Pond Boss Forums POND CONSTRUCTION Selecting a site WHY DO YOU OWN A POND? (forum members must vote)

1. Provide a quality fishery / occasional table food.

2. Hobby to occupy my time.

3. Hopefully enhance land value

4. To aggravate me with irritating leaks

Nice John! It's hard to say that they don't all apply.

If you make me pick one...then #2, then 1, then 3, that leaves 4 which is by protest!

A pond is like a big pile of Cocain, just can't get enough!

CANDIDATE LIST
16) To provide escape, peace, and relaxation (therapeutic or otherwise)
24) A fun place to gather with family and friends
1) Quality private fishery
6) To attract wildlife for viewing and/or preservation

The original goal was simply to increase land value since there was only a seasonal BOW. We only hoped for a livestock tank. Now, everything has changed!
1) Quality private fishery
2) To enhance land value
3) Ornamental landscaping
5) To attract wildlife for hunting
6) To attract wildlife for viewing and/or preservation
8) Grow-out pond (to raise young fish for transfer)
9) Swimming hole
10) To study aquaculture
11) To study all of nature and/or biology
12) To water livestock (not yet but hopefully soon for tax exemption)
16) To provide escape, peace, and relaxation (therapeutic or otherwise)
17) Reduce local insect population (fish eat bugs)
19) To create and enjoy the sounds of moving water (When it overflows)
20) A family or personal challenge of actually building it
21) A family or personal challenge to maintain a complex ecosystem
22) To provide safe, fresh fish as food
24) A fun place to gather with family and friends
_________________________

Here goes my list
2 enhance land value
3 ornamental landscaping
4 provide affordable and convenient water frontage real estate
6 attract wildlife for viewing
9 SWIMMING HOLE
14 to provide powered water sports -- been a jet, jet boat, skiers pulled by side by sides
15 to provide non-powered water sports
16 provide escape, peace, and relaxation
20 a personal challenge
24 A FUN PLACE TO GATHER WITH FAMILY AND FRIENDS

1.) It was a cheap source of dirt o build my house on.
2.) I love to fish so having my own private fishery was a given.
3.) For the distractions of everyday stress.

I like that Mike, especially #3.
Working with Biologists at the state level, they tend to follow guidelines set forth in a manner that is pretty basic, not to knock what they do, but I wanted a place I could mix things up and try what I was told "wouldn't work here".
Wasn't specifically for fishing, but that's a part of sampling plan.
The challenge of balance..

6. To provide a swimming hole for my sister's labrador retriever. He will swim until his legs are wobbly when he gets out.

3
6
11
21
24

1. To rid myself of excess money.

2. To learn something new.

3. To build a good fishery for myself, my friends, & my relatives.

4. Love a challenge that is never finished, no matter what.

5. Enjoy nature, except for the cormorants part.

1,16,6,20,24

It all laid in to my mind thirty-two years ago when we got this place, with a fair size ravine running down one side, and the thought of damming it. My mother's last husband (an up and down but ultimately successful oil explorer), owned ranches and also developed and sold them. Always based on running water and building lakes to enhance the value in the western Texas hill country. Finally got the pond four years ago.


CANDIDATE LIST
Going into it, given the opportunity of money and a friend with a backhoe/loader, four years ago,
my goals for a poly-lined 1/10 acre pond, 8' deep, with a recirculating 100 foot creek, cascading about twenty feet over several waterfalls, each with a mini-pond space behind it, together with some bog filters growing pretty blooming plants. Yeah right, I had little idea of what we were to discover, and the description of my goals above is really, what I got after four years. But, diving in, 2 1/3 acre lot, no HOA review approval (if you ask, it is just a water feature) and I can always ask for forgiveness. I got away with it...I'm about ready to have a neighborhood open house.
Goals:
1) Quality private fishery
19) To create and enjoy the sounds of moving water (ie; waterfall)
20) A family or personal challenge of actually building it
24) A fun place to gather with family and friends (Covering the steep sided liner of the creek, with rock, concrete and mortar, took over a year...thankfully mostly free rock...but coming to the realization that there was no way to make water holding mini-ponds using the liner and the black foam...the foam won't stick to poly...here comes the dumb tax! Covering the liner with concrete and mortar while re-building the waterfalls on that. So, gather family and friends has only just started in the last year.)
16) To provide escape, peace, and relaxation (therapeutic or otherwise) (What a Godsend of serenity this developing pond has provided, unforeseen, especially over the last year.)

What's become apparent over four years:
16) To provide escape, peace, and relaxation (gotta repeat!)
6) To attract wildlife for viewing and/or preservation (Fawns getting their first drink, birds of all types taking a bath in the creek, various frogs showing up, coons and all sorts of critters on camera.)
21) A family or personal challenge to maintain a complex ecosystem (Yep, it's an ongoing commitment that cannot be ignored, and it needs an annual stipend for maintenance. A realization of stewardship!)
9) Swimming hole...(maybe, just took out leaves and pumped muck, but seems to have liberated a lot of dissolved mineral nutrients ("ashes" left from intense bacterial treatment) that were in the muck, to cause a big bloom. )
2) To enhance land value...(maybe!? Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. And would you not explain to a prospective newbie the commitment they must accept?)
23) Water source for fire fighting. (I only saw this in a post recently...an insurance discount for water supply. I could be a neighborhood resource...I have about 130,000 gallons...and the nearest fire hydrant is about a half mile away...and we're near the top of the hill.)

I tried!