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When we were shooting some elevations to confirm the pond bottom, my operator mentioned that he was at 19'6" depth and that was my target depth of 20'. Needless to say it didn't take much ribbing from me that he was a little short... The next morning, the first thing he did is head to the bottom of the hole and he decided to give me 25'4"... even after silting in, it should be plenty deep.



Placing some broken block on my main under water peninsula.





Couple piles in the deep end of the pond. I have one at 20' and the other at 17' below.



Here's a final view of the bottom contours. (If you click on the pic you can pull up a full size pic to see it a little better)


Last edited by Huntmaster; 08/02/13 10:55 AM.

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Great updates Huntmaster! Looking great!

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I agree, you are doing a fantastic job of documenting and spending a lot of time with the pics. Thank you.

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Now that's a pond with some structure to it! Love it.

What kind of cover are you going to add?

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Thanks guys!! Glad to see it all coming together now and with today's cell phones documenting a project is so easy...

I haven't put them all together yet, but I have been running two game cameras on time lapse since we started... I played around with it a week ago when I downloaded the pics from the cameras and it will be pretty cool when it's done.

Most of the cover is going to be my concrete and the rip rap that we will be installing on the South and East sides. I will put some PVC structures on the West and North sides along with some pallet structures for the minnows.


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How are you getting water in this thing?


To Hell with Georgia...
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Here's a little background on the property which leads to how I plan to get water in the pond and maintain it;

My crop field (37 acres) has a conventional field tile system that drains into a underground storage tank and then is pumped into the ditches and then carried away. This is necessary because my field sits lower than the surrounding ditches and this system has been in place for 30+ years dating back to when my Grandfather originally cleared the property.

Sooo...I have what we will call a sump pump on steroids (4" electric float operated) already on the property and I have 37+ acres of water shed that feed it.

My plan from this point forward...I will get all of the habitat items in the pond basin and then temporarily replumb my pump and push the water from my field tile system into my pond basin. This will fill the pond up much faster than relying on mother nature to fill it. My guess is that by November I will have a full pond if not sooner depending on rain. Some of my neighbors ponds have taken six to eighteen months to fill up naturally, so since I have the pump at my disposal, I'm not waiting that long.

Once the pond is filled, it should hold within a foot of my high water elevation based on the natural water shed and rain that will be feeding it. In the coming years, if I have more evaporation than influx and the pond level continues to drop, I will then hard pipe my field sump pump and use that water to keep the pond filled on a as needed basis.

I know it's not necessarily a good idea to utilize field runoff as your water shed because of all the chemicals and fertilizers that are used on the field. However, I also plan to put all of my field into CRP with Warm Season Grass which will not need any fertilizer to establish or maintain in the future. I will likely get a little fertilizer load when I first fill it up, but all that should do is give the aquatic life a jump start and move the natural process along a little quicker.

Based on the ponds I've looked at in the area, most have very little water shed and hold water quite well.


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So, will you have a gate or valve at this pump to control when you need water? What happens when you get to much water in the pond, is there an overflow area?

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What are you doing for a dock?

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Originally Posted By: fish n chips
So, will you have a gate or valve at this pump to control when you need water? What happens when you get to much water in the pond, is there an overflow area?


When I hook it up temporarily, there won't be anything, just direct plumbed to the pump and run across the ground.

If I need to hard pipe it in, then I'll put a valve at the pump that will direct water to the pond or the ditch depending on the pond level.

I am putting in a drain tile right now that will move the water from the pond to the ditch in front of my house if it overfills for the short term. In the long term, I will likely put in a wetland out in the field to carry any excess as well.


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Originally Posted By: Bocomo
What are you doing for a dock?


I plan on doing a floating dock that will extend out in the water 20' or so and have a 16' x 16' platform with chairs on it. Pretty similar to some that have been posted on here in the dock pic thread. I need to have it setup so I can dock my 16.5' pontoon on it, have some seating area and also hold my feeder.

I have room for it on the Southside of my beach area.

I keep bouncing back and forth between floating and permanent, but for right now it floating.


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Here's a picture from yesterday morning taken from the roof of my house with a game camera that is doing a time lapse from the start of the project. I wish I had a bit of a wider angle lense, but it catches most everything.


Last edited by Huntmaster; 08/07/13 04:13 PM.

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Fine looking!

Rob C

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Cool photos. If you're using an iPhone I believe there's a way to stitch together panoramas from individual pictures if you need a "wider angle":



http://www.gottabemobile.com/2012/09/20/how-to-use-panorama-iphone-ios-6/ [video:youtube][/video]

Also re: dock, have you considered doing part permanent and part floating? Permanent walkway then a ramp to floating platform.

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The wide angle photos that I've already posted are from my HTC phone. The desire for a wide angle lens I was referring to is for the "Game Camera" that took the above photo and is doing a time lapse of the project.

I'll have to take a photo of it this weekend from my roof with my phone and it should show the entire pond quite well now.

Just saw your dock question...

I haven't really thought of doing half and half really. What would be the advantage of doing that?

Here's kinda what I was thinking but with a longer narrow dock to make room for my pontoon. That may be wishful thinking on my part though. Might be hard to get it out and around the platform on the end.


Last edited by Huntmaster; 08/07/13 05:02 PM.

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Cool project! Look forward to seeing the time-lapse video.

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Fixed portion for stability esp. if you're going to put furniture on it, float portion to maintain proximity to water.

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We placed the sand for the beach area yesterday.


We put non-woven geotex under the above water portion and a little ways down into the pond to keep the 12 inches of sand from getting pushed into the clay bottom.




Here's a finished shot of the beach area





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And now we have water!

I was going to just use my 4" filed pump, but I couldn't come up with any 4" hose at our shop. We use so little of that size, I didn't want to go out and buy any. So, I just grabbed a 2" submersible pump that we had on the shelf and 900' of hose. It won't come close to the volume of the 4" pump, but my water source wouldn't be able to keep up with the 4" pump anyways, so it might all equal out in the end.

Here's my 900' of 2" hose waiting to get spread out.



The tank where I put the 2" submersible sump.



The hose running on top of my berms. I had the pump push the water up on top of the berm as fast as I could to reduce the length that it needs to push the head. This will help the pump last and also increase the amount of water it can push. After the first 50-100', gravity is helping pretty much the rest of the way.



Here's the bottom of the pond where I put the end of the hose to limit erosion.



A pic just 24 hours later. To bad the top half won't fill up as quick as the bottom...



And again this morning before I left for work and before the heavy rains hit.



You can really see it moving as the piles in the bottom slowly get smaller.


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Lookin' good...


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We received 3-4" of rain since my picture yesterday morning and the pond added several feet of water in 24 hours. The point with rock on it is about 12' below full pool.

Now the easy half of the pond is filled and we are on to the slow half.


It looks like I better get my PVC habitat finished and placed on the small peninsula to the right before I have to do it after the water raises up.



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Is it worthwhile planting anything on those banks or do you expect rapid filling?

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As of this morning, I have 6.67' of water to go to full pool. At the current rate that I'm pumping, I should be close to full in three to four weeks without any rain. I do plan to get the pond edges planted as soon as we finish grading them out this week.


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You can add FHM already!

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Here's some of my DIY structures to resemble the fishhiding guys work.

Before bending into shape. I used 8" PVC as the base and cut the siding into 3-4" wide strips.



The kids helping me get them in place. It also gives an idea as to the size of the habitat.



The bottom three are sitting in about 8' of water and will be well within casting distance of my dock.



The bottom ones placed and the top four placed but not bent into shape yet.



Here's a view of all of them in place and the water coming up. You can see the newly placed rip rap in the background. I'll post more pics of that tomorrow after I get better pics.



A shot from this morning.



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