Pond Boss Forums Thread Like Summary - Help me fix this disaster

Hello,
We recently built a home and had a pond dug at the same time to stock for fishing for my 2 boys. The men who dug it said the water levels would fluctuate but would be full consistently within 6 months. It’s now been a year and the thing doesn’t hold much water. It is 20ft deep but holds about 3-4. Pond is 300ft long x 100ft wide. When it was dug, it looked great. Clay all around, minimal rocks. Now we have a bunch of sediment. It is spring fed 24/7 and we’ve had many big rains. With the biggest rains, it has come up about halfway, and then gradually leaked back to this level. We are at a little bit of a loss here. My husband thinks there may be a shale seam on the right hand side of this photo that could be causing the leak. The clay in that area has developed a bunch of fissures, thick cracks...and it does seem rocky, though when it was dug it was smooth. In looking at this photo, seeing the sharp lines all along the waterline except on the right hand side, does it seem most likely that is our problem? We’re considering all options to get this thing full. I don’t want to spend a ton of money on a polymer or bentonite if it won’t help. We’ve been quoted about 12k for a liner. More than the cost of the pond, but if that’s our best bet we’ll save and come up with it. We do have a skid steer now and my husband was thinking of trying to drain what’s there and pack clay along the right hand side. I would so appreciate any input.

*edited to say I can’t get photos to upload! It says they are too big of files to attach? I’m just using iPhone pictures. Any insight?

Pondless, to post pictures, you first need to store them on an on-line server. I use Imgur. Then copy/paste the link to the picture here.

I'm assuming that they dirt movers didn't use a sheepsfoot roller to pack the clay down in the pond before it started to fill with water? Did they remove the rocks from the bottom of the pond? If not, then you might have issues with them puncturing the liner.

Try going to your counties NRCS office and see if they can advise you. It's better to have eyes on the project than to look at it from afar.

There are many dirt movers out there but few guys that really know how to dig/build a pond.