Okay, just to get ideas flowing.. no real plan as yet as I am working on my deck atm.. heh.. but, How many of you folks have a pond smaller than 1/2 acre?

How large is it?

How large is your lot overall?

What sorta fish are in your pond?

I have 1.91 acres and I think the area I can build a pond on would give me about a .45 acre pond...so.. Let's see what YOURS looks like.

Also, how close is yours to your house?

Again, not really 'fishing'....lol....for "how do I more of, I want to see if it really is worth it to folks that have already done it.

Photos or it never happened! lol

Thanks and howdy!

Russ
Cedar Creek, TX

Howdy back at cha Russ

Can't help ya on how big to make your pond but it just depends on your acreage . Post the layout and someone will chime in . Mine is 5acres and I'm about 150 yds away from the house.....

Oh, just wanting to look at pictures of folk's ponds right now. Already asked a few questions in another thread, just want to see if other folks with limited land had done anything similar and what that looked like.

Lez see, the view from the back of my house (inside the kitchen I think..since ya asked.. heh)

okay.. hope this works... so: This is an old picture, looking out of the back kitchen window. Now we own about 10-20 ft on the other side of those trees behind us (the closer ones on the other side of this clearing). (i'll take a new photo tonight.. heh)

So, the entire amount of water on this road flows through the left side of the view (out of view)... so, we can capture a lot....

Russ

1/4 acre pond on a 40 acre plot about 100 yards plus from the house (uphill kind of). 10 foot max depth. It's the first year after renovating, the only things stocked so far are fathead minnows and crawdads to build a forage base. Water scorpions, brown water snakes, snapping turtles, frogs/tadpoles of at least 4 different species, and many types of water bugs have showed up on their own. If I drew a rectangle around the pond and house I would guess that it would fit on a two acre lot, just barely because of the land between the two. The pond dam is not curved, it just looks that way because of the panorama photo.

Welcome to the club!

Yea, but that is a really cool looking pond.

What do you plan/want to stock it with?

OK here is mine. Usually just under an 1/2 acre. This picture it is slightly over 1/2 acre. We have BG BCP LMB and TP in it. Our lot is 12 acres mostly wooded.

okay, I know LMB...but the others are BG = Bluegill? BCP = some sort of Perch?

I tried to talk the wife into getting 5+ acres, she wanted closer to Austin so.. heh.. Mamma gets what Mamma wants so dad gets SOME of what he wants :P

May be able to fit a pond in the back, some day, but if not, I can have fun dreaming about it and seeing everyone else's

You know, a 1/2 acre pond does not look all that small.

Russ

BG=Bluegill BCP=Black Crappie TP=Tilapia

1/2 Ac better by far than 0 acres! Go for it.
Even smaller is ok, easier to manage

Russ, bein from south of the Mason/Dixon you are forgivin for thinking most all panfish are Perch. Yellow Perch are an individual fish seperate from BG, Pumpkin seed, Green sunfish, HBG, Crappie, Warmouth and many more. Look up Yellow Perch and see what they look like. Or look up any of the above mentioned. You will see a great difference.

lol.. okay, thanks for the pass

It will be a while. We just finished building the house in December of 2016 (7 months ago) and we already built a barn / man-cave for me, fenced all 1.91 acres (long story.. heh), and am almost finished with a 61' wide, 18ft deep deck along the back of the house. My wife is ready for me not to have another project that costs money... lol.

We have a hunting ranch in SW Texas, but I love my fishing and even more think the view would be awesome.

So, just sorta planning atm and thinking of whether it would work.

I love catfish, don't get me wrong, but to me, white bass and crappie would be a lot more fun heh.

Russ

Russ, I am flip flopping between stocking hybrid BG (HBG)and hybrid Striped bass HSB OR regular ole' BG and LMB (both with RES (red ear sunfish)).

Essentially, this is what I think I have learned:

1 - I have an aerobic septic and need to be 50' away from that. I can point the sprinklers to only go backwards and to the right and that gives me more room. I placed the "do not cross line" about 60' to be safe.

2 - The lady next door owns the 3.5 acres behind us and has a pond that fills up from water flowing through my tract, but she never sealed it and while she claims it was "designed by a professional"... imo... adding the island, no dock, whatever.. it just looks bad and useless. Again, my opinion.. but, it is hers and while we discussed working together to make it awesome.. I am not sure I want to put money into someone else's pond.

Here is a picture of my top down area. I added a barn / man-cave which I made a sorta blue outline for, you get the idea.

Debating if that is too close to the house, will there be enough room for the dogs to play etc...

So.. just in the "what if" phase.. 5 or more acres would have been better, but it is what it is



Russ

It would be very easy to have septic sprinkler heads redone to the front along the fence. I would do that, not for contamination reasons, just to get it out of the way of the pond, dogs won't be chewing on sprinkler heads, they/you won't be walking trough the water sprayed out, it will increase the size of your enjoyable area.

I won't work on someone else's pond to "share" You can get too much money invested for it not to be yours.

Hrm.. had not thought about moving the sprinkler heads. I wonder how big a deal that would be. Since I am adding a line going to the septic for the barn/man-cave bathroom I am adding, I guess it would not be too huge a deal to spray the front instead.. heh.. and, I get a better looking front yard! lol

Thanks for the idea!

Russ

Just trench the line, lay the new PVC pipe and sprinkler heads, fill up trench. It is a fairly easy job, but will cost a little money to redo. I think it would be money well spent. You won't be hanging out at the front of your property towards the road I wouldn't think...

Yep. I have to trench the new septic tie-in as well as the electrical conduit line anyway, so should not be a big issue to do those at the same time.

That will free up a lot of space, imo.

ty!

Russ

Russ,thank goodness ya have a sense of humor. I seem to offend some of the folks here and after I posted I figured ya might take offense
but decided ta roll the dice instead of explainin myself. Now we got at least 3 smart Texans.
I'm not savy enough ta post pics but if ya wanna see my 1/4 acre pond just google map 2943 Co Rd 71, Butler In 46721. Pleeez no bomb droppin drones or "friends" that want ta move into the chicken coop. It's a dumpy lookin pond but thanks to Cody and Cecil it has some real healthy fish in it. It's got REAL YP, TP, SMB, HSB, 4 RE, WE, SPS, Paper shell crawdads, BNM and several very unwelcome CC. The last CC caught was 7 lb 2 oz. Not real big but I figure it was probably eating 10" YP. That is my upper limit in letting friends(yes, I actually have a few)take enough for a meal. Probably eating some smaller WE and small HSB. They make it very difficult to ladder stock and are like vacuum sweepers on the pellets.
Hope your plans work well for ya.

lol.. I learned in the Navy to have a very thick skin.. :P

Cannot promise no drones... but since I do not have one, they will be a long time comin.. heh

I really would think to shy away from any catfish. While they are easy and fun, I tend to see most ponds have those OR other fish.. and I prefer the "other". To me, I'd love to see a pond where the kids could pull in all sorts of fish like crappie etc... with minnows. I can catch cats all the time with whatever, but the real fun comes from a lightweight tug on a bobber with a cold beer sitting by the side.. heh

Now, getting my wife to LET me dig the pond.. well, that will take as long as the planning

I'll check out google in a few!:)

Russ

Probably as long as the drones gettin here.

I have a 1/2 acre pond and love it. Any larger and it would cost serious money to maintain it. Money I would rather spend on saving up for retirement.

These are some early pictures from a few years ago. My other pics are up on FB and difficult to share.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/9omzEUBZmbWRIajk1

Holy cow... that is a half acre pond @liquidsquid ?

If you click on the FB picture, then right click it and "Copy image location" you will get something like this:

https://scontent-dft4-2.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t...amp;oe=5A347C94

Just for future reference.. heh

Let's see, maybe my math was off. Someone tell me if my math is off.. lol..

The 4 sides are about:

1 - 185
2 - 115
3 - 90
4 - 150

Those are approximate.

OH! My "Just add Water" book came in yesterday!;)

Awesome photos btw, Squid!

Russ

Here's mine, both 1/4 acre plus at full pool.
New pond built Dec 2016


23-month old renovated pond

Wow, they look larger than I imagined.... the ponds :P

Giving me hope!

Already talking to the septic guy about moving the septic.. heh

If you put sides 1, 2, and 3 perpendicular to each other (in that order) and connect side 4 ends to 1 and 3, side 4 ends up being very close to 150 feet (149.1'). This shape yields 0.36 acres. I used autocad.

A good way to estimate your future pond size is to go to Google maps and trace out the pond's location on a satellite image using the "distance" function which will give you square footage. Then convert to acres. The "measure distance" function is found by right clicking on the map where you want to start the outline of the pond, selecting "measure distance", left clicking the next spot and so on until you have enclosed the shape that best depicts the pond's shoreline. The area automatically shows up on your screen in square feet.

www.daftlogic.com is another way to do acreage.

https://www.daftlogic.com/projects-google-maps-area-calculator-tool.htm

I used Google Earth and figured it was closer to like .4 - .45. I am sure it will be altered as I plan it. I need to take and measure it out with a 300' tape I have AND.. also take pictures of all of it to show distance from the house etc and get thoughts on all that.

May be a really good weekend project.. you know, on top of all my other projects

Russ

Also remember to account for the size of the dam. From back of dam to water can easily be 100+ feet.

Yea, just having fun atm and yakking. May be I cannot build one due to size restrictions. Now, my ranch down south.. THAT could house one... but no water.. lol

If I had a well down there, you can bet I would have a freaking LAKE.. heh...

All rock down there though... would be rrrreealllly expensive.

Btw, thanks for helping the day go by faster :P

Russ

I'm new, but I do have a 1/2 acre pond. We built it last summer and stocked it this past March. The photo shows it overfull, we had the dam built up an additional 18 inches this spring.

Our pond

Wow, wonder how big it looks like when it is not over full heh

Very nice!

Russ

Not a lot different, that was just after a huge storm the night before and is up about 12" or so.

Normal level

Russ,

I have a pond that fluctuates around the 0.45 to 0.50 acre mark just SW of Fort Worth. It was existing on the property when I bought it in January of 2016. It had nothing in it and had never been stocked as far as I know. I didn't really mess with it when building the house which we finished in December 2016. I came to Pond Boss around that time and got pretty active in preparing for Spring stocking. I wound up stocking it this March with Redear Sunfish (RES), Coppernose Bluegill (CNBG), Largemouth Bass (LMB) and Hybrid Striped Bass (HSB) from Overton Fisheries. Don't go anywhere else in Texas if you ever get to the point of stocking fish. www.overtonfisheries.com I also put in 15 pounds of fathead minnows (FHM) and 10 pounds of crawfish. As you can see in the background of one of the pictures the pond is less than 100 feet from my front porch. We love sitting on the porch in the mornings and evenings watching ducks, geese, fish jumping, dog swimming, kids playing, etc. There is always some activity on the pond. My fish have grown quite a bit in 6 months. It was actually 6 months yesterday. I would say a half acre is about as big of pond that I would want to manage with my crazy schedule. Stay connected here at Pond Boss. Tons of useful information and helpful people.

Oh wow.. that looks beautiful!

We are not at the point of adding a pond yet. We only have 1.9 acres, so, not even sure if it is possible. My wife worries that it will just be a mosquito pen.. heh

We would have to dig down as we defiantly would not have room for a dam that would need 100 ft or yards, whatever it is, of clearance.

Originally, the lady next door owns the 3.6 acres behind us and has a "pond" that cannot hold water, and we offered to help make it better, but I get the feeling that sinking money into someone else's land would not be the best idea.

So, just finishing up the deck and barn and then will look to see if we have enough land to even add one.

Boy, sure would be nice if it turned out to be half as beautiful as yours.. heh

Russ

Thanks! Mosquitoes haven't really been a problem. I was afraid of that too, but we are out in the yard all the time and never really see any. Maybe the frogs keep them in check. Who knows.

beautiful spot - i too have been lurking a while, and am about to bike the bullet (hook) and start on a 1/2 acre pond which has been in my mind for years.

Welcome to the forum jpws.

Here is a list of threads about specialty ponds I keep, many of which are small. You might find some of them interesting.

Specialty pond list thread