I've been reading your forum for awhile now, thought I'd join with a few questions I have about my pond. I found your forum while searching for information on pond spillways. My pond goal is "fishing recreation", specifically brook trout. My pond is bottom and surface spring fed, it was approximately 30yrs old and was filling in with reeds and grass...I had it dug out last week. It filled back up in about 5 days. It is now about 8 - 10 feet deep, fairly steep banks, heavy clay soil. Not a very big pond, roughly 55' long by 40' wide (2200sqft). I'm using a small rip-rap spillway for overflow. The surface spring end remains open year round, it gurgles so I'm assuming it will feed the pond oxygen. My main questions are:
1. Suggestions for bank stabilization grasses in clay soil in a northern climate (similar to Maine USA).
2. Advice on trout survival under a frozen pond. Personal experience advice would be great.
Thanks!
Welcome aboard Red Spruce! Beautiful country up there, and I envy your ability to have brook trout in your pond naturally without worrying about the pond warming up too much in the summer. Down here in northern Indiana, USA, I had to run bore hole water in 24/7, at 45 gallons per minute in the summer, to keep the pond cool enough for my 55 by 89 foot pond that was about 8 or 9 feet deep. Of course I had up to 500 lbs. of trout in there so I needed to do some serious exchanging of water!
Here's a few pics of some trout I produced in my steep sided pond. The brook trout was my biggest at 6 lbs. 4 oz. held by a gentlemen, which, along with his buddy, generously donated $500.00 to a trout club I belonged to to have the privilege of trout fishing in the pond that day. The brown trout was just under 12 lbs., which my neighbor is holding. He had to get off his lawnmower to scoop it up for me with the landing net. My biggest rainbow was 9 lbs. 9 oz., which is also pictured below with another brown trout.
Here's the 6 lb. 4 oz. brook. Note the crappy dorsal fin. This fish was a stunted fish in a raceway for two years before I got it at only about 6 inches in length. This was due to 45 F. water at the close to Lake Superior location. Once it got into my warmer water it exploded in growth and was this size in two more years. So it's a four year old fish.
As far as your questions:
Clay soil can be difficult to seed. I would either add just stone, or if you want grass, wet it down good, put your seed on top, and put something on top of that to stop erosion and the seed washing in until the grass gets going. I used burlap that comes in 6 foot wide rolls by 100 foot long from a company here in the US called Dayton Burlap here:
http://daybag.com/info/locations.htmlLooks like they have an office in Connecticut, USA which is closer than their main headquarters in Ohio, USA. The grass comes right up through the burlap, and by the time the burlap rots the grass is doing well.
I believe it was about $100.00 a roll but the shipping into Canada might be a deal breaker. Straw or hay works but you have to keep it wet to stay down. Perhaps it's wet enough up there for that to happen? I think in your region stone may be your best and cheapest option. Don't be surprised if grass comes up in the stone but that's easy to remedy if you don't want that.
As far as trout survival under the ice, I didn't have any problems with my pond even though I shut off the well in November and didn't crank it up until last spring. If your spring flow is enough to keep some ice open you shouldn't have any problems. If you get a lot of snow, however, with little open ice you may want to invest in a small diaphragm compressor and air stone or membrane diffuser, and set it close to shore to keep some ice open. Rainman's soaker hose idea works too.
Be aware that just because your spring "gurgles" that doesn't mean it has plenty of oxygen as Rainman says. It may be just fine but you could also rig it to drop over some stones to aerate it a little. With my well water I piped it up several feed above ground and dropped it through plastic five gallon buckets filled with plastic media before entering the pond. That aerated it and blew off gases such as nitrogen and hydrogen sulfide. If your spring source is shallow that may not be an issue.
Here's what I did with the borehole water. Doubtful you would have to do it with your pond.
The closest pond is my trout pond. Actually was. I am taking a break from the trout and seriously considering growing them out in a recirculating aquaculture system in a pole barn next year. Uses much less borehole water and a lot more control.
Here's one I mounted out of the pond (I'm a taxidermist). This particular fish was a Lake Nipigon, Canada strain.
Here's my favorite brook trout pic out of the pond. Once I used a color enhancement feed the colors really exploded on the brook trout!