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Hi,

My name is Brent and I have subscribed in the past to Pond Boss the magazine but never contributed to the forum. We had a pond where we lived back then but it was already built and other than stocking and fishing I made no relevant decisions. Fast forward and now we live on a couple of hundred acres in East TX. We have lived here since 2015 and we are finally going forward with building a pond. I feel as if I have been building it in my head for the past 30 years so needless to say pretty excited. So far all I have done are dig test holes and gotten 2 bids. I also submitted my findings to the soil conversation dept and they will bore holes for further testing. Once they complete that and agree with my spot I am ready to go. My biggest concerns are whether to fertilize or not. Also pretty sure I want to plant something to ward off invasive species but have no idea what I should and naturally hesitant to plant anything at all. The pond should end up being 5ac ͏Pl͏u͏s and will solely be for bass. Oh there is a little existing hole that somewhat holds water right above location. I would like to dig that out hopefully to clay” while they are digging the big pond for a feeder fish location. I would probably have to aerate it and possibly fill from larger pond occasionally to make that work though. Anyway that’s pretty much it other than collecting and building cover to sink I am probably at a standstill for a couple of weeks. Today I did take 2 old filing cabinets, took all drawers out and drilled 3” holes all over. They look pretty cool and I will brush em up but thinking about cutting a big circle in them. My intent with the holes were to protect smaller fish but fear I might have made a fish trap. Once again excited to be back and I will hopefully have an update soon.

Brent

Brent, welcome and congratulations. As a generality, East Texas impoundments do need fertilization. You can do a test with the existing pond. It's all about the dirt.

Thanks Dave I am really struggling with that decision. Almost all of the watershed is pasture which gets fertized not sure if that matters. Also I’m planning to feed and try and plant something, This is where I get confused. Seems like I have read somewhere if you feed or plant you don’t fertilize. I do like the sound of increasing carrying capacity “fish” from fertilizing though.

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