Pond Boss Forums POND CONSTRUCTION Selecting a site Talk me out of this…

We live in Atlanta. Third baby just arrived. Time for a bigger house in the burbs. They’re not abundant and they’re not cheap, but there exist small ponds in neighborhoods around where we’d be looking to move. I’m not talking about HOA owned and operated detention ponds. I mean 1-3 acre natural ponds surrounded by maybe eight or so homes. I am a real estate developer and feel fairly confident (perhaps naively) in my ability to trade assumption of all maintenance costs for recorded restrictive covenants running with the land that grant me sole stocking, management, and fishing rights.

Is the runoff and fertilizer going into these suburban ponds going to be problematic for spawning and recruitment? Is occasional consumption likely to pose health risks? Am I going to be just constantly fighting a losing fight trying to maintain control of and restricting fishing to the water despite the recorded covenants? Am I going to be able to establish any kind of meaningful population of respectable sized bluegill in a pond this size?

It depends on how committed every neighbor whose property drains into the pond is to having a "perfect, beautiful, green yard" via the application of Chemlawn (or equivalent) chemicals.

We have 6-7 figure homes surrounding us on 3 sides of our farm, and when one of those subdivisions gets their lawn chemicals applied (they seem to do gang poisoning), we have trouble standing the air outside if it blows from them. I am very glad none of that is in our ponds' watersheds. I don't think it would be good for the fish. And as you note, fertilizer applications running off into the ponds will affect plant growth there. (Although I understand many ponds down South benefit from fertilization, so in some situations that might be good - but ut of your control.)

P.S. Congrats on the new kid!

As I understand it fish in a natural pond belong to the state, not to the landowners. I think that would be the case here in Utah, Georgia may be different, but I'd check and be sure if I were you.

And I don't think I would give up fishing rights if I were one of your landowners, but you might be convincing. Best of luck with it.

Not here. If you own the pond, you own the fish.

You wouldn’t give up fishing rights; but you presumably fish, which in case there could be structured agreements around creel limits. Just another thing to try and monitor; though. Again, an exercise in futility?

I might be interested if there were reasonable limits. But I suspect getting all landowners to agree would be hard. It sounds a bit too much like an HOA, and not many like that. I assume you'd have to charge something.

Good luck with it, sounds interesting. Not sure if its an exercise in futility or not, guess you'll have to try it to find out. Let us know how it goes.

Welcome to Pond Boss.

I don't think your idea is futile.

It's going to depend on the actual people who live around the given pond regarding their own potential usage of the pond, and further, whom they may give permission to use the pond.

Regardless, you can get an immense amount of joy from a pond even if others use it periodically or regularly.

Of course, the optimal situation is to have your own pond. Maybe you could find a home in a subdivision where the actual home acreage has a 1/4 acre pond, and there's still a bigger pond adjacent (that others can use).

Interesting. So your take is the runoff from the neighboring yards isn’t in itself prohibitive? Active management of a 1/4 acre pond could reasonably mitigate negative impacts most common suburban yard treatments could have on a fishery? I’m a little less worried about managing / sharing access and use than I am being able to have “happy water” for a healthy and productive bluegill population. I can generally find the land and work a deal. It’s the biology and water chemistry I don’t know enough about right now.

I don't consider the run-off from adjacent yards to be fatal.

My reference to a 1/4 acre pond was to have maybe the best of both worlds. Have your own small pond to manage and grow big fish without molestation by strangers, as well as living on a bigger pond to which others have access.

The effect of run off of lawn treatments can be somewhat mitigated by a strong water source for the ponds.

When viewing potential place to buy, you should be able to see the condition of the pond(s). If they're choked with vegetation, maybe avoid those.

Because choked with vegetation suggests there’s more fertilizer running off that could need mitigated?

Yes, if the potential pond is already choked with vegetation, it could indicate several factors such as abundance or overload of nutrients (fertilizer, goose poop, fish waste, excess pellet feed, etc) or very shallow water by design or influx of silt/sediment.

Whatever causes the 'excess' vegetation, it's not such an easy thing to correct.