Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations A new lake - Dirt is (kinda) moving!

Background
In 2012 a large fire burned through the northwest section of the ranch and not a "good" fire either. It concentrated most of the heat in a riparian valley and it got hot enough to kill all of the standing oaks and reduced everything else to ash. Unfortunately, we didn't own this portion of the ranch at the time and couldn't manage the regrowth with wildlife or recreational goals in mind. What exists there now is an impenetrable mess of sumac, plum, and greenbriar thickets. Its so thick not even the deer or hogs will go in. However because its all new softwood growth, it would be fairly easy to go in with machinery and clear it all out. We went back and forth on what to do with it and ultimately decided to start looking at building a large pond there.

The Lake
Some general info:
Total Watershed: 660 acres
Unimpeded Watershed: 450 acres. Flooding of these ponds impeding the watershed does occur in high water years, unfortunately we are about 5' low in most of these.
Estimated Size: 8-15 acres depending on final dam and shoreline
Aerated: Yes - based on what i've read on the forum, it sounds like aerating during the night will be the way to go during our hot Texas summers
Fed: Maybe - Would probably have one fish feeder on a dock, but expect the fish to get most of there nutrition from natural forage
Species: FHM, RES, BG, TFS, LMB, HSB

Here is a general view of what it could looks like at full pool. The pond here is shown at 13 acres.
[img]http://imgur.com/xZ2dImf[/img]

This past week our crew dug some test holes near the dam location and we found clay good for the core at 15'-20' at the deepest location. Good news but it will be a lot of dirt moved. Luckily we should be able to use it all for the backside of the dam along with the removed topsoil from the rest of the lake. This will result in a deep 30'-40' bowl near the dam from the clay excavation, but I don't see any negatives with that yet. It was already going to be deep enough to be stratified so if anything, provided we get the aeration right, that just means more deep, cool, oxygenated open water for the stripers and threadfin? The rest of the soil in the pond has a high enough clay content that, once the topsoil is removed, and it is compacted, it should be pretty tight.
[img]http://imgur.com/npb2Kyh[/img]

Hoping to keep the forum updated on progress if y'all are interested. We have done some small pond renovations before, but nothing to this scale and are very excited about the project. There will be a lot of questions along the way so a thank you in advance for this awesome community.

It sounds like a great project! You are correct, it looks like a LOT of dirt to move, but it will be worth it. A rocking piston compressor would be what you want to look at for aeration

Sounds awesome Double!

Good thing diesel is so cheap right now when you are going to be moving all of that dirt.

Possible negatives would be hitting a bedrock layer while excavating your deep bowl for usable clay. If so, you can probably borrow clay by not excavating as deeply, but taking from a broader area. Stay away from loose rocks or rock layers.

Since your final shoreline (at full pool) is literally your choice at this stage, are there features you would like to incorporate? For example, some rock ledges at the water's edge, or some big humps you want in 8' water to put bass structure on?

You might want to buy or rent a surveyors transit level. (Inexpensive unit with full accessories kit is less than $300 at "big river in Brazil". You could rent an even nicer one.) I use mine frequently on the farm.

You can set up on your lower ground and just rotate your turret and evaluate different shore line elevations. You don't even need to have your construction bench mark set yet, just make relative observations. Be sure to flag the features you want at full pool elevation. Pick the level you want that has the most of your favorite features at the preferred depth.

Once you pick a optimal shoreline elevation, be sure to have the professional surveyor confirm when he sets the benchmark for your dam construction. Your survey will have some small errors for your measurements over a few hundred feet with that quality of equipment.

Just throwing out some ideas while you are still in the planning phase.

Good luck on your big pond project. 13 acres in Texas sounds like a dream!

Esshup - just looked into those. Looks like a good possibility for the deep water aeration.

Fishin Rod - Good watch out. They did hit a gravel layer above the clay layer, but it was thin and not present in all holes. They have an eye out but seeing as we are going through that to hit the clay, are not too worried.

There are definitely some features we would like and are excited about the blank slate stage. I’ll probably have a better idea once the vegetation is cleared and I can visualize in person what the lake could look like. I know we want to channel a few of the watershed drainages to make little creeks that could backfill with water.

I like your plan to set the water level to turn some of your draws into nice coves!

In addition to good fishing, that gives you some bonus options. Some of the people on Pond Boss use their coves as forage ponds or as habituation areas for newly stocked fish. Usually with blocking nets.

I was considering making some artificial coves on our next pond build and narrowing the connection to the main pond with the dirt spoils. You could then much more easily manage a blocking net, or I was even considering building a cinder block structure with a gate to open or close the cove as needed.

For example, anthropic recently performed a shock survey on his bass pond and found out it was sorely lacking for BG in the 3-5" range. If you used a cove as a forage pond, you could put in some brood BG and then feed in the cove until their offspring reached the 3-5" range and release several thousand BG of optimal size into your 13-acre pond.

That might pay out your additional dirt work and improvements in the first year!

I was thinking of building a forage pond or two above my regular pond in some draws, I have plenty, my thoughts were build them above the main pond with a 4 or 6" drain at the bottom to be able to drain or almost drain them into the big body of water, maybe just holding enough of them back for breeders. a person could always pump water back up to fill the forage pond and restart the process.
With the connected cove I would think it would be hard to transfer them into the main pond other then just opening the gate and letting the two sides mingle into one, but then how would you get all the predator fish out of the forage pond area to restart your forage? just thinking out loud here

Good points gehajake!

Your way would definitely be easier, but I don't I have any elevation changes to work with.

I was going to build a two gate system between the forage pond and the main pond. I would then build the forage pond like a "paint roller pan" with a floor drain in the area between the two gates. Plan was to pull down the water level and then seine all of the forage into the gate gape. Close the forage pond gate and open the pond gate. If I was worried about predators, I could completely drain the gap between the gates as needed.

Although, I am going to try putting a very shallow FHM forage pond on top of one of my berms and use corrugated 4" drain tile pipe to shoot them into whichever pond would benefit the most from the minnows. (Who knows though, maybe the birds and raccoons will raid that little pond?)

P.S. anthropic has a forage pond above his main pond just as you have described in a little draw. I think he mostly uses it for supplemental forage BG growouts.

Big machines are in and have cleared the all brush and are starting to work their way towards the clay. Given the depth of clay mentioned in the original post we are moving the dam slightly to tie it in better to the north valley wall. The original creek bed is going to be much closer to the south shore than the initial drawing where it is centered in the lake. This should save us some significant $$$ but will likely reduce the overall size (primarily width) of the pond.

A few photos from the project:

Looking South - the water will be framed beautifully against the southern valley wall.


Looking North - The dam will now tie in to the rise to the right of the telephone pole draw (Far cleared corner in middle of frame)


A flock of Geese decided to watch the progress. This pond could very well be a new stop on their migratory journey. Especially if we put the 30 acre field east of the dam into wheat.
[img]https://i.imgur.com/0WFElbg.mp4[/img]

Established a mostly final shoreline based on our dam height with the surveying equipment. This height would actually result in a ~100ft island on the east end which would be a neat feature for the ducks and fish.



Looking like we should be finished by mid June. Starting to take account of what I can start gathering/building for cover. Most of the live tree cover in the pond outline is elm. Any reason why I should not consider the large elm logs/stumps for cover? I know it’s a softer wood, so not sure if it’s will decay rapidly.