Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations Cost of returning a one acre into a “trophy” bass

I recently purchased a property with a one acre pond. The former owner falsified the seller’s disclosure regarding issues with the pond and repairs. The pond leaks just under 1200 gallons per day, and that number consists of water flowing through a French drain installed to prevent water inundating a neighbor’s property. Bids for repair are $125-150k if they can locate the source relatively quickly. Repair will necessitate draining most if not all the water, therefore no more trophies. Does anyone know or know where to look for an appropriate number on the value of the trophy fish? I know it will require restocking and multiple years. Thanks!

"Trophy fish" is a purely subjective term that can't be defined after a sale, so you can probably forget about recoupment. You may see a 4 pound bass as a trophy, and others might see a trophy being over 15 pounds. If your state has a "value" for various fish species, that might be able to be used, otherwise, the "value" would be the cost to replace from a fish farm...Roughly $6/lb for Lepomis and $8/lb for Largemouth Bass. I am not sure how you determined falsifications, or especially, leakage flow rates. ALL earthen bottom ponds leak...You also have seepage and evaporation loss. Where is the pond located? I can't imagine a repair being that expensive, but $50K for an acre would be pretty common. You will want a site visit by someone highly experienced and specializing in pond building and renovations...this is NOT "dirt work" that most construction companies can handle. FWIW, a one acre pond can RARELY produce more than a few "trophy" Bluegill, or 1-2 Largemouth Bass, and that would require intensive, experienced pond management to get...You have to leave emotions and personal opinions out of potential legal issues

Rainman has a good start for a response to your pond dilemma.
For starters you should be able to build a new one acre pond for 50K and push all the dirt into the old pond or have two ponds. It takes a well experienced person to BUILD a well sealed pond. You dig holes that almost always leak compared to BUILDING and properly compacting a good well sealed pond.

Secondly the bigger the largest bass are in a pond the fewer of them that can co-exist, stay healthy, and get enough food to maintain weight and grow due to pond carrying capacity. This all has a lot to do with how much bass growing food's that can be raised per acre. Example - for a 5 lb bass just a to maintain good, high well fed body weight at high relative weight it needs to eat close to 30 lbs of fish per year AND to grow from 5 lb to 6 lb it needs to eat another 10 lbs of food for a total of 40 lbs of fish that year for just the one bass.

Once people realize what it takes in dollars and proper management time to grow a trophy 10lb bass they are content with having more bass in the 4 to 8lb size range. Trophy bass as Rainman says is subjective and a matter of opinion. Lots of anglers consider a 5 lb bass as trophy whereas those with lots of bass growing experience set 10Lb as trophy status. IMO once a bass grows to 5 lbs its value goes to at least $12/lb and a 10 lb bass is worth $150-$200. You are buying time similar to buying landscaping trees; buying time for growth. Time has money value.

See information in these links for knowing about pond carrying and LMbass management. Excellent information in both of these informative threads.

Carrying Capacity
https://forums.pondboss.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=92440#Post92440

LMbass
https://forums.pondboss.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=255372#Post255372

I don't see that amount being a big problem. Isn't there 28,000 gallons per inch in a 1 acre pond? At less than 1,200 gallons per day it would take well over 3 weeks with no rain to lose an inch, which I always thought was pretty good. What am I missing here?

I bet if you talked to teehjaeh57 here on the forum about his polymer pond sealing product you could cut that amount way down for a LOT less then what you were quoted.

The pond is located 30 miles southeast of St Louis. The two contractors that bid the repair have experience in building ponds, and repairing leaky ones. The pond has evidently leaked since construction according to the neighbor below, he helped install the French drain. The water that would inundate his property is channeled down the property line to a ditch. Both contractors were concerned about how much material would have to be moved, and then returned, and time involved in finding the leak(s). Plus the cost of bentonite needed, and that possibly the entire core is bad.

This spring the water level rose to pool, to the bottom of the overflow pipe. Within two weeks it was down a foot or so. I waited a couple weeks after recent rain as to not include runoff in the measurement. Flow from the drain was quantified timing filling of two buckets of known volume as it entered the ditch, I can send a video if interested. Calculation of water volume was derived from 13 quart buckets taking 4 minutes to fill consistently over an extended time period. This extrapolates to .8125 gallons per minute, 48.75 gallons per hour, and 1170 gallons per day. Is this “normal permeation “?

I grew up in north Missouri on a farm. We ran between a couple hundred to nearly 800 head cow/calf. Water for the cattle was provided by multiple ponds. Even the ponds damaged by muskrats didn’t leak as much as this pond.

Currently it’s down between 4&5 feet, and that’s after around 4” of rain in the past week. I have not remeasured the volume loss, but suspect it will vary with the level of the pond, hydrostatic pressure.

The previous owner had two 7#-9# largemouth bass mounts and a video from Purina advertising their largemouth bass food. A neighbor worked for Purine, and this pond was used as a test for the chow. Part of the sales marketing was the video showing multiple “big” fish surfacing to eat.

Thank you for your time and expertise. If I can provide any additional information please let me know. Thanks again!

Put in a measuring stake in the pond with a yard stick on it to make it easy to read, and measure your daily loss. It sounds like your losing more than you think and this should tell you better.

I am based in St Louis, and am unaware of ANY qualified pond builder within 200 miles of St Louis. I would have to do a site visit to offer you more insight on repairs, but I could build a completely new pond for less than your quotes already gotten. Chances are high that you have plenty of clay, would not need bentonite, and even if completely drained and starting over, you could have many bass in excess of 4 pounds within 2 years...I fear you have been getting some really bad information....BTW, what county are you in? I sent you a private message.

How do you send a private message? I clicked reply off yours. I am in Jefferson county. I am aware of the fact the amount of water we measured entering the creek from the French drain is not the entire quantity of water leaking. The other half of the bank that doesn’t border the property line has no drain behind it and the area between the pond and the creek is bogy. What do you charge for a site visit? Thanks

Floater, if you look around the upper right corner of your screen, you should see a small envelope icon just to the left of your screen name.

If you click on that envelope icon, you'll get to a page for private messages. Click 'new message' and follow the prompts.