This pond has been in the planning and funding stages for years and the dirt work is finally starting.

The implements of construction.







The project so far.









12" siphon











12" backup spillway



24" 2nd backup spillway because my dirt guy had it laying around

Unforked the post finally.

Hey Trooper,

I think these are links to your private account so they won't work here. Try an image hosting server like imgur.com

Now I just need it to rain

I drove my old Ranger into my forage pond when it was renovated so I figured I had to drive it's replacement into the game pond.





Storm is coming and the wind is picking up. Blowing the straw on my newly seeded yard all over.

I keep the goldenrod for the bees.

View from my deck.

Im jealous

It's hard to tell in pictures but it looks like you have plenty of depth. Looks like a very cool spot.

All your pictures from the start of the thread are working now.

I'd say there are a few great accomplishments taking place to get to this point of the project.

Looks fantastic!

Awesome, congrats! I'm halfway into construction of my dream pond. Now my wife wants to start construction on here dream house!

That looks really nice. Can't wait to see it full of H2O.

Thanks everyone. I too can't wait for it to fill, I'm not thinking that is going to happen until next fall at the earliest. I'm hoping for 1/2 - 3/4 pool next summer so I can try to get some jungle val (Vallisneria Americana) established. After I get to full pool I will put 4-6 patches of pickerel weed (Pontederia cordata) around the bank to see how I (and the fish) like it. I am seriously thinking of filling in the area that has spring water in it now (up to the "shelf" above it) with rip rap so I can give crayfish a fighting chance against the YP and WE that will eventually inhabit my impoundment.

Spring water? Where is that?

The water that you see in the pictures is from a spring. In the picture of the 24" pipe, the wet dirt just above the water is where the water is coming from. We have had no real rain this summer.

In the picture of the left side of my truck, there is a ditch that has the outflow from my forage pond (that is currently down about 3') and collects runoff from my fields. The piled up dirt in the upper left of the picture is where the ditch bank was redirected into my game pond.

Are you going to add dirt piles and other countour to the bottom?

Hope it works ok. The problem with springs is that can both give and take water depending on topography and pressure

Dave,

I have read that a spring in a pond could be a negative. When my forage pond was renovated 4 years ago, I a couple of spots with water flowing to the surface. That pond stays full barring a drought like we are experiencing this summer. I will find out in a year or so.

CityDad,

I am going to put cinder block "igloos" at 10', 15' and 20'.

Very nice construction. Congratulations!

Well, Thanks to the two storms that hit my area 8 days apart, I got ~20 inches of snow on 12/16 and then ~3 inches of rain on 12/24. My pond filled over night on Christmas Eve and then froze. This is the site I awoke to on Christmas day.



My project just sped way up. I have american pond weed in my forage pond that appeared on it's own that I will transplant some after the water warm up in late spring. I also am thinking about adding Pickerelweed (pontederia cordata) to this pond. I know some consider pickerelweed invasive but it is native to my area so I figure why not, if it starts to get out of hand, I can always throw in a few tripoid grass carp. I am going to let plenty of plants get established before I add anything to this pond. As I said before, the outflow from my forage pond flows into this pond so I'm hoping that some spotfin shiners and lake chubsuckers make their way to this pond on their own. I would be very pleased if the glass shrimp I have in my forage pond showed up in my game pond. Maybe I will invest in a good net and speed that process along after I have some plants growing in there.

The siphon system is working perfectly. I haven't manually started a siphon yet but I might give it a try this weekend just to see how easy it is to do.

Nice when a plan comes together.

Minnow traps might work also.

NICE! Congrats!