My spring break is the last full week of March so I am going to start clearing the site for a duck pond when I am down there. The site is on the clearcut area of my property and is really thick. My main goal is to clear enough area to see what the elevations are like. The dam will go downsream of where two ditches come together and should be 3-4 acres.

This shows where the pond will be.



Here is the new dozer we bought. We sold our other one to get this one. The cab and cage make it nice because you can go through anything.

You ever get bored and want to bring your dozer out my way just let me know... I got plenty of work I'd be more than willing to let you do for me! HAHA

The dozer looks good. Now get to work.

Spring Break - Fisheries Students Gone Wild.

We expect pictures.

I am interested in a couple of different water control structures.

The easiest and cheapest thing to do is just have a cap or valve. If I want to just plant a crop and then flood it that would be the way to go.

Another type are flashboard risers. With these you can set the depth you want and not have to worry about maintaining the correct level. By removing a board you can drop the water level slowly which is best.

Here are the flashboard risers that I am looking at.

The whole setup with pipe, riser, and seep collar will be about $700. The riser will have a 4" pipe and either 4-5' tall.
http://agridrain.com/watercontrolproductsinline.asp

This setup will be around $1200. The riser will be 4' tall with a 1' pipe.
http://5oakswildlifeservices.com/?page_id=6

It is Spring Break again. I cleared a little bit on Tuesday. It is still to wet to clear down near the ditch. As muh rain as we have been getting it may be summer before we can do more work.

Looking down the hill towards the upper end. The ditch is right next to the big trees and runs from right to left.



Looking down the hill towards the middle of the pond.



Looking up the hill from near the ditch.


Last night we got about 2" of rain. On the right you can see where the water ran through and piled up all the leaves.

Looks like a good spot.

I'd go with the flashboard riser. Whether your doing moist soil management or growing some sort of foodplot, precise watercontrol is the key.

Also, make sure you put good slopes on the dam/levee around the pond. This will help to deter the critters from making holes in it, keep erosion down and will make maintenance (mowing, spraying, etc) much easier.
Duckdude

I am pretty sure we are going to go with a food plot. That way we won't have to cut down the trees that will be along the west edge of the pond. I think it would be 90% food plot with the rest being flooded timber.

Any thoughts on leaving some of the thick cover like in the second to last picture?

Chris:

I'd do some thinking now on wind direction and where you want to place your blinds, leaving some of that cover to hide the blinds in.

I'd leave some cover where the blinds aren't as well, just as long as they don't impede the shooting. They'd make good habitat islands, and help confuse the ducks.

Cleared most of the dam site yesterday. Found good clay when we turned over a big stump that was near the middle of the dam. The soil under another stump that was closer to the ditch had a more sandy feel to it.

This is from the east edge of the dam looking west. Water will backup to the right.

We have about an 1.5 acres cleared up to this point. Started moving the topsoil yesterday. Today I took the backhoe down the to the site and dug a couple holes. First one was about 8 feet deep and I hit water at 6 feet. I was not expecting to hit the water table.

This was about an hour after I dug the hole. Probably a foot deep at this point. Hopefully it won't be a problem. I dug down through 5 feet of clay before I got to the water.

Its been looking a huge area. I am wondering that how much time 'll consume to clear that space for duck pond?

Well it is time to dig this thread back up. My dad and I never had the time to build it ourselves so we are hiring a guy that built a pond for another PB member. The guy does good work and is very honest. Had him out this past weekend to mark where the dam was going to go. He should be starting in a few weeks.

Going with this riser from agridrain. Getting the 6 feet riser which will give me 5.5 feet of water at the dam that I want.

http://agridrain.com/watercontrolproductsinlet.asp

This is looking west from the east side of the dam. the trees on the right side of the photo follow the ditch that drains 165 acres.



Looking east from the west side of the dam.



Panoramic photo looking west on the left of the photo and east on the right side. I am standing in the ditch where the water flows through.



Didn;t want to take any dirt from inside the pond basin so we are going to dig another pond about 60 yards north of the west side of the dam. The black triangle is the duck pond and the white x is the location for the pond where we will be getting the dirt. This pond should be at least half an acre in size.



Looking upstream.

Chris consider a design that will allow you to use part of the pond as a forage grow out option. A couple of parallel berms with a net across the opening will work wonders for both a growout area and a duck attractor. Plus with your water control structure it will be easy to draw the area down to seine.

If it wouldn't flood some of the oaks that will be in the pond I would definetly do that. My plan is to manage the water level like a greentree reservoir which means draining the water in febuary and flooding the pond in October.

Chris, why drain it in February? And how do you figure to flood it in October?

For the health of the trees you want to get the water off of them before they start to bud. They can tolerate it every so often but not every year.

When October gets here I'll put the boards back in the riser and wait for rain. Eventually we will have a large pond upstream that we can drain water out of.

Finally got the pond builders out to start working on the ponds.

Here is what it looked like when I got there on the second day.



Dam on the left with the duck pond backing up to the right.



About a 100 yards upstream looking back towards the dam. Most of the pond basin is flat except for a few praire mounds.






Flashboard riser that I will be using. It is from Agridrain.



80' of 15" double wall corrugated pipe.



Getting dirt from the borrow pond.



Heading back towards the duck pond dam.



Some of the clay that we are using for the dam.



End of day three.



Here is a video of the owners son running the scraper. The kid can't be more than 12 years old but has been doing a great job.

It is not hard to run a scraper. I have ran one ever since I was about 13 or 14. It just takes a little teaching.