I'll see what I can figure out on the pictures... It turned into kind of a circus, the bottom was too soft, we tried to sit the excavator sideways to the pond on the slope, but the lower track would sink in and almost tip the excavator over, so we ended up tearing out my fence so we could point the tracks down the slope in several different areas, then we dug out two areas to about 10' deep at full pool, it will be much better than what I've had, but probably only increased the depth in about 1/8th of the pond... not a big improvement, but it's a lot better than what I had, at least now I have an area that is filling with water instead of drying out to parched mud... Guess my hope is if a drought ever hits this bad again, hopefully a few fish will survive in those two areas so I don't have to start over completely again next time.
Now my questions start for how long does the raw pond have to sit before it could support fathead minnows? I know the plant life won't really show up until next spring, but wondered if the bugs will get going fast enough that I could start some fatheads before winter sets in? I'd love to have them ready to go to spawning next spring when the temps get right... Hopefully my pond will recover to the point of runoff next spring... May not happen with the extreme lack of ground water we are currently in, but seems like the rains are returning, so I'm hoping things will swing back to a more normal moisture situation...
Water seeping into the pond is nice and clear so far, I was afraid it might be pretty muddy with all the recent machine work, but so far it's pretty clear... More rain on the way, so I'm hoping that will fill things to where the original bottom level is reached, that will make at least 5-6' of water in the deep spots.. Anyway I guess I'm crazy, but I'm looking forward to seeing what happens with this new life for the pond...
One last thing, I ended up finding a big 4' clay layer under my current pond floor, so we left some vertical edges at the outer edge of the hoes reach and tapered the nearside at around 1 to 2 slope, I know the muck will melt into the deep trench over time, but I'm in hopes I'll still have a bit of a ledge there with the clay so I have a deep area to help the fish have a place to go for cooler temps in the summer and a difference in terrain to give them a choice for something other than shallow mud bottom... Anyway it was a long busy day, but now I'm off to a new possibility anyway... Later J
