The area my pond is in has a natural water table that is not too deep, so I have dug a pond down below (on most years) the natural water level. For the last 15 or so years the pond has always stayed full enough to keep fish alive and doing well. This year we are experiencing a really bad drought, perhaps the driest year on record. Anyway this has dropped the water table and given me a chance to do some pond maintenance. I don't expect that sandy or gravel layers will hurt my pond since I naturally plan on more water to in flow than out flow. The current water level is about the same as the bottom of my current pond, so I hope to go deeper allowing the water table to fill the void we create (probably fill in a couple days)... This will be my new sustainable reserve level that will keep fish alive on bad years like this one. I know once I start the dig we will have to keep moving to stay ahead of the water seeping into the new pond, but I'm hoping to at least get enough area so I won't have to do a complete restart of the pond again.

What slope is good going from shallower ledges around the pond edge to the deepest spots should we shoot for? My pond isn't very big, so I will likely have to have a pretty abrupt transition from shallow areas to the deep spots. I'd like to get 10' deeper in my deep spots, that will make the overflow about 6' higher than that for a total of 16' deep during spring runoff... Is a 1 to 1 foot transition too steep? 1 to 1.5' slope would probably be better, but may limit the size of the reserve pond... But then again I hope not to see this dry of a year again very soon...