Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations Two Tier Transaction

Start: 0830

I Muled the 22 Christmas trees (that the stick scored for me) down by the pond and drilled a hole through the trunks of each of them. A 9 gauge galvanized wire was run through the trunk holes to connect the trees together. Here they are ready to float.



Everything needed for the days work is moved onto the Barge, ready to go:

D.O. monitoring kit for taking the weekly pond readings.
Two tier buoy system with tree anchor cable temporarily attached to the top buoy so it does not accidentally drop to the bottom of the pond before the trees are attached.
Booze bottle marker buoys.
120 pound bottom anchor for the buoy system.
Live well (won’t be used today).
Tunes box and documentation device (camera).



Not pretty, but real heavy!



After marking the location of the buoy system with the booze bottle marker buoys the two tier buoy system was dumped over board. The buoy system is located on the deep end of the Corona reef. The top buoy will be removed for the winter so ice out in the spring does not carry the works away to another location.

The Barge with both trolling motors on full speed didn’t have enough traction to drag the tree assembly off the bank so I got wet manually moving the trees into floating position. It actually felt good to get wet with mid 80 degree temps and no breeze.



This is the rear view of the trees behind the Barge being pulled across the pond.



The tree assembly is attached to the tree cable with a concrete block added for weight and set free. Since the tree cable is attached below the bottom buoy the concrete block weight drops the tree cable down near the bottom. The trees will eventually sink to the bottom as they become water logged. In the mean time the trees floating above the Corona reef should prove to be a huge fish magnet.

The top buoy is about 8 inches below the surface because of the current very high pond water level. As the water recedes the buoy will surface and stand there upright inviting the Barge to attach and do some fishing or Corona reef additions.



End: 16:30

Dwight, will you be able to do the same with future trees? How many nights did you lay awake thinking up this way to use the trees? Did you have fun getting that bottom anchor on the side of the barge without a crane?

Nice job Dwight. Based on our experience with the same basic concept I bet you catch a lot of fish there. Trees are hard to drag through the water. That is why I load them on a boat to take them out.

Funny thing is when you've finally put them out in the pond, you realize you could do the same effort about 10-20 times more and still be within the recommended ratio of cover!

Nice work! Didn't see the beers there though.

Yes, trees can be added by attaching them to the main buoy cable with a single concrete block as weight.

I thought of this layout when I saw those two blue boat bumpers (now buoys) hanging on the wall unused for years.

I didn’t lift that weight, ever. I filled it with concrete on the ground and used my two wheel cart to transfer it to and on to the Barge.


I have used three methods of tree moving across the pond. Drag them across the ice in the winter, load them on the Barge and drive to where needed, and tow them with the Barge in the water.

In my experience there is no ideal way to move trees on a pond unless you have access to a helicopter.


The beers came later.

I didn’t want to risk getting tangled up in the cables and being pulled down to the bottom of the pond because of some alcohol induced super-human tactical maneuver.

I was thinking that someone would want to wager on how long it takes those trees to move below the surface.

They went in on June 4th. The prize to be determined and I am open for suggestions in that area.

What can I say -- FANTASTIC!

I got back to the "Bear Den" (on the back side of Mt. Weather, VA) kind of late this evening. I don't get TV here, and even AM and FM radio is pretty spotty here. At least I have joy of the intermittent wireless Internet.

I brought up my news downloads for the day, and I had just finished reading and seeing some videos about Dr. Kevorkian before I clicked on Pond Boss, and this thread.

When I clicked on the the link, the first thing that came up was this picture:



It looked an awful lot like what I'd just seen in the Dr. Kevorkian news piece.

Anyway, great looking project. But, why isn't Tan involved in any of the action?

Dwight, how'd you like the temps today? Did the Geo keep up with cooling the place?

my guess is 45 days from hitting the water.

Tan was keeping cool is the air conditioned office.


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It was only 93 here today with strong winds coming across the pond. It was nothing like the 99 degrees on Monday.

The Geo unit has never failed to keep the temperature at the thermostat setting hot or cold. 72 year around.

From many years of using xmas tress I can tell you the sink rate depends. How dry/green the trees were will control. For example we put in a bucnh around Jan 1 and some are still above water but some sank in a few days , most withinn 60 days. They were new xmas trees not 6 mths old. My guess is Labor day.

The last tree is about to go under.

Ewest just about got it to the day, huh?

Labor Day is the day !

Wow! That was a big job to get those trees out there and it seems pretty well thought-out.

I have kinda the opposite problem - so much cover in our pond that we're trying to take out a few of the "floaters" so we can move our boats around.

In case you think we're crazy for taking out some cover, check out my pictures in the other thread about pond levels dramatically dropping during this drought we're having. I think you'll see that cover is not a problem in our pond. You can practically walk all over our pond on the logs, stumps, and brush piles when the water is low.