Pond Boss Forums MANAGING AN EXISTING POND Evaluating and adjusting fish populations Newly Stocked Pond with Major Failure

Thanks for the additional insight and information. I just returned from a camping/fishing trip yesterday evening and wanted to provide some updates and answer questions.

The pond is not really "near" the river. The river is probably 50-75yds away from the pond and down about 20-30 feet. I supposed in the event we get historic rains like what is occurring in California there is a chance of river water reaching the pond, however it is extremely unlikely.

There is no significant rain water that will run into the pond unless the above mentioned historic event happens. There is a large depressed area around the pond (naturally occurring) and then the area the pond was constructed on is probably 10ft above that area.

With that said, I do not currently have a spillway area in the pond. I plan to read the document that esshup provided me to do some additional research on one.

My guess is that the failure of the wall was a mix of collapsing dirt area and then water getting over the top of the wall. As several people mentioned, the top of the wall was not properly compacted. I believe that the water washed away or soaked through several inches of dirt towards the top of the pond. This created a location that allowed the water to rush over the top of the pond and therefore erode the backside of the pond. This is what caused the overall failure. As I mentioned, this happened between Friday when I last went to the pond and Sunday when I went back, so extremely quickly. Someone also asked did I notice water weeping out of the side of the pond. The answer is no. However, in hindsight, there may have been areas on the backside of the wall where the dirt was moist. At the time, I did not realize that was a concern. Obviously, I do now.

@Snipe, I appreciate your offer to come see the pond in person and may take you up on that. I want to do some more research on my end to make sure that I have a good working understanding of what areas I was lacking in before doing anything else.

I absolutely understand what was said about roots and "junk" in the walls. They were not visible until the pond wall failed, but it makes sense they could have been a contributing factor. I am going to see if I can see any other areas where this is potentially the case as well.

Understood about the Catfish in the pond as well. While my pond stocker may have good working knowledge of stocking overall, he is not a trophy bass specialist. I actually called 3 or 4 fisheries before finally deciding on the one I used. Everyone else I spoke to were pretty clear that they are used to stocking Catfish ponds. With that said, clearly I didint look far enough out as I did not discover Snipe`s company.

@esshup, I am not able to view the couple of YouTube videos that you posted. I get error messages upon clicking play.

As far as an update, see the attached photos below. As I mentioned in my initial post, the person who built the pond was coming to look at the failure within the next few days. He came while I was out of town and made "repairs" to the area. I will go out this weekend to do a full inspection, however I snapped a couple of photos last night.

The biggest difference I saw immediately was the overall width of the wall. It went from being something that had enough space for someone to walk on, to me being able to drive a pickup truck on as far as width. It is also significantly more compact (from a feel of walking on it vs prior). I assume much of this has to do with the clay that the dirt person used this time. With that said, there is a still a section of the wall on the other side of the breach that has had nothing additional done to it.

I don`t plan to do anything or fill the pond back at this point in time until I do some more research. However, I wanted to share photos of what has actually been done already.