Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations GOOD GAWD...FULL POOL!!!!

Never thought I'd live to see the day, but the east pond is FULL!

Needed about 3 inches as of 7 PM yesterday, and we've gotten another 1.2" since then. Now...it's gotta be running into the "crawdad hole" we built down below. Unfortunately, I've not gotten around to actually cutting the overflow pipe in that hole to keep water from running around the terrace...have to get wet tonight, I suppose. Oh well...I'll get some pic's tonight, if the rain ever lets up!

The second pond is probably within about 3 feet of full, as well, and the 6" tile feeding from beneath my house into that was running at 100-150 gpm last night...and it's running stronger today.

AND...the sump pump in behind the basement bathroom kicked on all on it's own last night...first time in 4 1/2 years! I manually started the other, and there was even water in it. That means the 6" tile will run for at least a week after the rain stops!

Wife loves to see me smile!!!

I know the feeling Matt.

We have recieved 2.6" of rain in the last couple of days. Our pond has come up 6" plus but we are not at full pool yet, we still have another 4-5" to go but this is the fullest I have see ours in 5-7 years. If I ran the numbers right we now have an additional 1.6 million gallons of water more than we had last week but we still need a little more rain.

Sounds GREAT Shorty...amazing what a "normal" spring can do, eh?

We haven't seen one like this since 2003...before I built the first pond.

I was out wondering around in full rain gear last night just as happy a cat covering turds!

Boy I sure wish I could get my Lake to fill up!! I have been waiting about 4 years now....The Febuary 29 and March 1 rain REALLY helped me out it got me within two feet. But now I need one more BIG rain of 3 inches or more!!!


Boy what a celebration it would be if it happened!!

What's funny is my co-workers have been giving me funny looks when I keep cheering for more rain. They just don't understand what it's like to have low water levels from drought conditions for years. All they know is they havn't seen the sun shine here for last 3 days and it's starting to get on their nerves. In conrast, I have been extremely cheerful for the last several days with all of this "gloomy weather".

I'll be out at the pond tonight to check it out, I am hoping the water clarity has gone down a bit to slow our excessive weed growth down.

Yeah, Shorty...some people, huh?

I'm hoping for a bit of "cloudiness" myself...at least in the water. The clarity is way up (prior to the rain, anyway) and I've plenty of spirogyra (aka, FA) that probably won't die off much until the water temps go up a bit.

It's also amazing how much BIGGER the pond seems. Had the water line flagged by lazer, but it seems IMMENSE now that it's full. Little fishies just have that much more room to spread out, now.

I also need to go pick up 100 more RES for the north pond, this afternoon. That outta be fun...traipsing through 10 feet of clay/mud to get to the water to release them. Gotta be careful and not fall in and drown...banks are substantially steeper on that one.


I'll have mud clear to my arse, I'm sure...make momma proud.

Well, there ya go, Matt. Congrats on full pool! What's that gonna mean for Nessie?

Awesome news all around. Matt, sit out on your front porch and crank that Hendrix song, "Rainy Day, Dream Away."

kcci said 2 trillion gallons of rain from that last storm fell on Iowa, 2.25" on whole state on average

All told, I ended up with 3.6". Dumped exactly 2" Wednesday morning, then another 0.9" yesterday morning, and finally 0.7" last night. Forgot to check this AM, but I don't think it rained any more overnight.

Pond's exactly at the bottom of the overflow tube, but very little actually went out there. The emergency spilly seems a bit low to me, as its extremely soggy (walked out this AM) but nothing went over that. It MIGHT be 12" above normal pool. I guess that's OK, but I could always haul in some dirt and build it up a bit...plenty of clay on this old Iowa pasture.

I'll post pics in a bit!

Wow...I'm happy. :p :p :p

[img]http://render2.snapfish.com/render2/is=Yup6aQQ%7C%3Dup6RKKt%3AxxrKUp7BHD7Kofrj%3DQofrj7t%3DzrRfDUX%3AeQaQxg%3Dr%3F87KR6xqpxQQQnxGoJxo00xv8uOc5xQQQ0GlPQaoaonqpfVtB%3F*KUp7BHSHqqy7XH6gXPla%7CRup6lQQ%7C/of=50,590,442[/img]


I believe the lazer transit works...got the bridge height just about right...7.5 feet of water under here...

[img]http://render2.snapfish.com/render2/is=Yup6aQQ%7C%3Dup6RKKt%3AxxrKUp7BHD7KPfrj%3DQofrj7t%3DzrRfDUX%3AeQaQxg%3Dr%3F87KR6xqpxQQQnxGoJxo00xv8uOc5xQQQ0GlPQaoaoaqpfVtB%3F*KUp7BHSHqqy7XH6gXPGn%7CRup6lQQ%7C/of=50,590,442[/img]

...and Nessie's just fine...here's her son, that surfaced a couple of days ago, right where the beach sand needs placed.

[img]http://render2.snapfish.com/render2/is=Yup6aQQ%7C%3Dup6RKKt%3AxxrKUp7BHD7Kofrj%3DQofrj7t%3DzrRfDUX%3AeQaQxg%3Dr%3F87KR6xqpxQQQnxGoJxo00xv8uOc5xQQQ0GlPQaoa0QqpfVtB%3F*KUp7BHSHqqy7XH6gXPlQ%7CRup6lQQ%7C/of=50,590,442[/img]


Sorry....not sure why the quality's not really up to par on these...

I loves the pics of ponds, they make me all tingley!! I feel like i did when i was a kid and saw my first playboy!!

FMBP...I don't ever wanna hear about yer "tingley" again...8^)

Matt, I extremely happy to report that that our water clarity has gone from 8ft pre rain down to 3 ft post rain. Only 5 more inches before it starts going over the spillway again.

BTW - love the pictures.

It's not often that most folks understand that water clarity dropping is a GOOD thing! Hope ya raise about a billion-billion little plankton thingies! Yer fry will thanks you...

The algea is blooming, the water had more of a green tint than a brown tint to it.

Great!

Mine's a bit brown, from run-off, but it's all either tiled or over my grass. It'll clear up pretty quickly. Hopefully, BG fishing this weekend, if I can find 'em in all the extra water.

I love to see new ponds fill up. You start to imagine all the possibilities. I've got good news too. Here's a pic of my new pond dug last fall. It's full!

bz did you put any scuds in that new pond.

Ewest, I didn't since I figured they'd die of starvation. Wish I had now. There is lots of leaves and algea in the pond that I would think would feed them. I will put some in next spring. Right now the pond is already swarming with tadpoles and water bugs. I put all my scuds in the BG pond. I have over a thousand BG in that pond as well as probably an equal number of crappie. It's only a half acre pond. I hope some scuds will survive. I'm hoping to see some this summer as I rake DW out of the water. If not then perhaps I'll find some late next winter under the ice. BTW I've been regularly catching BG over a pound this spring and I just caught two crappie today that were 12 inches long and real fat. Probably females. Wish I had brought my scale.

Allright, it can quit raining any time now, 3.2 million gallons of rain water is plenty. Water has been going through the spillway since Saturday morning, the water was 4" above the pipe by day break Sunday morning.

My intial thoughts on Saturday were "after years and years of drought, happiness is a full pond." By Sunday afternoon I had changed my mind after watching BG after BG get sucked down the pipe and out of the pond at an average size of 2". The water level was only an 1" above the pipe when I got there yesterday afternoon and BG were still getting sucked down at a rate of 2-3 fish every 5-10 seconds. My dad said Sunday morning they were disappearing at a rate of 2-3 BG every 5 seconds when it was still 4" above the pipe. At that rate we probably lost 10,000 to 25,000 2" BG in a 14 hour period yesterday. I felt ill after inspecting the drainage ditch below the discharge pipe last night, there were thousands of 1-3" BG wedged in the grass everywhere and the discharge pipe was still dumping water at an estimated rate of 120 gallons per minute. Now it looks like I will need to cull more bass than I plannned too this year.

Oh yeah, I almost forgot to mention, the flash flooding washed out or big foot brigde again, the one that was circled in the satelite photo.

Sorry Shorty...feast or famine, eh?

Shorty sounds like its time to add a few Condello BG to your pond. Add some spawners and they will repopulate quickly. You may still need to take out some extra LMB.

ewest, I talked to Bruce Saturday night, it sounded like he had an additional 2" of rain that we didn't get Saturday evening. It also sounded like his big pond wasn't going to be able to handle the runoff and water was likely going to start spilling around the corner of the dam. He estimated water was coming in at a rate of 1100 gallons per minute and and his discharge pipe could only hadle 500 gallons per minute. I havn't heard anything since and hope there is still some CSBG left in his pond. I hope he posts some pictures and gives us a report.

ewest, there are still plenty of small BG in the pond, I am guessing that what went through our spillway was less than 10% of what was in the pond, but still, that is a lot of bass food that washed away.

Shorty I bet is was more like 1/2 of 1%.