Seriously consider contacting PBoss magazine editor B.Lusk about publishing the story of your pond build. This will be a unique story because you have a several pictures using aerial views. Pond build stories are always interesting reads in the magazine. The wording you use here on the forum is very acceptable as a draft copy for Lusk to use in an article. He will put any 'polish' that's needed for the article.
aka Pond Doctor & Dr. Perca Read Pond Boss Magazine - America's Journal of Pond Management
Here are a couple pictures from December 2016. The guy getting me the equipment brought out a track hoe to pull all the stumps. As you can see, the ground was starting to freeze pretty deep and it made removing some of the larger stumps a bit more difficult.
Seriously consider contacting PBoss magazine editor B.Lusk about publishing the story of your pond build. This will be a unique story because you have a several pictures using aerial views. Pond build stories are always interesting reads in the magazine. The wording you use here on the forum is very acceptable as a draft copy for Lusk to use in an article. He will put any 'polish' that's needed for the article.
I'll give it a shot Bill. Thank you. I feel like I need to put a disclaimer in here in that I'm on an extreme budget and have done ALL the work by myself. This being said, I've still tried to do it "right", but probably not to the extreme that many would, or could afford. I've spent a lot of time reading and researching various resources including, of course, this very forum. I've got ideas for the future as far as stocking, aeration, and other management practices are concerned. I don't want to upset anyone when I ask for advice and end up going another route because of financial restrictions if that makes sense. Honestly, my only goal of this project is a place to relax and spend quality time w/ my family.
Here are a couple pictures from October of 2017. Yes that's right, the project sat for nearly a year while I was waiting on equipment. Needless to say, my wife wasn't overly pleased with the view trade; once green trees for a couple months of bare dirt followed by a great 2 acre crop of 8' tall ragweed all summer/fall (I would have kept it sprayed, but it was so rough from pulling stumps with the track hoe). The quail loved it, but our seasonal allergies, not so much.
Finally, I was able to get a hold of a smaller dozer to strip the black dirt off. I pushed only a little behind the dam as I was constricted by a fence that was staying put, and starting making piles at each end of the would-be dam. I was shocked with the amount of black dirt in some areas (up to 8 feet) as this area is notorious for thin topsoil. Decades of farming before being placed in CRP had washed 12 acres of runoff area down into the ditch. It certainly would have been nice to have for the yard when building my house a few years back!
In the second photo, you'll spot the on-site supervisor checking on progress (my then 8 y.o. daughter).
I remember your project - guess I did not realize its still in progress. Only thing I would add is be sure and back up all your photos and videos. I had four 16GB cards of drone videos and photos of my pond under construction, inside an envelope inside my laptop case. It disappeared. I did have a bit of it stashed on Google Drive.
Glad you are back and posting some pics! Looking forward to the rest of the story. I think every pond in northern Missouri should be close to full, or full. I’ve even got water running out my drain pipe. You should have got ahold of me if you had some nuisance quail. I would have come in and helped reduce the population a little! Looking forward to the updates. Glad you’ve got it done! Jeff
10 yr old pond, 1 ac, 15' deep. RES, YP, GS, FHM (no longer), HBG (decreasing), SMB, and HSB (only two have been seen in 5 yrs) I think that's about all I should put in my little pond. Otter attack in 2023.
Glad you are back and posting some pics! Looking forward to the rest of the story. I think every pond in northern Missouri should be close to full, or full. I’ve even got water running out my drain pipe. You should have got ahold of me if you had some nuisance quail. I would have come in and helped reduce the population a little! Looking forward to the updates. Glad you’ve got it done! Jeff
SetterGuy it is hard to imagine filling a pond from October to March in north Missouri! I'm excited to move forward with the project for sure!
I received an 80,000 lb. early Christmas gift December 19th, 2017 in the form of a Cat D8N dozer. You could not have beat the smile off my face after waiting for so long to get the project started. The excitement I felt was the culmination of every hour I'd spent as a kid excavating with Tonka toys in the back yard and riding with my grandfather who ran a dozer for a living his entire adult life.
It wasn't all without a catch, though. We'd had a mild winter thus far, but normal temperatures were less than a week away and the dozer was moving to another project the end of the month. On top of that, I'm a school teacher and we still had two days of school left before winter break! This meant I would have to push through the night to optimize time, which wouldn't have been a big deal if the dozer had operational lights! I spent a couple hours rigging up led flood lights onto the hood and back of the cab of the dozer and hooking them to a deep cycle battery with an inverter. My other grandfather, king of the bush fix, would have been proud.
Here are a few pictures. One is from the first night rigging up the lights and the others are from the next day, continuing to stockpile black dirt on the ends of the dam. In one of the pictures, you can see the stockpile near my shed. As that pile grew and space got limited, I could easily see over the top of my shed as I climbed it with the dozer. I had never run a dozer of this size before, and getting the feel for it in the dark that first night was a bit unnerving, but they really are very simple machines to operate.
I remember your project - guess I did not realize its still in progress. Only thing I would add is be sure and back up all your photos and videos. I had four 16GB cards of drone videos and photos of my pond under construction, inside an envelope inside my laptop case. It disappeared. I did have a bit of it stashed on Google Drive.
It took far longer than I had hoped, but it was worth it. I backed up my photos immediately, so no problems there, but I did have a problem with one of my SD cards while getting some footage with my drone which was really frustrating.
Nice dozer. I don’t know squat about them, but that’s one of the largest, correct? Looks like it’s got a lot of life left that’s for sure. I first thought it was new. If we keep getting this much moisture in northern MO it’ll be a very unusual spring, that’s for sure. I feel sorry for the folks north and west of us. Nebraska, and Iowa. Whew..
10 yr old pond, 1 ac, 15' deep. RES, YP, GS, FHM (no longer), HBG (decreasing), SMB, and HSB (only two have been seen in 5 yrs) I think that's about all I should put in my little pond. Otter attack in 2023.
Nice dozer. I don’t know squat about them, but that’s one of the largest, correct? Looks like it’s got a lot of life left that’s for sure. I first thought it was new. If we keep getting this much moisture in northern MO it’ll be a very unusual spring, that’s for sure. I feel sorry for the folks north and west of us. Nebraska, and Iowa. Whew..
The dozer was in great shape. Cat makes them up to D11's which are exponentially bigger than this model (something like 370 gross HP compared to almost 1000 gross HP on the D11). The amount of dirt it would move in one push was mind boggling. I had an absolute blast running it!
I'm hoping we have a somewhat normal year from here on out. I shutter at the thought of another drought like we had last year. Yes, our neighboring states certainly are hurting. It seems like we get way more extreme weather and less and less of the "normal" stuff....
From December 19th through Christmas Eve I pushed dirt with every spare minute I had. I would literally work until 2 or 3 in the morning, then maintenance/check the machine, go to town to get fuel, and run back for a few hours sleep before doing it all over again. I really wish that I could have had more of a window to enjoy the process and operating the dozer, but it just simply wasn't an option.
Here are a couple pictures of the process along the way. Another downside to not having much time is I really didn't get much drone footage because daylight was so precious. I'll try to keep posting stuff as I find a few minutes and should be able to get some video up soon.
Here are a few more pictures of the process and a couple links to videos that my brother took one day when he was out checking on the project.
A few of the pictures will show the first real clay being pushed up on the dam. I had SO much black dirt down in this ravine that I actually got a little worried about having enough clay to line everything. The north side of the pond was very gently sloping and I was able to dig out as much clay as I would ever need to put about a 3' layer along the entire front side of the dam and track it in. Most of the basin was already clay by the time I finish digging everything out. I did hit a layer of shale about 10" thick that I packed good clay over anywhere it was exposed. I know a sheepsfoot roller would have been ideal, but it wasn't an option for me at this point. I did everything I could with what I had to compact it as best I could. I know a dozer's footprint isn't heavy comparatively, but I'm hoping having a larger one made some difference. Time will tell.
The 8" drain pipe and seep collar were delivered on 12/22 and were immediately welded and put in place as a buddy of mine has a portable welder and got right to work. We hooked the pipe to the corner of the dozer blade and used my skid steer to move it into position as best we could. The pipe was almost 120' long, so it was not easy to do with a big machine and limited space. There are a lot of logistics to think about when placing the pipe! I tried to push some clay mix over the top of the dam on either side of the opening I had left so I could backfill the pipe once in position. I had to hand dig under the pipe for the seep collar to fit into our trench. I feel like my dam compaction is pretty good as this was nearly impossible to do even with a good sharp tile spade. We used the dozer blade to massage it down into final position. All of this would have been a lot easier with a track hoe for sure.
If you watch the videos, you'll see me starting to back fill the drain pipe from the back side of the dam. It is pretty darn steep at this point and I was glad to have a couple days of running the dozer under my belt before this portion of the project. I won't lie, there is a certain point when operating a 40 ton piece of equipment that isn't yours, on a steep grade, with little room to maneuver that makes you as nervous as a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs!
You won't see it in the videos, but I pushed just enough dirt in there to cover the pipe and plate well and then began tracking over it several times to compact that area. I ran across it and up and down it several times. It was so nice to be able to run all along the back of the dam after that and start to really shape it.
Once the pipe was in, I was really committed to the project. I needed to make sure and get the basin and dam finished before it froze solid (just 2 days away) or began to fill with water.
10 yr old pond, 1 ac, 15' deep. RES, YP, GS, FHM (no longer), HBG (decreasing), SMB, and HSB (only two have been seen in 5 yrs) I think that's about all I should put in my little pond. Otter attack in 2023.
Seems to be holding well. Less than 1/2" drop in almost 2 weeks. I would expect some drop for being the first time it has ever filled up? Am I right on this or completely off base?
I’d be super happy with 1/2” drop in 2 weeks. When things dry up and we stop any rainfall I lose about 1/4” in a day..
10 yr old pond, 1 ac, 15' deep. RES, YP, GS, FHM (no longer), HBG (decreasing), SMB, and HSB (only two have been seen in 5 yrs) I think that's about all I should put in my little pond. Otter attack in 2023.
Seems to be holding well. Less than 1/2" drop in almost 2 weeks. I would expect some drop for being the first time it has ever filled up? Am I right on this or completely off base?
Yeah got to saturate the banks. They will absorb a fair amount on initial fill.
Finally back to continue sharing the pond build journey. I'm hoping post most of the rest of the project in the next couple weeks before things get really, really busy.
To finish up the project, I had less than two days to: 1) finish pushing dirt to the dam 2) lining the front side with 2-3' of good clay 3) shape the dam and continue tracking it in with each layer of clay added 4) push the two big piles of black dirt over the top and face of the dam 5) push my rock and stumps back down into the basin to provide structure 6) general clean up and finishing touches. I finished everything I could at about 2:30 in the morning on Christmas eve. It had been really cold for over 30 hours now and had been snowing steadily for a few hours when I finally finished. I considered the dam to be 100% done as far as construction and as smooth as I could get it with a D8 dozer in the dark and snow. That would be easy to work on later, when it thawed next spring. To say that the basin was exactly as I wanted it would be a stretch. There were a few things as far as fish structure and shape that I would have liked to have spent a bit more time on. It had been a whirlwind 5 day project, and it was a lot of fun, just wish I had more time to enjoy it and change just a couple things. Now, it was time for a few other projects before it started to fill.
Here are a couple of pictures. One is a view out our back door when I was finishing pushing the black dirt over the dam on 12/23. The other is Christmas Eve after the snow had fallen. Hopefully I can get more posted soon.
As you will see in these pictures and future ones, the pond basin is pretty rough with piles of dirt (which I know will erode and be pretty flat eventually), rocks everywhere, stumps and brush all over, and even some other junk down in it. This was completely intentional as I wanted all kinds of varying areas and habitat for fish. It would have been easy to push it all up neat and clean, but that was something I did not want. Some people will look at it and shudder, and that's okay.
Looks good to me. It’s a big BOW compared to mine. Plenty of room for structure of all kinds. I’m looking forward to seeing “the rest of the story”.
10 yr old pond, 1 ac, 15' deep. RES, YP, GS, FHM (no longer), HBG (decreasing), SMB, and HSB (only two have been seen in 5 yrs) I think that's about all I should put in my little pond. Otter attack in 2023.
After finishing the dam, and thinking that we would have a normal year precipitation wise, I wanted to get the dock and a few other projects completed before the pond gained measurable water. I was, of course, on a budget as well as not interested in a floating dock, but rather one that would be permanently fixed (or at least so I thought.....I will get to that later). The dock was to have a slip for an old pontoon boat I had managed to land and have a ramp for access to the bank as well as the island. The overall platform was a 24x24 foot square (minus the slip for the pontoon).
After some research, I chose to re-purpose some of the black locust timber that was cut out of the original ditch. Everything I could find about them said they would have no problem holding up underwater for decades due to them being almost all heartwood. It wasn't hard to find larger, decently straight candidates for my posts.
My largest issue was the fact that there was nearly solid rock in the area where the dock was to be built. It was impossible to dig any kind of hole for the posts. My solution was a couple of things. One, level an area for each post and place a large flat rock down. Two, center each post on each rock and brace it up. Three, pile rocks and dirt around the base of each post to provide some amount of anchoring. I managed to get this done with the help of my skid loader, but it was still a fair undertaking for one person.
Once the main posts were braced, I used a transit to mark elevations and notch the posts with a chainsaw. Getting the 2x12 band lumber attached made me feel a lot better about all those posts sticking up in the air with not much holding them. I used 2x10 joists and deck boards to finish out the platform. I've built cabinets and furniture for various projects in the past, and this was certainly not cabinet worthy work, but for the terrain, elements, lack of man power, and the materials used, it would do just fine. I really felt like the dock couldn't go anywhere since it was all tied together on top, but as a final step I used a couple heavy rocks and some cable to anchor the front side.
Here are a few pictures of the project. The dock story isn't finished, to say the least.......
If you are in an area that freezes, your greatest foe for dock stability will be when the wind blows the ice floe that freezes and locks up against the dock verts.