Been saving my pennies and reading the the pond boss threads for years and I really appreciate all the great info on here. Now that I have the funds, I’m hoping to start construction this summer. I want to do this right the first time. My pond goals are: look good from the back porch, Fishing (other than the common largemouth bass/bluegill), small beach for swimming, and hopefully relatively low maintenance (other than an aeration system and maybe feeding once or twice a week).
The pond location is in a shallow valley and the US soil mapping says it a silty clay loam (I’m planning on doing some test pits in early summer to confirm). The total watershed area is approximately 7 acres, and I was hoping for a 1 to 1.5 acre pond. Because the valley is shallow, there is still significant excavation required to achieve a pond of 8 ft deep as well as about 30% of the pond area at 14 ft deep. I was also planning on setting it up so that I could drain the pond and could have the overflow pulled from the bottom or top of the pond. Pond would be roughly lima bean shaped (hopefully my attachment worked).
I’m also considering a small pond of about 30ft x 50ft upstream of the main pond so that I can raise forage fish or experiment. For forage, I was thinking I would add bluntnose or fathead minnow and spotfin shiner if I can source them (maybe Bill Cody can help me out .
Wanted to get some thoughts on my plan and had had a few questions I was hoping to get feedback on: 1- Would it be a significant benefit to make the pond a bit larger? If I’m able to acquire a bit of extra land, I could make the pond up to about 2 acres. 2 - I’ve read that Mat Rayl in Russiaville IN, and hoosier pond pros may be good options for pond builders. Any other suggestions on good pond builders just north of the Fort Wayne Indiana area? 3- Suggestions for fish structure or bedding areas? 4- I assume I would start with the FHM and spotfin shiners, then add YP and RES, then finally add the SMB and a few WE (as a bonus fish). Thoughts or guidance on this stocking plan?
The key to having a pond with great fish is to address the fish habitat first. Do all the planning and acquiring of material for said habitat before the construction starts, then have a plan on where it goes in the pond, so as soon as the pond excavation is done the habitat can go in. Without the proper habitat the pond won't do that well. Habitat is also underwater weeds for cover for the minnows. Even stocking GSH, without habitat to reproduce on, they will be extirpated from the pond if not the 1st year, the 2nd year. Weeds/cover with small openings for habitat for the forage fish, rocks with small openings for habitat for the crayfish. Up here, not only in the shallow water but also in the deep water to create habitat for those species when ice is on the pond and they can't utilize the shallow water.
It's better to take an extra year to plan and get all the materials on-site than to rush and have to put cover/structure/habitat in the pond from a boat.
Any rocks that are found when constructing the pond, set aside to be put back in there. Any large trees that are in the way, save a bunch to put back in there. While wood in a pond is good for fish habitat, if it's near rocks it seems to be MUCH more attractive to the fish.
Don't be in a rush to throw the predator fish in there, stock lots of forage fish and let them get established first. As for SMB reproducing, I've seen them reproduce in a pond with just bucket loads of pea gravel strategically placed, or on TJ's spawning beds. In a 1 ac pond you only need 1 pair to pull off a successful spawn. I've seen SMB overeat their forage base with Golden Shiners, Yellow Perch, Fatheads and Redear in the pond. Not enough habitat in there for the forage fish.
Remember that proper "HARVEST" is an integral part of pond management. Type of number of harvest is a big part of maintaining the quality and fish size structure of the fishery.
As for feeding, I really recommend feeding daily. The results with ponds that have a daily or 2x day feeding schedule compared to a pond where feeding is inconsistent or non-existent is beyond what people imagine. Not only are you feeding the predators if you stock feed trained fish, (that will also take some pressure off of the forage fish) but you will also be feeding the forage base, and the healthier the forage base the more eggs they can lay and the more successful the forage base will be.
Initially I would use TJ's advice for omitting the GSH due to, when abundant, adult GSH can impact the recruitment of most all fish fry. GSH can always be added later if the depleted forage basis needs enhancement. Water clarity has an influence with ability of predation of fish fry by GSH. GSH can become overabundant so fry predation can be a concern for recruitment of SMB and YP. Nature's Rule - The fewer predators there are per acre the more numbers of forage that survive. Lack of forage is often dependent upon too many predators!!
If the pond has adequate weed cover the SFS, BNM, crays, small YP, and limited RES as forage base should grow decent SMB and some WE. Good predator monitoring and harvest to control or manage the predatory pressure on the forage species should produce a decent fishery. Keep in mind that the larger the pond is the more effort it takes for predator harvest and monitoring of the forage species community. All this management knowledge and technique is out of or beyond the common knowledge of most 'regular' pond owners. Learning good pond management is a learning curve.
If you are near FtWayne spotfins and bluntnose(BNM) are no problem to obtain. For WE/SMB/YP/RES you will want your WE to be a minor player as a bonus fish (6-8/ac) because your current forage choices are limited as to number of species. Reduced pellet feeding frequency of 1-2 per week will reduce the overall carrying capacity. I am not sure the YP-RES will be able to sustain a healthy reproducing spotfin-BNM combination.
RES will not likely reproduce enough to add significantly to the forage availability. LMB do not get much bigger than 11"-12" with just RES as main food items; thus SMB-WE- larger YP will likely behave/grow similarly. My experience is the WE will heavily target the larger spotfins and noticeably or significantly limit their reproduction & recruitment unless you have very good amounts of refuge areas as weed beds. To enhance the forage, initially stock some papershell crayfish to help defray the predation pressure of SMB on the minnows (SFS/BNM). WE/SMB/YP/RES will all frequently eat various growth stages of papershells. Use only papershells for NE Indiana. IF it were my pond I would seriously consider also adding GSH to insure there are large shiners (7"-9") year round to act a brood shiners. With the added crays and GSH the fishery will achieve higher quality and would support a few more WE / ac.
Keep in mind that enlarging the pond beyond 1 ac will also enlarge the costs of maintaining it with labor, chemicalization, and managements efforts. Instead of enlarging the main pond beyond 1.2-1.5 ac use the money to build an additional pond (3rd one) of 0.2-0.5 ac (6-9ft deep) . You may need more added forage than you think. This can supply lots of added fishery benefits for forage species, panfish (YP-RES) and maybe grow out small WE or HSB to add to the main pond. Lots of fish if done correctly can be grown in 0.2-0.3 ac.
Pond Building - the less clay content or poorer the quality of clay in the soil the MORE important it becomes to have the best pond builder. Remember you BUILD a pond and dig a hole. Holes always leak. A well built dug style clay lined pond in NE Indiana should only loose 12"-16" of water due to evaporation during a dry summer. More water loss than 16" is almost always due to leakage. Northern Indiana has between 32"-40" of precipitation per year. This is more than enough rain water to keep a well sealed dug pond full each spring. A watershed, runoff pond is a very different topic.
A dug style pond is a very different construction method compared to a water shed pond built in a low area with a dam. You mention building an upstream small forage pond. Ponds with any sort of stream will just about guaranteed to have green sunfish who are in every Midwest tiny ditch / stream. Plan for them to be present.
If you are a 1st timer building a pond, here are two books you should have. These books can prevent some expensive mistakes.
If I was building a pond larger than one acre and the fishery was the primary goal for the pond, I would seriously consider enhancing the amount of fish habitat and cover by building a underwater hump that is within 4 to 6 ft of the surface. This will provide an off shore weed bed or area littered with artificial structure that increases the offshore habitat. In my experience it is important to keep a large percentage of the shoreline slope steep (2:1 or 2.5:1) to minimize weeds and filamentous algae. One remote area of the large pond can have the shallow areas or less steep slope. That method keeps your weeds and artificial habitat off the most used part (maybe swimming) of the "front" esthetic area of the pond. Your problematic weeds will always grow in shallow water which make shoreline fishing very difficult. Ponds need weeds to compete against the filamentous algae which is almost a constant problem in Midwest ponds. Large ponds have lots of shoreline thus they can and will grow lots of weeds that can be very EXPENSIVE to treat and manage because the area or volume of water is LARGE. Large ponds make manual weed removal very difficult and expensive which is why I do not like large ponds. Y
Your contractor will want to incorporate lots of shallow shoreline because it creates the perception of a larger area of water and for them it makes more money by moving less dirt. However they do not have the problem of WEED managing in all that shallow (2'-4') shoreline shallow water areas. Expanses of these shallow areas are WEED FACTORIES. They are productive fish areas BUT very difficult to manage and difficult for anglers to fish the shoreline. Weedy shorelines usually require anglers to fish the outside edges of weed beds from a boat similar to lake fishing.
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