Pond Boss Forums Thread Like Summary - Hillside pond with spring

Good morning everyone! I’m new here at the forum to posting but I’ve been reading for a while. I can’t seem to find an answer to my specific question through the searching so I thought I would ask and see what you guys thought. I own about 3 acres of hillside and would like to put a pond at the bottom of my property. My pond would need a dam belt but I would not like to do a straight dam I would like to do a slightly rounded dam only using half of my property at the bottom. I live in Ohio and my soil is almost entirely clay in my area. Feeding the pond would be a spring that runs year-round with a steady flow of water I don’t want any pond for major fishing but would like to add some small fish for the kids and someday grandkids to fish in. By my calculations using Google Earth the total size for the pond would be about 1/3 of an acre but the dam height would have to be about 12 to 15 feet at the tallest point since it is at the bottom of a hill. If you were going to undertake such a project how would you start and do you have any pointers that could steer me in the right direction. I’ve watched a lot of videos and read a lot of information here on the site and would like to do a core trench to help lock the dam into the ground. There are a few trees in the area that I could remove with the roots also to make room for the pond as they would encroach on the 3 to 1 ratio upon height to width. I appreciate your help and will try to get some pictures later on to post so you can see what I am working with thank you very much and have a great day

As long as the spring flows more water than what is leaking out, you will keep the pond full. Think of a bathtub. Turn the faucet on 1/2 flow and pull the plug, the water level drops. Turn the faucet on all the way and the water level stays the same or rises.

Remember that it's not just one layer of compacted clay, it's best to do 3-4 different 6"-8" thick layers, compact each layer and then add another on top, compacting it.