So I've got an area just West of my large pond that I'm considering digging out to make a small forage/grow out pond. The area is fairly useless - it was a hill at one time but they cut the top off of it 4 years ago when they built the dam for the big pond. The clay is exposed and grass won't hardly grow on it - it pretty much just washes out into either the big pond or on down the ditch, depending on which side we're talking about...pic below with my idea - area in question in red.



I'm thinking fairly steep sides (2:1ratio) maybe max depth of 8-9 feet, no more than that. Goal is really twofold...the area is wasted so I may as well fill it with water, and it'd give me an option for other aquatics. I'd just add a small culvert on the SouthEast corner, so any runoff goes into the large pond. I'd more expect to need to pump water INTO this pond as there would be virtually no runoff into it - as it's a higher elevation than the other areas.

thoughts?

Great looking place. I say, go for it - can't have too many ponds! What is the small pond used for?

Not much really...it's the original pond on the property - been there 15 years or so. It's our swimming hole. Has some large channel cats in it. Not much else. I had a post earlier this year talking about wanting to drain it and start over - just haven't convinced myself to do that yet.

I'm looking at building a forage pond myself. I would like to raise some awfully expensive and hard to source minnows in mine. Just wondering why you plan on digging so deep. I was planning on 4-5 feet.

I was thinking that if I ended up letting fish over-winter there I wanted to make sure there was enough depth so I didn't have a winter kill. Global warming aside, we do still have fairly decent cold spells around here occasionally.

The only change to your plan that I'd make is to make it more like a paint roller tray than have steep sides on all 4 sides. Having a sloped end will make it a LOT easier to seine and get out the forage fish. Make it longer than it is wide and you won't need that long of a net to seine it.

Good idea! I was mainly focused on the weed control aspect of things but having a gradual slope would make it a ton easier to seine it out.

Update on this project - 18 months later my forage pond is a reality. I had my excavator in doing some clean-out on the small pond and also some repair work on the back of the big levee and while he has the D-6 here I'm having him build the brood pond. It'll be 40 feet wide at the levee and around 100 feet long. 8 feet or so deep, tapering up to nothing.

As soon as he finishes I'm going to pump it full of water. Now here's where my PB pals come in...

What should I put in it??

My first thought was to make an order of the small fry GSH that Anderson Minnows sell so cheaply (relatively speaking). I can get 250k shipped in, and give them a few months to grow out before netting them out and dumping them in the bigger BOW's.

My long term plan is to try to grow my own populations of various sportfish...just for fun mostly.

Hey Dale,

Please confirm the numbers. Roughly 0.1 acre new pond and you are considering stocking 250,000 GSH minnows. Is that correct?

Hey Bill,

Right, but the GSH are like 1/4 an inch long...it's the fresh hatch ones, still feeding on the egg sack when they show up.

I was thinking I'd put them in there and let them feed up for a couple of months then net them out and dump them in the big pond.

Thanks. I have never done anything like that so I will interested in what some of the experts say.

Things I would ask about are:

1) Survival rate of that size to be expected
2) Enough forage in a new pond to support that quantity?

Are you going to fill it with water from another pond to get the forage base going?

Bill,

Yup, it'll be filled from the large pond. So it'll have a population of plankton and the like already. I'll likely fill it this weekend, that'll give it a few weeks to percolate before I put anything in it.

D
That's a good idea I think I might borrow it!
Raise your own bait and forage! My BCP would love me for it


Do y'all think a 50' round would raise enough or need to be bigger?


Pat

For a minnow forage or fish pond, I would seriously consider adding some fertilizer to boost the plankton growth to produce a light green color. The water should have basically the same chemistry (alkalinity) as your main source water pond. Instead on adding inorganic fertilizer you could add some form of manure, cow, horse, chicken. About a 5 gallon bucket of manure maybe mixed with straw would be enough. Initially I think less is better than too much which can cause water quality problems such as low DO especially at night or during several cloudy days. Here are a few things to read.

http://www.auburn.edu/~clinedj/Spanish%20Publications%20Website/publications/English%20WHAP/FT3%20Organic%20Fert.pdf

http://www2.ca.uky.edu/wkrec/OrganicFertilization.htm

ftp://ftp.fao.org/fi/cdrom/fao_training/FAO_Training/General/x6709e/x6709e06.htm

Bill
How large does the forage pond need to be to pull maybe50# a year of fatheads and how deep


Pat W