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Hello, I'm from Utah and we are in a nasty drought. I'm new to the forum, but I've had a pond for years. Little background, my pond was originally dug as a collection pond for my irrigation water, I'd fill it up with water and then pump the water onto my farm fields as required. (Irrigation system changed now so I no longer use pond to water my fields.) I've always loved fishing and to have my own pond has been a lifelong dream for me. Over the years the fish in my pond has changed, it started with fathead minnows, that populated until the whole pond was a solid mass of minnows, then the predator's found their way in with crappie, green sunfish and a couple bass, they quickly pulled the forage into balanced numbers and became really big and fat for the area. (I noticed the bigger fish jumping so I started fishing to them and it was great fun. The population and fishing was great for 4 or 5 years, then over the years the forage base was overcome and the crappie became stunted as their spawn grew up and over populated the small pond. Then came this year with little rain or snow for the last 18 months, this has dropped the water table which maintains my pond level to the point that all my fish have died and there is only a couple inches of water left in the deepest parts of the pond. Hence my reason for looking for advice, I need to dig my pond out deeper so when the dry years hit I don't lose everything. I suspect you will have posts about this, but being new I haven't found them yet. I want to take an excavator into the pond this fall or winter and dig it as deep as I can, but the mucky bottom makes me wonder if I can do this without getting the excavator stuck so bad I can't get it out... What recommendations do you have for me as I look at a pond reset and rework? Thanks Jeff
PS... My pond has always been on the shallow side with max depth at run off around 6' deep, regular depth around 4 feet falling to 2-3' deep at times (normal years).. Then bottoming out this year at 1" to dry bottom...

I am doing the same thing. I have an excavator so I dug a hole deeper than the muck and set up a pump to pump the remaining water to my minnow pond. There is a semi decent flow out of the muck to the hole but I don't have water table issues. I can walk around most of my pond and start pulling the top layer of muck out and place it where I can load it and haul it off. When I get to the point that I can get out in the pond basin I will get down to hard material and set up a road for the dump truck and load directly into it.

Appreciate that info, that may help me as I get into this project... When we originally dug the pond, we used an earth mover and scraped the pond shape until he got down to the water table and water started to seep back into the pond area over night, then we decided that we had gone far enough. Knowing the water table takes time to seep to fill the void, I think with an excavator we should be able to move dirt fast enough to stay ahead of the water as long as we don't stop moving. I just don't want to get stuck as we try to do that... My pond isn't very big and I'd like to get the deep spot towards the middle rather than near the sides of the pond so I was kind of hoping to find an idea about a way to spread the load far enough that the excavator wouldn't sink... Been wondering if pallets or something that we could drive the excavator on might spread the load enough to keep it from sinking into the soft bottom... Anyone have experience trying something like that? Thanks Jeff

Hello! I recently moved back home to the mini farm that I grew up on after being away for 30 years. We have two ponds on the property (.17 acres and .39 acres). My dad built them over 40 years ago and the smaller one is stream fed from a quarry and it flows into the larger one. The ponds had been neglected for years and we are slowly working to get them back to their former glory. I am looking forward to participating in this forum to learn how to make my ponds healthy and keep them that way.

Welcome to the forum. Lots of info and help here