Pond Boss Forums POND CONSTRUCTION Creating habitat My Dug Pond Project

I was out of town a bunch last week, but I have them on my list to get in this week! I didn't really anticipate that the water would move quite as well as it has, but that's a great thing.

So much rain this year! Post some stocking photos

Just make sure you have a reliable source for the FHM and inspect the goods before adding them in. Too many stories here on the PBF about people being sold "minnows" and ending up with something else mixed in...

What an awesome fish paradise!
The contour work is exceptional, along with the mix of substrates/bottom material. Your custom "Keeper" models are perfect, well done!!!

The pond is filling quite well now. Since this pic was taken the pond has filled even more. As of this morning, we were between 3-4' below full pool.

Well I took the kids with me this past weekend and we were able to pick up 10 lbs of FHM and 75 2-3" RES. They made the trip home in good shape and are enjoying their new digs...

Kids had a ball releasing some of the FHM, I'm not sure how many lived that they let go, but they had fun. They keep asking me if we can go see the red ears and minnows.

I made some SMB spawning areas. They are not 100% complete, but I got them as far as I could with the materials that I have.

I have these placed in 2.5-3' of water and spaced about 30' apart along two sides of the pond. I have added some rip rap and minnow cages to the back of them after I took these pics. I'll post pics of them later.

I also trenched in a 4" corrigated pipe for an overflow and installed a 1" air line, electric and a water line that runs from my future dock to my barn.

Here's the finished beach area. I boxed in the sand with buried 4x6's to give me an edge to contain the grass.

It looks GREAT!!! I can't wait to see it full.

Looks like your doing it up right!!

Not sure about this, but will the FHM spawn sites be to deep. I always thought they liked it near the surface.

Pond is filling up nicely. I measured last night and we were only 1' 10" below full pool.

Here's a finished SMB spawning bed before the water came up.



Here's some of the SMB spawning areas under water now.

I require an overall shot...


:o)

Is this the overall shot you were looking for?



We had to stop the pumps for the past couple days because we are grading and seeding the area where the hose was running. So we haven't gained any ground since Monday when I took this photo.
On a good note, we got a nice rain shower right after we planted the grass around the pond and it has germinated quite nicely.

A few days ago I decided to do something a little different to speed up filling the pond...

Well...I added another pump to the mix and I'm using my future outfall, my ditch and gravity to move the water over 900'.



This ditch only has water in it a couple days a year, so I plugged my culvert and ran a pump in it filling the ditch up until it covered my outfall and pushed water uphill back into my pond...



I added a hose to my future outfall so the running water wouldn't wash out my sand and stated pumping.



By adding the second pump to the mix, I went from around 45-50 gallons per minute to around 130 gallons per minute. As mentioned above, we had to shut the pumps down the last two days so we could finish grading and seeding, but it would've been full by tomorrow if we wouldn't have.

I will take and post a picture tomorrow of the outfall area as it is completely filled with water now.

Good job, and thanks for all the pictures...

Man does that look nice.

Are you going to plant any trees around, or keep it open, and do you have an army of teenage boys to keep all that grass mowed?

WOW that was fast.

I will be planting some trees, but not too many to block my view of the field behind as I like watching the wildlife. I will probably do scattered clusters on top of the berms in the back corners, some along the beach area to screen my neighbors and then a fair amount of them on the left side to screen another neighbor out.

I will only regularly mow between the house and the pond then around the beach/pole barn/dock area. I will let most of the berms grow natural and only mow a couple times a year to keep the weeds at bay. I'm a huge fan of mature natural looking grass, so I'll only mow what will make access around the pond comfortable and just maintain the rest.

I know, kinda surprised me a little as well. I started pumping water on August 10th and I was hoping to get it filled by November at first. The more I thought about filling it and stopping erosion of the bottom contours from rain, the more I wanted it done. As you know when you get to the top, things really start to slow down, so that's when I added the other pump and really picked up the pace.

I was hoping to reach full pool before I leave tomorrow for a antelope/elk hunt, but when I come back in two weeks, the grass should've filled in nicely and it will be full.

Good luck on the hunt! Where and what state?

If you let the grass stay long near the pond edge, it will discourage resident geese from using your pond. They like to walk out of a pond to graze on grass, and don't like walking thru long grass.

thanks! I'm Going To Wyoming. Antelope In The South West Part Of State And Elk In North East Part.

Nice Tip For The Geese!!

My cousin lives in Casper, and we usually stomp around in 72 or 73 for speed goats. Still haven't found a place for Elk (rifle) yet, so my buddy and I are still maxed out on preference points.

Good luck! I want to see pics when you get back!!

From 2008




Same year, same trip, although this is from when we were chasing Mulies in the Greys River area.

Well, I made it back to a full pond!!!

It also has good grass growing around it as well. Now that the grass is coming up pretty well and the pond is full, I think I'm going to remove some of the silt fence this week since it looks so bad...



The outfall is working pretty good, because when I was gone my wife emailed me to tell me to have my neighbor shut off the pump because the water was up over the banks after a real heavy rain that we had. Now that it has settled back down some, I am still about 3" over my designed water level. Using my ditch as an outfall is tough because it is basically flat for so long, the water doesn't move that fast.

I will watch it over the next few weeks and if it wants to stay close to where it is, I may just adjust a few things and let that be the final elevation, but time will tell.

After doing a quick tour of the pond, I did notice that the geese and the deer have already moved in...

Well here are your hunting pics...

My speed goat...



Some scenery pics from the elk hunt...





I burned six points on this tag and it was well worth it. Being one point behind max, I had to settle for a second level unit or wait another 10+ years and that wasn't going to happen...I wanted to elk hunt this year!

I was in bugling bulls pretty well every day and then I proceeded to goof up on my best shot opportunity on the last morning. I some how sailed my arrow right over the back of a nice 6 point bull that was standing broadside at 35 yards... I am still trying to figure out how I managed that, but it was a fun trip regardless.

Beautiful pictures! Sorry to hear about the Elk tho. I just bought this years preference points today. So, after this year it'll be 8 for Elk, 5 Mulie and 5 Pronghorn.