Hello, I'm from Utah and we are in a nasty drought. I'm new to the forum, but I've had a pond for years. Little background, my pond was originally dug as a collection pond for my irrigation water, I'd fill it up with water and then pump the water onto my farm fields as required. (Irrigation system changed now so I no longer use pond to water my fields.) I've always loved fishing and to have my own pond has been a lifelong dream for me. Over the years the fish in my pond has changed, it started with fathead minnows, that populated until the whole pond was a solid mass of minnows, then the predator's found their way in with crappie, green sunfish and a couple bass, they quickly pulled the forage into balanced numbers and became really big and fat for the area. (I noticed the bigger fish jumping so I started fishing to them and it was great fun. The population and fishing was great for 4 or 5 years, then over the years the forage base was overcome and the crappie became stunted as their spawn grew up and over populated the small pond. Then came this year with little rain or snow for the last 18 months, this has dropped the water table which maintains my pond level to the point that all my fish have died and there is only a couple inches of water left in the deepest parts of the pond. Hence my reason for looking for advice, I need to dig my pond out deeper so when the dry years hit I don't lose everything. I suspect you will have posts about this, but being new I haven't found them yet. I want to take an excavator into the pond this fall or winter and dig it as deep as I can, but the mucky bottom makes me wonder if I can do this without getting the excavator stuck so bad I can't get it out... What recommendations do you have for me as I look at a pond reset and rework? Thanks Jeff
PS... My pond has always been on the shallow side with max depth at run off around 6' deep, regular depth around 4 feet falling to 2-3' deep at times (normal years).. Then bottoming out this year at 1" to dry bottom...