Pond Boss Forums POND CONSTRUCTION Selecting a site Starting from scratch

Long time no see. Anyway we got our drought and enlarged the pond in May 2021. It did not fill until Xmas eve 2023. Instead of being like a bath tub it now has some shallow habitat, rock piles, rocky shorline in parts, etc. Even shot some ducks off of it the other day. Pond size effectively doubled.

I, too, have been enjoying some duck hunting on our pond. My Australian shepherd is more than eager to go get some each time I look out the front door of the house.
Recently, with ice covering most of the water, I do my best to drop the birds on land or on the ice. She's eager to go into the ice water though if necessary.
Yesterday a greenhead fell out on the ice and made it to open water before she could race to the other side of the thawed hole and grab it. What followed was a 10 minute circus of her swimming up close to it and having it dive out of sight.
Once she wore it out and was able to retrieve it, she was pretty well soaked. That certainly didn't slow her down. She wasn't having any of my suggestions that we walk the 75 feet to the house and dry off.
"Ducks are still coming in Dad! I'm not quitting now! What ARE you thinking?!"
She's one focused hunter. I'm not complaining.

Right before the freeze up I dragged up a pile.of.elodea and have left it along the shoreline. The wigeon in particular are waddling up to it and have hollowed out a cave in it. They do like to eat that stuff.

I've got the ice eater running down there. Its struggling as it is 2 degrees out currently. I intend to run electricity down there this summer. Then I will aerate the pond, and run an ice eater in conditions like this to chase the ducks. We also set a big snow goose spread on the pond and decoy some in every year.

2 degrees!

If we all had the heart of a good "working dog", then I think each of us would live to be at least 100 years old!

-8° farenheit right now.

My pond remained open longer then most ponds during this recent cold snap and the other day I had some trumpeter swans on it, I posted a picture on another forum thread, was nice to see them.
We seldom have any around here but do see a few flocks during the migration periods, on the rivers or corn stubble fields.

Pond is leaking. Appears to be right where the old dam tied into the extension off of it. The gentlemen that did the extension will come fix it, but he is 3 months out. As the pond slowly draws down I intend to plant millet, smartweed, and some other valuable duck foods.

It's worth a conversation to talk to TJ here on the forum.

https://forums.pondboss.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showprofile&User=3912

He came out last month and recored a section of the dam. He said it did not look suspicious up where the new and old dam tied in. When he dug uphill on the dam he said it appeared maybe the water was following a black dirt seem and just coming out where I found it. Now we need moisture to fill it. I did get a nice ring of japanese millet around the pond while it was down.

I'd really like to build a 2.5-3 acre marsh. I would have to use a well to fill it as I don't think my pond would have enough water to spare for it. My pond is like 17 ft deep when full but not overly large.

On google earth you can see the snowgoose spread on it this spring.

I drove KC to Emporia to Wichita last night.

Had to slow down several times while starting to hydroplane during a frog strangler.

I hope some of those rains hit your place!

(We got 2.58" at our farm.)

1.9" here. Luckily I got the deer food plots planted. Lebo Fire is out looking for a vehicle that hydroplaned on the interstate as we speak.

It was pouring pretty hard when we went by your area on 35. Hope they found the vehicle!



P.S. Do you fish Melvern, John Redmond, and Wolf Creek? If so, which has been the best fishing lately?

We are getting rain just north of Dallas. Hopefully more today and hopefully rain falls for Dave further west.

Neighbor got 1/4 inch

We had 2" as of this morning and just started back raining pretty hard, supposed to rain till noon.

I just put seed out in a foodplot just before this rain, replanted it, had it planted and it came up beautifully in a couple days with a rain shower in mid august, then the wheat died out in the drought, the chickory was still hanging on but looked really weak. I might have done it to myself, I over disced it trying to shine the blades up on a disc that I had bought ant got it too fluffy for too deep and we didnt get enough rain to pack it down, and I dont have a cultipacker so it just dried out completely down to the disc depth.

We ended with 2.2". No raise in pond level as there was no runoff.

I only fish Redmond when the lake comes up and floods part of my property. Nothing like catching nice channel cat where your food plot usually is. Wolf Creek is good for some species, Melvern is good for some. I bought a new fishing boat in 2021 and I fish pretty heavy.

Thanks!

A food plot that can produce both deer and channel cats is pretty impressive.

I have been barely fishing at all the last few years. Just bought a project boat, so hoping to get out and start doing some fun/stress reduction!

Did you get some of the overnight rain? Much better rain here north of Dallas than before. We are definitely getting runoff here.

Dang little. As usual.

1.8" 23rd at my place, 0 rise , no run off , gentle fall rain sitting 78" below full pool. roughly 40-45 acres of watershed . Sure need some run off . Fortunately , still have a lot of 10-12' water.

At least the grass is no longer crunchy.

We are in drought. Been picking up some grass fires lately. It's been upper 70s-90 and no rain in a month with none in the forecast