New Member From NC - 05/24/23 09:59 AM
Hello! I own a small .4 acre pond in Western North Carolina. I just purchased my property this past fall and am starting multiple projects. Aside from beginning to clear land to build my home above the pond, I am working to evaluate and repair the pond. It’s a spring fed pond that was built in 2014. I have another spring that meets the outflow behind the dam. I was going to build a second pond below this one but with the home project I figured it makes more sense to work this pond and the land projects for the first year or so. I’d love to have a larger pond as I alway grew up on 1.5-2 acre ponds. Managing the smaller mountain pond will be a learning experience.
Pond Info:
- triangle shaped pond from damming of natural spring in bottom of valley.
- Depth at build per the new owner, 12 feet.
- Dam was built narrow at top, 6 feet with no spillway, 12” freeboard. Steep off the back and needs better slope to allow for mowing.
- Fish, has small population of LMB and some perch. Believe a few war mouths. I’ll be culling the unwanted war mouths.
- Water, extremely clear as it’s fed by the mountain spring. Small stream of continuous outflow from 8” pipe/riser. Estimating 5-10 gpm outflow. Could see bottom at 8 ft depth and anywhere around pond.
- Back of dam has small signs of a past overflow event. The very center of dam is slightly lower grade than rest of dam, ~ 10” freeboard.
Projects commenced:
- I have been relocating dirt from property and adding it to back of dam with plan of eventually raising dam a few inches to allow for emergency spillway to be cut in. Not increasing water level, just raising the freeboard and putting in an overflow. Haven’t designed the overflow yet. Never built one myself but going to try.
- Added a little fertilizer. Pond water clarity of visibility is lesser now, closer to 36”. It is a slightly greener tint and you can no longer see to the bottom in the deeper areas.
- Stocked some FHM and BG this spring. Figure a pond this size will be better suited as a BG pond rather than a LMB pond. Do have 30-50 LMB in there though.
- one side is shallow where the previous owner said the ground was too hard for his to dig deeper with his tractor when he dug out the pond. I have a CAT track loader and one day may consider draining and digging out that corner of the pond. If I can get photos to post you can see it. I’d love to dig it deeper but doing it with an excavator without draining seems to be ill advised. Thoughts?
That’s enough for now. It’s small but it’s a good little pond.
Pond Info:
- triangle shaped pond from damming of natural spring in bottom of valley.
- Depth at build per the new owner, 12 feet.
- Dam was built narrow at top, 6 feet with no spillway, 12” freeboard. Steep off the back and needs better slope to allow for mowing.
- Fish, has small population of LMB and some perch. Believe a few war mouths. I’ll be culling the unwanted war mouths.
- Water, extremely clear as it’s fed by the mountain spring. Small stream of continuous outflow from 8” pipe/riser. Estimating 5-10 gpm outflow. Could see bottom at 8 ft depth and anywhere around pond.
- Back of dam has small signs of a past overflow event. The very center of dam is slightly lower grade than rest of dam, ~ 10” freeboard.
Projects commenced:
- I have been relocating dirt from property and adding it to back of dam with plan of eventually raising dam a few inches to allow for emergency spillway to be cut in. Not increasing water level, just raising the freeboard and putting in an overflow. Haven’t designed the overflow yet. Never built one myself but going to try.
- Added a little fertilizer. Pond water clarity of visibility is lesser now, closer to 36”. It is a slightly greener tint and you can no longer see to the bottom in the deeper areas.
- Stocked some FHM and BG this spring. Figure a pond this size will be better suited as a BG pond rather than a LMB pond. Do have 30-50 LMB in there though.
- one side is shallow where the previous owner said the ground was too hard for his to dig deeper with his tractor when he dug out the pond. I have a CAT track loader and one day may consider draining and digging out that corner of the pond. If I can get photos to post you can see it. I’d love to dig it deeper but doing it with an excavator without draining seems to be ill advised. Thoughts?
That’s enough for now. It’s small but it’s a good little pond.