Pond Boss Forums POND CONSTRUCTION Creating habitat New member & New Pond

Was able to get the muck out of deepest part of the pond and some good clay dirt worked in before the freeze for some peace of mind. This area was dug through some limestone and wanted to make sure and get a good seal here.

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Working on a few artificial structures for fish while the pond bottom is still either dry or frozen. Here's the start of the first one. Need to finish adding the pex tubing to the sticks of pvc to create some branch like structure. This will be the largest as it's made of 20' sticks of pvc. Most left over from my siphon system I used to drain the pond several times during construction.

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Nice work !

Post a finished pic of the structure so we can add it to the structure archive.

Well my laziness has bit me in the a**. Instead of driving to pick up a bar guard for the intake pipe I ordered one online. Still waiting on it. I figured only snow this time of year so no hurry and it saved my an hour and a half of driving. Here's the pond after our rain and ice event a few days ago. Now it's snowing today with about 4" of snow on the ground and more coming down and no bar guard on the pipe.

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I was able to get the bar guard on this morning without draining the pond. Took about 30 minutes to get feeling back into my hands and glad I don't have to repeat this job. The pipe was about 8" below the water surface so I was able to drill a couple of holes in the pipe with a long bit and secure it with some 1/2" wide heavy plastic zip ties to make sure it doesn't pull out of the pipe.

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I have 3 of these in vertical pipes and they are just held in place by gravity. I did wire one in a horizontal pipe in the past but that one now has an elbow that turned it up vertical.

Tried to work on my fish structures today. I quickly found out pvc is really brittle when cold. Almost impossible to drill without breaking. Looks like temps next weeks in the 40s with a day or two at 50 so will make another attempt then. I need to get it done soon. The deeper part of the pond is about full and and close to the flats. I also put the trail camera back up. Lots of deer and turkey sign.

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Looks like it is off to a good start!

Finished up the larger fish structure. Should make for a good area to hold fish. 20 foot in diameter by 6 foot tall. Still have two smaller ones that I plan to make in one of the shallower areas.

2021-01-14_03-04-13

You will always know where your honey hole is. That's a pretty good looking structure. It's like a fish mansion.

from my experience i would ruff up the outside of the pvc. On my first ones i added to the pond i don't see many fish around them. I don't think they feel much comfort in being against something white where they stand out. After ruffing the pipe up you will see more of mother natures plants and animals attach thenselves to the pipe which make the pipe more natural and may hide the fish alittle more.

Maybe hit with some green spray paint? Would be much easier than scuffing that much pvc

looks great!!!! have any osage orange on the property? they make excellent brush pile material . I would make a pile that extends perpendicular from the bank and transitions from relatively shallow water to deep water - this way fish can relate to that pile throughout the seasons. It can provide for some great fishing action for kids. The osage will last several years where as some other woods will only last 2-3 max. Locust is a good alternative as well

Osage orange will outlast the pond pretty much, no? that stuff just doesnt rot, we used to use it for posts and my dad, rest his soul, used to say it will out last the hole. and a very prolific root system that will make some amazing fish habitat.

Yes on osage orange. We have a bunch and makes great firewood as well. I have a couple of stumps that I dug out this spring I plan to add. You are correct about the root system on them.

Might cut some to keep as many knife makers use it for very nice decorative handles.

My favorite Osage Orange info is from Bob Lusk:

"That's the wood that lasts for a hundred years, and then turns into a rock."

The pond continues to slowly inch up as we loose what little snow we had. Good sign as it means the bottom of the pond that penetrated the bedrock is sealed up well.

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Also here's one of the osage orange stumps that needs moved to the pond.

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Most of the exposed orange roots are sapwood, and will rot away fairly quickly (for Hedge Apple/Osage Orange, that's 5-10 years). But the core of each bigger root section will be around as long as the rest of the wood.

We recieved about 3/4" of rain yesterday. Pond level in creaping up into the flats now. Also painted all of the white pvc.

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2021-01-31_11-02-15 Kovac[/url]