Pond Boss Forums POND CONSTRUCTION Selecting a site Purchasing Property

Long time lurker here. Cant tell you how many hours of spent reading here. Finally getting serious on land purchase and looking for some opinions on property. Have my eyes on 5 or 6, but i will start with one that already has a 1/3 acre pond that i would look to expand. Lots of ponds in the area.Property is 30 acres Pros and cons of this site? Thanks

Goal of the pond would be to grow the biggest bass possible. Feeding and aerating as necessary. It looks to me as if this one would have plenty of runoff for a much larger pond?

Welcome to clan. New here myself. Good folks. What state are you in?


Pat W

Southeastern TN

If possible, larger is better. Big Bass in a small pond means very few bass.

Oh, i would want to expand this one as much as possible. I walked the property last week and it looks as if a lot of water may come through here.

Welcome CrazyJu,
...just expanded one myself this past summer. I went from a 1/4 acre to ~3/4 acre. How big are you wanting to go?

Hey CJ, glad you finally broke the silence - welcome aboard about 8 years late.

Congrats on the purchase - and fortunately for you an incredible pond building resource and Pond Boss family member Michael Grey operates in TN.

Michael Gray
615-308-5752
mgrayconstruction@yahoo.com

From first glance, looks like you could excavate and at least double the size by going upstream which appears to be silted in and might have once been part of the existing pond. If you are looking for a LMB fishery, I agree with Tony you'll want it as big as possible. I think with excavation you could be pushing 3/4 - 1 acre without increasing the dam height. If you increase the dam height and/or width with a little more excavation, you could probably exceed the 1 acre mark. Unless the dam is in poor shape and needs work, I don't envision it being too expensive a project [relatively speaking].

Once you make a decision on the right property, I encourage you to contact Michael and have him perform a site analysis and inspect current condition of pond[s] if they exist. Will help you budget for the project prior to making a purchase.

Keep us in the loop - exciting times!

Didnt realize i had joined so long ago. He looks to be about 3hours away, do you know how far he travels?

Exciting times CJ, looking for your new property and new pond.

I've got a few general suggestions and some specific to this property.

First, if you are looking for land, you have a blank canvas to create your masterpiece. A lot of people have to work with the land and location they already have. When you are looking, you might be able to find a property with a steep ravine that would be a perfect place to dam up and build a pond. The ravine might be a negative for other potential landowners but an asset to you.

In my opinion, building a new pond is preferable to enlarging/refurbishing an old one. In the last couple years I've built three new ponds (one 3 acre and a couple small sediment and forage ponds) and refurbished and expanded three ponds (one for son, one for daughter and one on my own property). I'm not a contractor but instead a semi-retired farmer with some time on my hands and some construction equipment. I can tell you from first hand experience, building new is easier and probably in a lot of cases cheaper than cleaning out and enlarging an old pond. Working with new dirt is a whole lot easier than dealing with 40 year old pond muck. Something to keep in mind when looking at properties.

But do not shy away from properties with old ponds. This property you are looking at is a good example. You have had good suggestions that the current pond might be able to be expanded up slope and made larger. Good ides, but in my opinion an even better idea if the area above the pond is large enough is to leave the old pond as is and create a new pond above the old pond with the new pond overflow running into the old pond.

Why? For the reason stated above for one. Easier to build new than clean out old. But it would also give you a lot of other options. Here are some advantages to building a new pond and doing only modest maintenance on the old pond (like cleaning up the dam, etc.)

To reach your goal of large LMB, it is going to take several years. Leaving the old pond intact gives you at least something to fish while the new pond comes on line.

The old pond could become a forage pond to raise forage fish to feed your monster bass or for bait.

The old pond could become a "kids" pond filled with lots of BG and small LMB for fast action fishing for modest size fish.

You will eventually need to cull smaller LMB out of your main pond to allow the few to get to record size. You could put some of them in the old pond. See kids pond above.

Don't have kids? If you are managing the main pond for monster LMB it means you will have fewer large fish (as opposed to lots of regular size fish) = means less fish to bite = harder to catch. Having a second pond with easy to catch modest fish might be a change of pace from waiting all day for the monster fish to bite.

Having more than one pond gives you lots of management options. Building new is easier than cleaning out old. Someone else's junk property might be the perfect "pond" property for you. Three things to keep in mind as you look at properties.

This is a great site. Thanks everyone for the input. Ravine property is plentiful here and cheap, i hadnt really gave it much thought, great idea! No kids, so i truly would like to just focus on the big LM. I spend around 200 days a year on the water chasing these fish, so i get my fair share of catching in. I keep waiting for the intervention meeting from the wife.
Here is the second property. I havent got access to this one yet, just driven by. It is 65 acres all wooded with creeks on north and south boundries. This one is all wooded with no visible existing pond. I am worried that this property would not have enough runoff to support a larger pond? To me this one looks like most of water would be diverted around property? Opinions?

It does look like the second property is not well suited for pond placement. The best places for ponds straddle the property lines. General consensus here is do NOT share a pond with a neighbor if you can help it.

Also on #2 I would be worried about being backed up to a park in that you will get a lot of "wanderers" onto your land, especially if you had an attractant like a pond.

IMHO land #1 is a much better piece to hold a pond, and as far as I can tell, you can put a pretty large one on there. At least an acre.

One point to consider when looking at property is the neighbors. If there are possible trespassing issues, and people walking/sneaking in to fish your pond, they can completely screw up your pond in a short time. The more neighbors you have, the more potential problems. All you need is one great neighbor to sell their place to a not so great neighbor and the troubles begin.

Another thing to think about in wanting a "trophy" LMB pond is the number of fish that you can raise in that pond. Basically you can have approximately 75 to 100 pounds of LMB in a pond if it's aerated and supplementally fed. That is LMB of all sizes and ages. Typically in a smaller pond it is hard to trophy LMB, but that also depends on your defination of a trophy.

You should order this book and read it to make sure your goals will fit your dreams. Raising Trophy Bass

If you want a fish that fights hard, and is easier to raise and manage, look into Hybrid Striped Bass.

Thanks guys, keep the suggestions coming. Ideally I want a 4 to 6 acre pond. If that can be done within the radius im searching, im not sure. I just missed out on a 54 acre plot that had a 7ace pond on it. It is hard to find 50 acres here that do not have a pond on it. Property # 3 is probably my favorite looking spot so far. It has a 4acre pond on the property bordering to the south and a 1 acre pond on the property bordering the north. Looks like two small streams merge in the southwest and connect the two bordering ponds. Does this look like enough water for 4 to 6 acres? The land to the east is available also.

CJ,

That looks like a really good piece of property according to the topo map.

Go to www.acme.com/planimeter to figure out how big the watershed is. I would also look up the web soil survey and find out what type of soils are present.

Mess around on those two sites and come back with any questions you may have.

Ive played around with the planimeter and can not figure out , and not real good at reading topos yet. And my county does not have a web soil survey available that i can find. It looks like around 100 acres for prop. #3, but this is also coming from someone who does not have clue about topos.

Try this one. http://websoilsurvey.sc.egov.usda.gov/App/WebSoilSurvey.aspx

Property # 4 I really like the area this one is in. Looks to me this one would have plenty of run off. I marked where I envision the pond.The proptery is 50acres Opinions on this one?

Look at where the stream is shown. It goes along the eastern border of the property. The satellite image looks like the water is more down the middle along the edge of the R treeline. Since those are 10' gradients, you don't have much slope to deal with. Your pondbuilder might have some good insight to offer, but you don't want a dam at the property line.

For me, too many adjoining properties. I am bordered by 2 large farm holdings and only 3 other properties even in sight. Pay careful attention to how many are mfg homes or trailers. Speaks to the marketability in general and the type of people. That junk strewn place about 6 lots South...

Thanks for the input dnickolaus. If i excluded every property that had mfg homes near it, i would have to move out of the state. I am in southern TN Unforturnately, most of the properties here are bordered by many parcels, not much i can do about that without getting farther out.

#4 looks like the creek was diverted at some point rather than following its natural course. I would hike over there and see what is up. I can see where this option would require quite a bit of soil movement to get decent depth throughout, but may not be too bad if a 5' average is acceptable with some deep spots near the dam.

It certainly has potential though, and beats having a park up to the border of your land.

Another run off consideration is that it comes from your property and not the neighbors. You have no control on what they do to their land that can affect yours. As often said, we all live downstream from someone.

I used to get a lot of water from a neighbors land. Then ownership changed and the new owner planted gramma grass to slow down erosion. I don't blame him a bit. I think a guy ought to do what he wants on/to his land. But it certainly has affected me.

An exception to my feelings might be if he started a chicken raising operation and I got pollutants. Or, maybe a cattle feed lot. I am aware of a private lake community that had a reputation for growing huge bass. A chicken raising operation up stream has ruined the 60 acre lake and turned it into a polluted mess.

Another consideration is the soil. Assure that it will hold water. Rocky or sandy soil can be iffy.

Not so much pond related is exactly who are the neighbors. I looked at one place that seemed to have everything I wanted as investment/development property. However, a drive around the area showed some neighbors straight out of the movie Deliverance. I passed on that one and, in the last 10 years, it still hasn't sold.

Well Deliverance was filmed not too far from here

Property # 5 is what i have been looking for... except for its location. This will add 30 minutes each way for the daily commute. How far are some of you driving? This property is 75 acres, with an existing 8 acre pond that was built around 2001. Anything jump out about this property?

Other than the long commute and taking away the fun of building it yourself, I see no problems.

If you were in NY, I would warn against a long driveway and winters. A real pain in the neck having to deal with snow and gravel on long driveways.