I've been reading Pond Boss and dreaming about this pond for years. I had Mike Otto come out a while back to help plan it - He's a great guy, by the way. Even let me talk to Bob Lusk on the phone. I've been a Pond Boss fan for so long it felt like I was hanging out with celebrities!

Test holes showed that I was fortunate enough to have around 12" of topsoil and then lots of good clay as far down as we need to go. The pond site is on a slight slope so we're building a part dugout/part embankment pond.

We finally started construction yesterday. When finished it will be around 1 acre of surface area. I'll post more pictures as the construction progresses.

Construction pictures here: http://min.us/mvnQsIM

NIce. Congrats on breaking ground.

Good start. Nothing like the smell of freshly turned dirt. Update as you move forward.

Construction is moving along nicely. My PB is a little worried about the 6" of snow forecast for Sunday. They're working hard to try to finish before then.

The pond is roughly shaped like a big "D" with a curved dam across the back. There's a large, wide peninsula that will stick out into the pond from the straight side of the "D" to give it a more irregular shape and more shoreline.

Here's an overview of the whole pond: http://i.min.us/ibDuMm.JPG

The peninsula: http://i.min.us/ibDKvK.JPG

And the drain pipe: http://i.min.us/ibDM3S.JPG

I'm getting really excited. It's awesome to finally see this actually taking shape!

The pond is done, now I'm just putting in structure and waiting for rain. Here's a picture:



The line you see extending to the left of the pond is a wing to catch more runoff and divert it into the pond.

You can see more pictures of the pond and the structure I'm putting in here: https://picasaweb.google.com/Ack226/Pond02?authkey=Gv1sRgCLuS4YPhgu-4KA&feat=directlink

The pond is starting to fill up!




And we had our first visitors yesterday:

some beautiful landscape there. outstanding!

Thanks! I love the view from our house and think the pond will make it that much better. I'm hoping for a rainy spring so it fills up quickly.

I'd love to have that view from my house. Love the wide open spaces you have.

Looks great pray for rain

You will be suprised how fast one good day of heavy rain will fill her up.

Here's some of the structure I've been scavenging. We have rain forecast tomorrow so I'm going to try to get it into the pond today.

I got the trees placed and anchored yesterday before the rain came in. I made a line of 20' cedar trees going from the edge of the pond at 0' depth out towards the middle at about 10' depth. The entire row of trees is around 100' long. I discovered that dragging a 20' tree across slippery mud isn't as easy as you'd think!

I put the line of trees next to the "Bluegill Red Light District" where I suspect they'll nest. Hopefully the trees will provide good cover for the newly hatched BG and also for FHM.

Looks good, Ack. Keep us updated as the pond begins to fill.

Our record rainfall filled the pond to within a couple feet of full in just a few days. I have a few erosion issues on the bank where the runoff flows in, but nothing too terrible.

We've been getting ducks and canadian geese pretty regularly. I've also been finding frogs and crayfish around the pond. It's really exciting to see a new ecosystem taking shape out there!

I also stocked some fathead minnows a few days ago.

Next on the agenda is trying to get more vegetation established on the banks and get the muddy water cleared up a bit. Right now it's at pretty much zero visibility.

Nearly full pond:



Kung-Fu crayfish:

Here's the pond now. It was full after the rainy spring we had, but now it's down a couple of feet due to the dry summer. The water is starting to clear up (Secchi disk reading of 4") and the grass is filling in nicely along the banks.

Ack, you are cracking me up!

The pond is looking great!

looks like you got a good start going on

What type of grass did you plant ACK? I've got to get something going around my pond before the fall when the rains set in. By the way, the place looks great!!

Thanks everyone!

I planted winter rye. I planned to plant bermuda as soon as it got warm enough, but never did. The rye held the dirt together for the most part. As it got warm enough to kill the rye the native grasses from my pasture started filling in by themselves. We had record rains this spring so I'm sure that helped it to spread and grow quickly.

After a long, hot summer it's finally cooled down enough to think about stocking some fish. I wanted to see if any FHM were still around after my stocking 6 months ago so I threw in a minnow trap overnight. When I pulled it up I found a good number of minnows and also a TON of crayfish.

Between the minnows, crayfish, and the multitude of frogs all over the pond I'm thinking the bass will have plenty to eat for a while!

Bass love crayfish but also put some BG in there to substain the bass over time.