If you have the time, I would buy Mike Otto's book from the Pond Boss Store "Just Add Water". and read it a time or two before starting the project. https://www.pondboss.com/store

IIRC to move dirt less than 50 yds, use a dozer

If you have to move it further, you have 2 options. Get a pan scraper. Either pulled by a tractor or one of the big articulated ones. Scrape the overburden off and dump it as the pan scraper drives. You can make a pretty good pile that way, but remember to make it wide to start too. Once you get to the good clay, you can put that in the pan scraper with the excavator and that can move it out of the way to stock pile it. Or put it in a dump truck (straight one or off-road articulated one) and make piles. If you have a dozer on site, the dozer can move the dumped piles and make the pile taller or make a hill and have the dump trucks back up the hill and dump, then the dozer smooths out the area and the process is repeated, building up the hill. You want to avoid tracking the excavator out of the basin to pile up the spoils.

If you hit sand veins, excavate them out 3' deep and at least 2' wider than they are, and use the sheepsfoot on the excavator to pack clay back in the vein and stitch it to the good impermeable soil on the sides of the veins.

The wider the area that you can hit in one pass with the sheepsfoot the better you will be. You want the sheepsfoot roller to compact the clay enough so that it starts to "walk out" of the clay. Then put another layer on it. i.e. if on the first 2-3 passes the sheepsfoot has the drum almost touching the soil, and then on pass 4-5 the drum is half the sheepsfoot leg out of the soil, then add more clay and knit those 2 layers together. As far as how steep, that all depends on the amount of moisture and how well the operators butt can pucker him to the seat. :-) If it is really good clay that doesn't need compacting, you can go 1:1, but I really don't like to see steeper than 2:1. When near shore, 3:1 or more gradual. More gradual for fish spawning areas and as for the weeds, you need them. Without them you will be growing FA and you will have to treat that bi-weekly if you can't stock Tilapia yearly. I've seen weeds growing up from the bottom in 15' of water in clear water lakes. Try to think ahead and think how easy it would be for a kid or an older person to walk out of the pond with a clay bottom if the shoreline is steep......

Last edited by esshup; 11/23/20 12:44 AM.

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