Hi everyone. New member here and appreciate the wealth of info I've found here so far. This crazy year with Covid had both my businesses down and lots of free time on my hands. I own a trackloader and decided to build a watering hole for deer while things were slow. Well covid continued to drag on and I continued to dig. What started as a watering hole has now turned into a 1+ acre pond big enough for fish. I've been working on it a day or two a week when I could find time. The pond is a wooded build where two small ravines converge. Finally to the point where the build is wrapping up and ready to start thinking about structure. Will start to post some pics shortly to get the build up to speed and hopefully get some help added some decent and correct amount of structure.
Jeremy

Should have mentioned I'm in NW Missouri. Here's a few pics from the start of this build back in March.

Site pre build looking north toward where the pond is.

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Start of some timber clearing to open up the area where the dam is

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Welcome to the forum. We like pictures. It is always fun to see new ponds being built.

Neat

Pic looking across the dam after digging the core trench.

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Tree removal and work beginning to fill and build up the dam

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Test run - Pond is only a about 3 feet deep in this pic but wanted to let some water fill and make sure the soil and surrounding ground was going to hold well before spending more time on it. Will try to get some additional pics uploaded later today or tomorrow to get the project caught up to where it is at now.

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JK, that is a beautiful site and beautiful pond.

Are you sure you have enough acre-feet to support that beast in your final picture?

Good on water. Food is the problem. He pushes about 215 lbs this time of year when he's bulking up for the winter.

215#! I'm not sure why you needed the trackloader to excavate your pond.

Surely, you could have just buried some bones in strategic locations - and let the dog do all of the hard work.

A few more pics. Getting close to where the project is at the moment.

Tree Removal - the stump bucket really helped with this and made quick work of most of the standing trees.

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A few of the rocks found during the dig

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That is a massive root ball in your next to last picture.

Did you dig and roll that out using only your Case trackloader? Impressive!

I also like the picturesque rocks that you washed. Most people have to pay trucking to get attractive landscaping rocks around their ponds.

Good luck developing your pond!

Tree was dug out and pushed over while it was still standing. This was the biggest of all of them. Around 38" at the base. I can roll it end over end or lift a bit and push it with the loader but can't pick it up. Loader has a 9,000 lb tipping weight and this one lifts the rear of the machine before it even starts to come off the ground.

Video of that tree coming down

October 15, 2020

Wow, that looks like a big tree to take down with a track loader. What size is your track loader, and how long did it take to bring it down?

Case TV450. 11,000 lb machine. This one was dug around as I was moving dirt from this hillside over to the dam so it wasn't really dug in one pass. With the stump bucket I can make pretty quick work of most trees if they are standing and can use their leverage. Depends on soil but an 8" tree can be taken down in a matter of seconds. 14-16" tree in about 2-5 minutes. 24" tree in about 10 minutes of digging.

Here's a video of a 14" tree being taken down in soft soil.

TV450 & Titan HD Stump Bucket - 14_ tree

Thanks, cool video. I hope to get a track loader one of these days. Looks like that stump bucket works great. They make a lot of attachments for them.

That dog can probably help fill the pond too. They sure do slobber! Gentle giants though, but are unfortunately a short lived breed. Thanks for sharing pics and video of your project.

He just turned 11 this October and is doing surprisingly well for his age. Not too common for them to make it this long. Will try to get remaining pics uploaded in the next day or two of where the pond project is currently at.

You must be taking very good care of him to reach that age. Lucky dog!

Here's the last few pics bringing this project up to speed.


Looking across the dam from the NW corner

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Looking North toward the dam. All of the walk paths around the pond are cut in.

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A before and after pic

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This is where the project sits as of this morning. Hoping to get the trash pump out today and drain the water from the pond then get back to work on the dam. Working on bringing the slope out close to a 3:1 on the water side. As soon as that is finished I'll be ready to work on habitat.

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Jk96 your going to have a very nice looking spot. Love the look of a pond surounded by trees.

Looking good!

I like it

Good ponds make good pics!

Your grapple beside the cut bank looks like excellent cover for the LMB once the pond fills.

I like the side by side comparison picture. That's pretty cool to see that. I'm not that good with computers to do that.

Are you available for hire?

First pond I've built so this will either be a lesson on why you should hire a professional or encouragement for some of you diy guys. Will know this spring. Finally found some time to finish up the dam. This unusually warm Dec weather helped. Only thing left now is working on habitat.

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Was able to get the muck out of deepest part of the pond and some good clay dirt worked in before the freeze for some peace of mind. This area was dug through some limestone and wanted to make sure and get a good seal here.

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Working on a few artificial structures for fish while the pond bottom is still either dry or frozen. Here's the start of the first one. Need to finish adding the pex tubing to the sticks of pvc to create some branch like structure. This will be the largest as it's made of 20' sticks of pvc. Most left over from my siphon system I used to drain the pond several times during construction.

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Nice work !

Post a finished pic of the structure so we can add it to the structure archive.

Well my laziness has bit me in the a**. Instead of driving to pick up a bar guard for the intake pipe I ordered one online. Still waiting on it. I figured only snow this time of year so no hurry and it saved my an hour and a half of driving. Here's the pond after our rain and ice event a few days ago. Now it's snowing today with about 4" of snow on the ground and more coming down and no bar guard on the pipe.

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I was able to get the bar guard on this morning without draining the pond. Took about 30 minutes to get feeling back into my hands and glad I don't have to repeat this job. The pipe was about 8" below the water surface so I was able to drill a couple of holes in the pipe with a long bit and secure it with some 1/2" wide heavy plastic zip ties to make sure it doesn't pull out of the pipe.

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I have 3 of these in vertical pipes and they are just held in place by gravity. I did wire one in a horizontal pipe in the past but that one now has an elbow that turned it up vertical.

Tried to work on my fish structures today. I quickly found out pvc is really brittle when cold. Almost impossible to drill without breaking. Looks like temps next weeks in the 40s with a day or two at 50 so will make another attempt then. I need to get it done soon. The deeper part of the pond is about full and and close to the flats. I also put the trail camera back up. Lots of deer and turkey sign.

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Looks like it is off to a good start!

Finished up the larger fish structure. Should make for a good area to hold fish. 20 foot in diameter by 6 foot tall. Still have two smaller ones that I plan to make in one of the shallower areas.

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You will always know where your honey hole is. That's a pretty good looking structure. It's like a fish mansion.

from my experience i would ruff up the outside of the pvc. On my first ones i added to the pond i don't see many fish around them. I don't think they feel much comfort in being against something white where they stand out. After ruffing the pipe up you will see more of mother natures plants and animals attach thenselves to the pipe which make the pipe more natural and may hide the fish alittle more.

Maybe hit with some green spray paint? Would be much easier than scuffing that much pvc

looks great!!!! have any osage orange on the property? they make excellent brush pile material . I would make a pile that extends perpendicular from the bank and transitions from relatively shallow water to deep water - this way fish can relate to that pile throughout the seasons. It can provide for some great fishing action for kids. The osage will last several years where as some other woods will only last 2-3 max. Locust is a good alternative as well

Osage orange will outlast the pond pretty much, no? that stuff just doesnt rot, we used to use it for posts and my dad, rest his soul, used to say it will out last the hole. and a very prolific root system that will make some amazing fish habitat.

Yes on osage orange. We have a bunch and makes great firewood as well. I have a couple of stumps that I dug out this spring I plan to add. You are correct about the root system on them.

Might cut some to keep as many knife makers use it for very nice decorative handles.

My favorite Osage Orange info is from Bob Lusk:

"That's the wood that lasts for a hundred years, and then turns into a rock."

The pond continues to slowly inch up as we loose what little snow we had. Good sign as it means the bottom of the pond that penetrated the bedrock is sealed up well.

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Also here's one of the osage orange stumps that needs moved to the pond.

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Most of the exposed orange roots are sapwood, and will rot away fairly quickly (for Hedge Apple/Osage Orange, that's 5-10 years). But the core of each bigger root section will be around as long as the rest of the wood.

We recieved about 3/4" of rain yesterday. Pond level in creaping up into the flats now. Also painted all of the white pvc.

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Looks like we finally have some rain in the forecast.  Next four days looks like a decent chance.  At the moment it doesn't look like anything heavy but it's a start.  Hopefully we will get enough to at least get the rest of the bottom covered.  Used the last two 55 gallon drums I had today and a roll of 3" drain tile to make one more artificial habitat in a shallower area of the pond before things get wet. 


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I trust you have those barrels weighted down. Many types of plastic are slightly buoyant - the 4" corrugated drainage tile certainly is.

jk,

Your pond is looking great! Hopefully you get a series of nice gentle rains to fill it up and the clay stays in the banks until it is full.

P.S. Do Daleks make good fish structure?

Best wishes,
Rod

About 100 lbs of large rock in each.

Still waiting on the rain here so decided to add a few more items while it was dry. Added another tree crossing and a couple more fish habitats from some old 6" to 10" firework mortars and stone from the dig. At some point I'll get some rock under the ends of my two log crossings to help keep it from rotting as quick.

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Youve got the fish's version of a Mar e lago there, the fish should be happy!

Looks like a fishy place, can someone tell a rookie about the benefits of the red pex added onto the pvc?

Slowly making progress here. Got some seed down on the dam and walk paths before the rain.


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I still love the look of your pond surrounded by the trees and rolling hills.

I am looking forward to the pics when it is at full pool and the sediment has dropped out.

Thanks. This is the part that makes me nervous. Never built a pond before so hoping it holds. No heavy runoff events yet so the fill has been pretty slow so far this year but what we have got seems to be holding.

Haven't posted in awhile as the heavy rains never came this year. Finally a good storm last week and more on the way tomorrow and Wed. The storm last week added about 4 ft of water to the pond. I have another 4 ft to go. Also have a question about water loss. It looks like I have lost about 6" from the high water mark last week. I'm assuming some loss is normal on a new fill especially 4 ft due to the ground taking in water and saturating. Does this seem like a normal amount of loss or something to be concerned about?

Here's a few pics of the pond from today.

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Nice to see it filling. I would put a measuring stick in and keep a close watch on it and see if your losses per day get better.

Congrats! Keep an eye on vertical water loss per Bobbs and reach out anytime if you are still seeing daily loss. Tj@hudlandmgmt.com. Happy to help my time is free to the forum family.