Pond Boss Forums INTRO New Forum Member Introduction New Member and private pond owner

Hi everyone and thank you for allowing me membership into your community.

A little bit about myself...

I live in rural central Missouri. We (my wife and I) purchased our home and property in 2004 which includes a three acre lake in our front yard. This is family owned land that I previously lived on for a few years in the early 1980s, when I was in high school and right after the lake was first built. The lake is now 40 years old. Umm, scratch that. It's now one day old as we've just finished a complete renovation of it as of yesterday!

I have lurked on these forums to help educate myself on some of the issues that come with owning your own pond. Ours had silted/mucked in quite a bit over the years, had an out of control vegetation issue and our once thriving fish population had gotten completely out of whack. Our longest bank was completely covered with willows, brush and trees.

We finally decided last summer to go ahead and drain it. We have a large platform dock that we were able to put much needed repairs to. It was 30 years old but my father who owned the land previously, drew the water down once again 20 years ago to repair it and put the main support posts in concrete. After having our dam cut, we were left with a big mud crater for the past year. A local guy, who actually built the original lake 40 years ago, did all the work for us and it was finally completed yesterday. All the brush and trees have been cleared all the way around the lake and it's been grated so we plan to seed it and keep it mowed and maintained. We will also do our best to keep future plant growth in check in the pond before it ever gets completely out of hand once again.

Through my mistakes, lack of attention to maintenance and by reading so much here on this forum, I've learned a lot more about pond ownership than I had known when I first moved back to my home town to purchase and own this one myself.

We still have plenty to do and are eager to do it but the pond structure is complete at least. It looks brand new and now all we need is some rain to start filling it up. I'm hoping we can get it filled by September so we can start our fish stocking this Fall. It has a good watershed so with a few good rains, we may be in luck.

I still have a lot to do. Need to stock it, prep barren ground to seed grass, build fish habitat structures, look into developing an aeration system. We have an earthern spillway and I may need to have rock trucked in for the back area of it that had slowly been eroding back over the years. The spillway itself was always in great condition though. The grass kept the ground held together and never would erode away. Back down below though it was getting torn up where it entered a small wooded area.

I am sure I will have plenty of other things I will need to do. We are so excited to get this project done. It's like we get to start over fresh once again and we want to try to make the most of it. I am also happy to have joined the community here to discuss my lake with others and to join conversations about theirs as well.

Thanks for having me!

Welcome to Pond Boss!

Good luck on your project.

Welcome from West Central MO.!

It's always good to have another Miserian on the forums. Welcome.

Thanks folks! I'm glad to be here.

Good to have you here!

Welcome to PB posting !