First I would like to say hello and thank everyone here who so freely give their time and advice. This site was a great reference when we put in our pond.

Anyways, a couple years ago my wife and I had a dream of finding an old farm back in the woods. Was more of a joke than anything but one day in 2004 we ran across a nice 130 acre parcel of land in NW PA that was set back 1/4 mile thru the woods.

Didn't even know there was an old farmhouse till the 3rd time I looked at the property. Was listed as vacant land.

Bought the property and figured we'd do a little rehab on the old house that hadn't been lived in for 25 yrs.

Naturally we needed a pond to go with our new cabin.


Our last place had a really nice pond and I was really missing it. After talking about putting one in the last couple of years, I was really pleased when a neighbor stopped by to see if I was still looking for a pond.

I said ,"heck yeah!".


This is the field sitting below the house where we thought was a nice setting.




They had to clear part of my apple orchard. That hurt but we still have a couple dozen apple trees spread throughout our property.




Took off the topsoil.




Then it gets to the fun part. Moving dirt with a couple John Deere dozers and the 'green weenie'.



At one time they had 4 JD dozers over at my place with 3 running at one time.




Pretty excited to have my own fishing hole again even though there's a good fishing creek about 150 yrds from the back of the field. Just something about waking up and looking at that water.


I think my wife is actually more excited than me but I can't tell if it's because she's so happy for me or she's that into the pond. She's a heckuva gal.



Here's some pictures of my wife in the pond for scale.





You need to look close to see my wife in this one.


Same shot close up.



Here's where we're at before winter.


Another 10 ft to go.




Another before pic to compare.





Still need to go another 5 ft in depth and also might extend the pond to the right another 60-70 ft. Pumping the pond full from a nearby spring to make sure we don't have any leaks.

Welcome! Thanks for the pics, we love pics! A "little" renovation, huh? WOW! How old is the house, and how long did the house renovation take?

The pond is shaping up. What are your goals for it?

Beautiful place, the house and the pond both. How big is the pond?

There's hand hewn structural beams in the basement and square cut nails so I figure at least 120 yrs old. Records at court house were of no help. What helped the house withstand the elements for so long was the Chestnut frame and 4-5 layers of roofing shingles(ughh).

For the pond, I'd like to do a little fishing and entice some wildlife for viewing.

I'm thinking of HSB, bluegill, Walley(if we do the expansion) and some small mouths. Might spend this next year getting the minnows and shiners established for a food base as long as I can stay patient.

Walt, pond is just shy of 1 1/2 acres. It's spring fed with a 2-4" stream of water.


If we expand, we'll add about 60-70ft to the width and the length will taper off the farther left we go. Might also leave part of the existing berm on the expansion side for an island after seeing how cool they look from pics here.

For the people who enjoy hunting, here's a little cabin we built on the hill overlooking a small ravine with a little brook.

Actually, my hunting camp has been taken over by my wife.





Covered deck overlooking ravine.

Walleye should do fine where you are, even if you don't expand the pond. You'll probably need them as a predator if you don't stock largemouth - the consensus on here is that smallmouth won't keep bluegill in check, and I haven't heard of HSB being able to do so either, definitely not up north in a pond that size. You don't want largemouth? Which species is your main one of interest?

All I can say is that, "I am jealous". I love your place. I hope to have a larger tract of land and pond soon. 7 acres and 3/4 acre pond is nice, but I just want more!!!

Very nice..

That is a very impressive job on your farm project. Very nicely done! I'm jealous.

+1....I'm speechless.

I'd really like to thank everyone for the compliments. Feels good after all the hard work and head scratching.



Walt, I'm pretty open to what fish we stock with. I love fishing but to be honest I'm a lousy fisherman(think minny on bobber).


Just looking for something that will put up a nice fight on the odd chance they take my bait.

Preferences in order would be:

Pike
Walleye
Largemouth
Channel Cat
Crappy
Perch
Bluegill

I also know I'm going to have a snapping turtle problem from the number of females who were laying eggs on the side of the pond.

Spectacular rehab!

Turtles are a part of pond life and actually do very little harm.

You can always stock larger fish if you decide you don't want to wait. Larger fish can often be harder to find from traditional suppliers/fishfarms, but it can be done.

Skip the crappie - they're very bad about overpopulating in ponds. You could stock all of the other species you have listed, though you'd want to keep a close eye on the pike and if they spawn successfully you would want to keep all the ones you catch. If pike are your top fish of interest you might also think about stocking some golden shiners as additional forage so the pike (and bass) get bigger. You'll still need bluegill as the foundation of the forage base though.

Also, you wouldn't want to stock more than four or five pike initially, maybe a few more than that if stocking fingerlings but if you stock larger fish no more than four or five; a pond that size can't support many of them.

Actually, if you were to stock pike, you could also stock crappie, as the pike would keep the crappie from getting too out of hand.

Glad you found the forum... I really enjoyed your pics when you posted them on Hunting PA. Great looking place!

I'd post your desires and goals for your pond in the "Types of Fish to Choose" forum. It'll give it more exposure where you can get the opinions of the many experts on here.

Wow. Very impressive, especially what you did with that old farmhouse. Kudos.

rrroae:

It's grrroaet!

It is pretty danged amazing. I grew up in a Sears kit house that I eventually purchased from my folks. It was a bear to renovate, but started out much homier than rroae's before pics.
Did it even have newspapers for insulation in any of the walls? Was there wiring? Knob and tube?

Thanks for the compliments. Ya'll are starting to make me feel like we didn't do too bad.

Honestly though, my brother is the carpenter and he's the one with the skill. I just had the vision. My wife also was a great help and didn't mind getting her hands dirty.

Walt, I think for now I'll just start off with largemouths, bluegill and some walleye to go along with golden shinners and minnies and we'll go from there. I just can't believe that one day I'll be fishing out of a pond that I had built. Doesn't seem real.

lolol

Yep had the newspaper(and nothing else) in the walls. At least it wasn't those thin strips of wood and plaster where you have to pull a million nails.

There was still some knob and tube and it looked like it was still in use before they pulled the service(poles and all).

We ended up putting in solar for electric because we have a couple gas wells which minimized our electric needs. Also have a gravity spring for water so we ended up being off-grid except for phone.

Can you provide a little more detail on both of these? How is the resource tapped and routed?

Wow rrroae, you are a master of the understatement. Calling this a "little rehab" is like saying Brettski changed his property a little. Beautiful work. Thanks for posting the photos and story. Welcome to Pond Boss, we're glad you found us.

For the gas well, you have something like this(not mine) sticking out of the ground.



Called the gas company to get approval to utilize my free gas and then bought the appropriate regulators and fittings along with 500 ft of 1 1/4" black plastic pipe to run to the house. Dug a 4 ft deep line all the way to the house and buried the pipe. At the house, you have another regulator and shut off and then it goes into my house the same as gas from a utility company.


The gravity spring has a cement 3 ft x 4 ft box about 500 ft on the hill above the house(about 40 ft of elevation). It was here before I bought the place but it looks like the basin was simply a dug out area where there was a spring on the hill and a simple concrete form was put in to hold water seeping from the spring. From the concrete box, we have 3" pvc pipe that runs about 250ft and then we neck down to 1 1/4" black plastic pipe(to create pressure). Then at the house we neck down once again to 3/4" pvc then 1/2" to supply all our water. No need for any holding or pressurized tanks and since the water is clean spring water, no need for any filters. Pretty easy set up once you've done it once.

So, who drills these nat gas wells? Is it done by a private firm for a speculative property/homeowner? Is it an exploratory well drilled by a major gas company or similar that is ultimately turned over to the property owner?

From what I know, usually it's done by oil and gas exploration companies such as Chesapeake Energy or Range Resources(my wells). Typically, a gas company would want somewhere around 50-100 acres of land to drill. Sometimes they accomplish this by pooling several tracts of property to make one management unit. If a well is drilled and several properties are involved, royalty payments(usually 1/8th) will be split according to how much land an individual owns in a unit. The oil and gas company will own the well until it no longer is productive at which time they will usually cap the well or sell it to the landowner(usually very cheap) to get rid of liability. I know a couple of people who bought slow wells for $1 and who have not only been able to get free gas for their homes but usually a neighbor or 2 as well.

I'm a little further east than you but there is a big formation called the Marcellus(10k ft) that extends from southern NY to W.V. and includes Ohio and Pa. Lots of new drilling going on. Since the implementation of horizontal drilling, there's also been a number of these deep 'Shale' wells being drilled from Texas to the eastern seaboard.


You might want to check your deed to see if you own any oil, gas or mineral rights. You may own some but have a current lease from a utility or exploration company.

rrroae awesome work on both the pad and pond, congrats on a killer place.

B-ski believe me there is nothing FREE about a gas well. We are in the middle of the Barnett shale here in Texas and have a well of our own. Before any of you guys or gals sign a O&G lease agreement please contact me. I learned the hard way and have lost the rights to my property don't let it happen to you. In Texas mineral rights superseded surfaces rights. There is also momentary value to be had. I lost on that deal too.
Just beware if you are approached about any type of O&G. Hire an O&G attorney. As for using free gas from a well that was common practice in the old days, My grandparents had a gas well on their land which provided fuel for the local town and they used it themselves. However when wells were drilled in our area a couple of years ago the O&G companies would not agree to letting the landowners tap into the gas lines for home use because of liability reasons. The raw gas from a well can be very dangerous used in a house. It is odorless and tasteless in its natural state. If you spring a leak you would never know it until it is too late.

Rockytopper, what rights to your property did you lose??


I know their are some really shady 'Landmen' out there who go around getting gas leases and reselling them to oil and gas companies. It happens and from what I hear, it's not uncommon. As Rocky said, ALWAYS use an attorney who has experience with oil, gas and mineral rights.

In late 2008 early 2009, landowners were getting upwards of $3,000 an acre here in PA just for signing up with a gas exploration company. This was in addition to royalties of up to 1/4 and yearly lease fees for undrilled wells. This has tapered off since the drop in NG prices but it hasn't stopped the influx of dishonest landmen who are going around getting unaware landowners to sell their gas rights for pennies on the dollar so they can turn around and sell them for huge profits to the oil and gas exploration companies.

Forgot to add, the gas from our well still produces an odor and you can always buy gas detectors to monitor for any leaks.

I got taken by the land man as did many of us in my area. Because I signed a lease with the O&G company they can now destroy my property at will and I can't do anything about it. Keep in mind they haven't done anything to me yet but they have a right too. I would never ever do it again. I'm just saying don't be fooled with the pot of gold they tell you is awaiting if you just sign here. There are many negative things associated with having O&G in your neighborhood. Perhaps laws pertaining to surface vs mineral rights are different up north.

rrroae if your smelling something and your gas is coming directly untreated from a local well it isn't natural gas your smelling. The common rotten egg smell that most people smell is added to the gas when it is treated after it leaves the well so that leaks can be detected. Below are links to the disaster that lead lawmakers to pass laws requiring producers to add an odor to the gas. The New london school house in rusk county was totally distroyed in 1937. http://www.hilliard.ws/nlpics.htm
& http://www.texasescapes.com/DEPARTMENTS/...sionAMD1201.htm

rrroae, before you add pike to your pond, check out this link: http://www.bassresource.com/fish_biology/pike.html Straight from Pond Boss magazine... Northern pike usually aren't the best fish for smaller ponds. Unless you just want a few pike and not much else.

Or, you can check out a more recent PB article that recommends pike for ponds with overcrowded bass populations, and it was written by the same author who wrote the ealier article disrecommending them:

http://www.bassresource.com/fish_biology/walleye-bass-perch.html


Years ago I stocked 20 - yes, 20 - 12" northern pike into a pond that might be three acres total in size, and which at the time was morbidly overpopulated with green sunfish; I stocked 40 yearling LMB that same year, and a year later 75 6" walleye (the pond has lots of water over 20' feet deep, some holes over 30'). The pond is an old phosphate pit and thus very fertile, so it probably carries more fish per acre than the average pond; but the pike didn't decimate the population of the pond, anything but; within three or four years the pond had some of the best LMB fishing, and bluegill fishing, of any pond I've ever fished, very large specimens of both species, and plenty of them. My best friend caught his personal best LMB, almost eight pounds; numerous LMB in the four- to six-pound range were caught; and my grandfather lost one that probably would've gone in the mid-teens - and these were northern-strain largemouth, not FLA's. A 36" NP was caught somewhere around that time, and a couple years after that a nine-pound walleye was caught from the pond.

Also, the article linked to above is anything but an exhaustive study - no data is given, and it would seem to be clear that none was known, about what the pond contained, if anything, other than the pike and green sunfish, at earlier dates, i.e. it's very possible that there was never a large population of green sunfish, or anything else; there's no evidence at all that bluegill or largemouth either one were ever even present in the pond. So to conclude that pike will invariably clean out a pond with bass and bluegill, based on a pond that may never have had either species, is not very sound.

Lastly, the article clearly states that in every body of water studied other than ones in which pike were present at extremely high densities (overpopulated), average bass size increased significantly with the presence of pike, and in most of the BOW studied, average bluegill size was high as well.

AWESOME! I'm very jealous.

I am just simply saying be careful in stocking NP into a pond. It's 1.5 acres, not a lot of room for a climax predator like NP. In ponds that size, manual harvest is a more controlled solution and not nearly as hard to do as it is with a larger body of water such as a 5+ acre pond. If 4 NP can decimate a 3 acre pond, I suspect it can occur much easier in a pond half that size. In the article it mentions that NP compete with anglers eating lots of 8"-10" YP. They're also going to eat a lot of other harvestable sized panfish. Just a simple word of caution. Each pond owner can do as they wish, it is their pond....

This is a new pond where the owner rrroae has said what he is stocking (" I think for now I'll just start off with largemouths, bluegill and some walleye to go along with golden shinners and minnies and we'll go from there."). Not the right situation for NP.

I read both links several times and there is nothing inconsistent in them. The author is careful about what he states and does not change his opinion. NP are a tool limited in their proper use and only with knowledge of the possible good and bad outcomes and how to deal with them. I suggest that if anyone is thinking of using NP in a pond that they carefully read those links as well as what the author and other disinterested people here have said.

If you go back and read the entire thread, a couple posts before he mentioned the stocking combination you allude to, he listed his species of interest in order of preference, and NP was first. I would not have even mentioned them for a new pond otherwise; it would seem a pretty reasonable suggestion to someone who said they're the species he's most interested in having in his pond.

I would think that the advice of someone who has actual firsthand experience with the stocking of pike in a pond, and a smaller one at that, would be at least as valuable as that of people who have no experience whatsoever stocking them and only have knowledge of them from what they've read. But that's just me. I don't advise pond owners who ask about stocking trout in their ponds because I've never done it.

I'm thinking of stocking bighead carp. Perhaps I should call up the state of Arkansas for advice. hehehehehe

Beautiful place! House looks amazing, but I can't imagine how much work that must have been. Pond looks very nice. I'm in my mid 20's now, and would kill to have a place like yours in 20 years or so. I think it's cool that you are more or less "off the grid" with those gas wells. Do you have a generator to supplement your electricity?

If you're anxious to start fishing, maybe you could consider seasonal stocking of some rainbow trout? From what I've read, they shouldn't put too much pressure on your forage base as it is being established if you throw trout food into the pond regularly.

Txelen, yes we have a small Honda generator to recharge when the batteries get low. Right now, we can go without sun for about 3 days before we need to recharge.

As for fish, I'm going to keep it simple until I understand the process a bit better. Largemouths and bluegill sounds nice and easy.