Pond Boss Forums POND CONSTRUCTION Selecting a site Renovated old farmstead(pic heavy)

First I would like to say hello and thank everyone here who so freely give their time and advice. This site was a great reference when we put in our pond.

Anyways, a couple years ago my wife and I had a dream of finding an old farm back in the woods. Was more of a joke than anything but one day in 2004 we ran across a nice 130 acre parcel of land in NW PA that was set back 1/4 mile thru the woods.

Didn't even know there was an old farmhouse till the 3rd time I looked at the property. Was listed as vacant land.

Bought the property and figured we'd do a little rehab on the old house that hadn't been lived in for 25 yrs.

Naturally we needed a pond to go with our new cabin.


Our last place had a really nice pond and I was really missing it. After talking about putting one in the last couple of years, I was really pleased when a neighbor stopped by to see if I was still looking for a pond.

I said ,"heck yeah!".


This is the field sitting below the house where we thought was a nice setting.




They had to clear part of my apple orchard. That hurt but we still have a couple dozen apple trees spread throughout our property.




Took off the topsoil.




Then it gets to the fun part. Moving dirt with a couple John Deere dozers and the 'green weenie'.



At one time they had 4 JD dozers over at my place with 3 running at one time.




Pretty excited to have my own fishing hole again even though there's a good fishing creek about 150 yrds from the back of the field. Just something about waking up and looking at that water.


I think my wife is actually more excited than me but I can't tell if it's because she's so happy for me or she's that into the pond. She's a heckuva gal.



Here's some pictures of my wife in the pond for scale.





You need to look close to see my wife in this one.


Same shot close up.



Here's where we're at before winter.


Another 10 ft to go.




Another before pic to compare.





Still need to go another 5 ft in depth and also might extend the pond to the right another 60-70 ft. Pumping the pond full from a nearby spring to make sure we don't have any leaks.

Welcome! Thanks for the pics, we love pics! A "little" renovation, huh? WOW! How old is the house, and how long did the house renovation take?

The pond is shaping up. What are your goals for it?

Beautiful place, the house and the pond both. How big is the pond?

There's hand hewn structural beams in the basement and square cut nails so I figure at least 120 yrs old. Records at court house were of no help. What helped the house withstand the elements for so long was the Chestnut frame and 4-5 layers of roofing shingles(ughh).

For the pond, I'd like to do a little fishing and entice some wildlife for viewing.

I'm thinking of HSB, bluegill, Walley(if we do the expansion) and some small mouths. Might spend this next year getting the minnows and shiners established for a food base as long as I can stay patient.

Walt, pond is just shy of 1 1/2 acres. It's spring fed with a 2-4" stream of water.


If we expand, we'll add about 60-70ft to the width and the length will taper off the farther left we go. Might also leave part of the existing berm on the expansion side for an island after seeing how cool they look from pics here.

For the people who enjoy hunting, here's a little cabin we built on the hill overlooking a small ravine with a little brook.

Actually, my hunting camp has been taken over by my wife.





Covered deck overlooking ravine.

Walleye should do fine where you are, even if you don't expand the pond. You'll probably need them as a predator if you don't stock largemouth - the consensus on here is that smallmouth won't keep bluegill in check, and I haven't heard of HSB being able to do so either, definitely not up north in a pond that size. You don't want largemouth? Which species is your main one of interest?

All I can say is that, "I am jealous". I love your place. I hope to have a larger tract of land and pond soon. 7 acres and 3/4 acre pond is nice, but I just want more!!!

Very nice..

That is a very impressive job on your farm project. Very nicely done! I'm jealous.

+1....I'm speechless.

I'd really like to thank everyone for the compliments. Feels good after all the hard work and head scratching.



Walt, I'm pretty open to what fish we stock with. I love fishing but to be honest I'm a lousy fisherman(think minny on bobber).


Just looking for something that will put up a nice fight on the odd chance they take my bait.

Preferences in order would be:

Pike
Walleye
Largemouth
Channel Cat
Crappy
Perch
Bluegill

I also know I'm going to have a snapping turtle problem from the number of females who were laying eggs on the side of the pond.

Spectacular rehab!

Turtles are a part of pond life and actually do very little harm.

You can always stock larger fish if you decide you don't want to wait. Larger fish can often be harder to find from traditional suppliers/fishfarms, but it can be done.

Skip the crappie - they're very bad about overpopulating in ponds. You could stock all of the other species you have listed, though you'd want to keep a close eye on the pike and if they spawn successfully you would want to keep all the ones you catch. If pike are your top fish of interest you might also think about stocking some golden shiners as additional forage so the pike (and bass) get bigger. You'll still need bluegill as the foundation of the forage base though.

Also, you wouldn't want to stock more than four or five pike initially, maybe a few more than that if stocking fingerlings but if you stock larger fish no more than four or five; a pond that size can't support many of them.

Actually, if you were to stock pike, you could also stock crappie, as the pike would keep the crappie from getting too out of hand.

Glad you found the forum... I really enjoyed your pics when you posted them on Hunting PA. Great looking place!

I'd post your desires and goals for your pond in the "Types of Fish to Choose" forum. It'll give it more exposure where you can get the opinions of the many experts on here.

Wow. Very impressive, especially what you did with that old farmhouse. Kudos.

rrroae:

It's grrroaet!

It is pretty danged amazing. I grew up in a Sears kit house that I eventually purchased from my folks. It was a bear to renovate, but started out much homier than rroae's before pics.
Did it even have newspapers for insulation in any of the walls? Was there wiring? Knob and tube?

Thanks for the compliments. Ya'll are starting to make me feel like we didn't do too bad.

Honestly though, my brother is the carpenter and he's the one with the skill. I just had the vision. My wife also was a great help and didn't mind getting her hands dirty.

Walt, I think for now I'll just start off with largemouths, bluegill and some walleye to go along with golden shinners and minnies and we'll go from there. I just can't believe that one day I'll be fishing out of a pond that I had built. Doesn't seem real.

lolol

Yep had the newspaper(and nothing else) in the walls. At least it wasn't those thin strips of wood and plaster where you have to pull a million nails.

There was still some knob and tube and it looked like it was still in use before they pulled the service(poles and all).

We ended up putting in solar for electric because we have a couple gas wells which minimized our electric needs. Also have a gravity spring for water so we ended up being off-grid except for phone.

Can you provide a little more detail on both of these? How is the resource tapped and routed?

Wow rrroae, you are a master of the understatement. Calling this a "little rehab" is like saying Brettski changed his property a little. Beautiful work. Thanks for posting the photos and story. Welcome to Pond Boss, we're glad you found us.

For the gas well, you have something like this(not mine) sticking out of the ground.



Called the gas company to get approval to utilize my free gas and then bought the appropriate regulators and fittings along with 500 ft of 1 1/4" black plastic pipe to run to the house. Dug a 4 ft deep line all the way to the house and buried the pipe. At the house, you have another regulator and shut off and then it goes into my house the same as gas from a utility company.


The gravity spring has a cement 3 ft x 4 ft box about 500 ft on the hill above the house(about 40 ft of elevation). It was here before I bought the place but it looks like the basin was simply a dug out area where there was a spring on the hill and a simple concrete form was put in to hold water seeping from the spring. From the concrete box, we have 3" pvc pipe that runs about 250ft and then we neck down to 1 1/4" black plastic pipe(to create pressure). Then at the house we neck down once again to 3/4" pvc then 1/2" to supply all our water. No need for any holding or pressurized tanks and since the water is clean spring water, no need for any filters. Pretty easy set up once you've done it once.

So, who drills these nat gas wells? Is it done by a private firm for a speculative property/homeowner? Is it an exploratory well drilled by a major gas company or similar that is ultimately turned over to the property owner?