Pond Boss Forums POND CONSTRUCTION Creating habitat Trout pond gravel/sand cleaning bed?

Not sure what you'd call it but a knowledgeable friend mentioned something he saw a few years ago and it created a spawning habitat for brookies.

The land owner had an intake trickle of a stream from a swamp, to clean the water before it got to his pond he filled the small valley with about 6 feet deep of varying screens or sand and gravel which was about 20 feet long, covered the sand and gravel over in a small layer of topsoil and planted trees on it. clod clean water comes out the other side to pea gravel...

Is there any documentation of this technique - sounds credible and effective.

The also plant evergreens all around their ponds to retain water and help cool water from the hard wood runnoff.

Cheers.

L

I was curious about this topic as well and dug into it about a year ago. I found that there was an article by Mark Cornwell, PhD (from SUNY Cobleskill) in a previous issue of PB magazine that lays out how he has been successful getting brook trout to spawn in ponds with some intake flow. If you call the PB office, they can find the issue and send you a copy for a small fee. It is well worth it.

It seems that it works well for brookies, however Dr. Cornwell's advice to me was that brookies are easily out competed by other predators in the pond so you can only expect recruitment if you have no other predator species (such as bass, walleye, perch, etc.). Other trout generally don't reproduce in a pond environment as readily as brookies will. If you have the right DO and temperature, trout like rainbows, browns, etc. can live in a pond, just don't expect them to reproduce.

It sounds like what you are referring to is a different set up than what he describes, however you could easily take the concepts of his design and apply them to your situation.

I'm not an authority on the topic, but have learned some along the way. I hope this helps.