I'm so glad I found this forum and have just been reading as many threads as I can and now it's time to post. So our family recently got 10 acres near Texoma and we have been in the cleaning up and planning stages. As we are trying to decide locations for a house and barn we figured we could also get started on the pond since we won't be building anything else out there for a bit so this we be a good thing to get situated first. The land is fairly flat but the is a slight slope when you head towards the NW corner with a small ravine and the NE corner is a slight hill. I'm guessing it's there because runoff flows that way during heavy rains and it is also the direction of the lake. The idea is to have at least a 1/2 acre for swimming, LMB, and then a house/barn to overlook everything. I know we have a long way to go but the Perfect Pond book should be at my door soon so looking forward to that.

We recently had someone come take a look to give us an estimate and an idea of what we were working with. They said the location would work but the question is how much sand we would have to move. They are coming in a few weeks to do a test dig but they think the pond will be around 5k but depending on how much sand there is that they would have to move it could be an extra 7k. Based on the wells in the area I was seeing between 2 and 7 feet of sand before red clay which seems good. I'm crossing my fingers for 2. The cost seems reasonable but depending on how much sand there is, I'm wondering if we could help clear it ourselves before someone comes to work on the pond. I'm no pond builder but I think I can figure out how to move some dirt and if that will cut down on the cost I'd be up for it. Then we could use that to build some berms on the side boundaries and then they could take over.

I'm going to continue to ask around to get ideas and we are wide open to making adjustments so I'm looking forward to hearing any thoughts or ideas as we start this process. I have attached a topo map and the aerial below.

Looking forward to the process and planning on adding more photos as we move along.

If you want to swim, it might be advantageous to keep the sand you dig out for a beach. Just don't be surprised if the BG decide that they want to spawn there, as they did at my place!

Welcome to PB! Good luck with your project

Welcome to PB.

Congrats on your new place.

How far away is the ravine from your pond? The reason I ask is because on our west Texas place we had a ravine erode its way back to within 6' of breaching one of our ponds. It was an expensive process to fill the ravine and reroute the spillway.

That's a good callout. It's about 100 ft from the proposed dam but I'll chat with the builder about it and see what we can do especially since we will have a lot of extra dirt.