Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations DUCK HUNTING POND PLANS

In a wooded creek bottom property I own I want to dig about a 5ac DUCK HUNTING pond that's about 300' wide and 800' long with the length running east to west. Does anybody know where I can get plans of ideas for such a pond? I'd rather build the pond for hunting then to try to hunt a pond built the cheapest way possible. I've tried to contact DU, but their not really strong in my area.

Mike Otto and at least one other author (Sherman Wyman??? Dan Van Shaick??? Dave Sefton??? - I'm having an early onset Senior Moment) have had articles on waterfowl ponds in PB Mag over the last year. Otto's was in the last (current?) issue.

I don't duck hunt so I didn't pay as much attention as I might have. I do seem to recall they tend to have lots of shallow water and easy water level adjustment - for draining the flats in the summer and planting millet, etc., then flooding for duck season.

The only duck pond construction I have seen was done by the state of Texas near my home town. They basically built a very long dam across a relative flat piece of property. It was designed to back water over about 15 acres not more than 1 ft to 6 inches deep. The only depth in the pond was the bulldozer width trench they dug running Parallel with the dam. Basically the area excavated to build the low height dam. I will say this project was a waist of spending because this area of Texas (Throckmoton county just north of Breckenridge) is very arid. It was built about 15 years ago, I think I saw it full of water once for a couple of weeks. The rains in this area have been few and far between as was the case from my childhood to now. Mesquite country. I can't see how the state boys every thought water would stay for any amount of time at only 1 ft deep given the normal rains and climate in this area. Here is an aerial of it. Only goes to show if you build enough dam you can put a pond on any a land reguardless of what the topo is.

Contact the NRCS, they are putting in a 1 acre wetlands on my property, they are actually paying to build it and paying me around $100 per year in rent to keep it that way, this is a CRP program. It is called a shallow water facility, basically nesting grasses around the wetlands and 18" of water throughout.

I was a Teaching Assistant for a wildlife techniques class this past semester, here are a couple things the guys that lectured on ducks told us:

18" deep water is one of the most critical points. Mallards and similar ducks can only reach down about 18" to feed.

Ducks prefer small ponds like yours to have a roughly 50/50 mix of vegetated and open water areas.

Most of the small ponds the nearby wildlife refuge uses for holding ducks during hunting season use a flash-board riser system so that they can control water level just by adding and removing 2x4s. In the summer the water is drained and they plant millet. Then they add water and hold it from about 2 weeks before hunting season begins until the ducks leave. Adding water to the millet too early can cause the seeds to rot. They referred to this system as a moist soil unit, however it could just as well be called a pond as many of their moist soil units had deeper areas that never drained and supported a decent number of catfish as well as tons of crawfish.

There is also a lot you can do to stock a pond that always has some water with the right vegetation and other duck food. See the threads on scuds and sago pond weed. I can't say first hand yet how well this works but I'm trying to create a duck pond myself and the plan includes planting the right water plants and stocking with scuds.

Your dimensions aren't too far off from a wetlands area that we created two years ago. It looked like this last week ...


This was the original plan ...


And this was just getting started ...


If you intend to hunt puddle ducks primarily, they prefer water not more than 12" to 15" deep. Unless you have a constant water flow source, you'll likely need to build berms and have water control devices to allow it to flood and enlarge during season, and to draw it down in the spring for planting. Here was the planting process this time last year ...