity as water recreation.

Firstly do you have any pictures of what the boys caught and stocked???
This will give some evidence of what the fishery will be like in the near future and how to proceed in 2026. I assume that most of the numbers were some type of sunfish likely they were bluegill, however the transplanted "bluegill" could have been green sunfish or hybrid bluegills. Do you know if the boys caught any bass?

Is there any idea of how many fish of each type that were stocked?

Fingers crossed that it IS sealed. I would not add any more fish until that is known. Adding the correct amount of fish to meet your goals will be a more expensive proposition now that there are adult fish in there. Typically fish for a new pond are stocked as fingerlings, 1"-3" long mainly because they are the cheapest to buy. Now with the adult fish in there, you will have to stock other adult fish or stock 40%-50% more smaller fish to make up for predation.

Many people don't realize how many fish a single largemouth bass will eat in a year. A largemouth bass will Bluegill up to 1/3 their body length. It also takes 10 pounds of fish to put 1 pound of weight on a single bass, plus another couple of pounds or more of fish just to keep that bass alive during the year, depending on how big the fish is. If a bluegill is 2.5" long, there are 1,000 fish in 10 pounds.

For instance, in April I can stock forage fish in a new pond, i.e. minnows and Bluegills. 10+ pounds of minnows per acre and 3,000 2.5"-3.5" Bluegills. Those Bluegills will grow enough to pull off a successful spawn in August or September. The next year in early May I can stock 50 3" largemouth bass per acre. By late September, those bass have grown to 12"-14" and are between 1 and 2 pounds. Stocking 2.5"-3.5" Bluegills vs. 4.5"-6" Bluegills is a huge price difference.

Another stocking option IMO for the tws3 pond would be in Spring (Apr-May) to stock 100-200 4.5"-6" BG into 1 acre. Then in Fall Sept-Oct stock 50 3-4" largemouth (See another option below). For this plan of using larger and fewer stocker fish, it is important to stock the 4"-6" BG size for a general fishing pond.

Another and better option for tws3 Central Ohio pond and agreed to by another forum member here for the stocking of the LMB would be to stock a larger size bass than the 3"-4" fingerlings. This is because the eariler "bucket angler stocked" sunfish likely already produced some type of spawn of sunfish(BG) and the recruitment that has no doubt occurred in 2025. The bucket stocked "sunfish" could have spawned in both Summer or early Fall.This means the new offspring would have grown a few months and will need a larger size of bass to eat the 2025 crop of new sunfish. These new sunfish type recruits could easily over populate the new pond and cause prey - predator balance problems. IMO the best size of LMB to stock in Spring of 2026 would be those bass 8"-10" long. The main problem with this is finding a fish farm that has 8"-10" LMB for sale in Spring of 2026. If it were my pond, I would stock 20-25 of the larger size of bass.

If anyone has a differing opinion for stocking this 'casual' bucket stocked new pond please add your ideas. There are several ways this pond could be "officially" stocked to provide a fishery for the goals of general fishing of the owner.

Bill, a customer of mine needs those larger sized LMB and in all my searching they won't be available until July or August. I have not checked further South than Arkansas because the transportation costs for the few hundred fish that I need would be prohibitive.

Hey Mr. esshup. For larger LMB check with farms that grow LMB for the food market. One small Fish Farm close to me and you that grows food size LMB sizes of 10" - 12" and 12"+ is Remlinger Fish Farm Kalida OH (Mark and Bruce). However you will have to wait until the ice melts in Spring for them to be harvesting any fish. Tell them I referred you to them. Maybe you could even deliver some of those larger bass to tws3 in Delaware OH north of Columbus? Note to all readers - larger size fish take time to grow to that larger size. So it is like buying trees from a nursery larger ones cost more for each one.. It is like paying the Dumb Tax. Not doing it right the first time has some sort of penalty.

Thanks Bill. I will check with Mark and Bruce. I can get 1 1/4# LMB that are typically sold as "food fish" but they have only fed on pellets so they might not do well if the pond owner isn't feeding pellets. They will learn to survive just fine on live food, but their growth rate won't be near as fast.