Given the budget I was on and the amount of physical work that was was doing...I couldn't of changed much.

Although, I should have added a finer grate over the outflow pipe. My pond gets allot of water throughput and I'm 94.7% sure that most of the 600 panfish (HBG & RES) that I stocked washed out and left my pond with very few forage producers. It has taken most of 3 seasons for the panfish population to start to show some enthusiasm at feeding time. I remember standing on the overflow pipe and thinking about it and decided that the hassle of keeping a 1/2" wire mesh clean was not worth the risk of most of the panfish moving to the creek...I was wrong. Most of the HSB stayed in the pond (I think...they were 10 larger in size), but my goal of growing larger HBG and making easy and abundant catching washed to the creek too.

Come to think of it, I should add the mesh now before wet weather comes again and try to keep the recruitment that I am currently witnessing at feeding time. They are about as big as the original stockers.

Thanks for asking the question and making me think of this!

Take the budget constraints away, then the physical work problem goes away too, and I would have had someone else build a FHM forage/sediment pond followed by a HBG/RES pond followed by a HSB pond...1/8 acre, 1/2 acre, 1 acre respectively. The upper two would have valved drain systems that would allow the FHM and HBG ponds to be mostly or partially drained to the next as a feeding operation....but now I'm dreaming!