Building Lake Corona

[EddieWalker]

How much rain did you get in your rain gauge to get six inches in the pond? For my two ponds, the small one will rise six inches with one inch or rain when the ground is already wet, but the big pond will only rise two inches from that same amount of rain.

 

[jk96]

How much rain did you get in your rain gauge to get six inches in the pond? For my two ponds, the small one will rise six inches with one inch or rain when the ground is already wet, but the big pond will only rise two inches from that same amount of rain.

2-1/8"

 

[jk96]

2 more inches of rain today and came down fast. Gained 9-1/2" on this one. What Dodge Man called my blue shop vacs (fish structure) is almost covered now. 4 ft to go.

 

[EddieWalker]

How many more inches do you need to be full?

 

[jk96]

How many more inches do you need to be full?

I think I have right at or just under another 4ft to go.

 

[EddieWalker]

We're expecting storms tonight and Saturday night. Hopefully it will head your way too!!

 

[jk96]

Things have dried up here so no more water progress to report. I did finally get around to spreading my pile of top soil over the hillside that I moved the clay from. Going to seed and hopefully get some cover established to prevent erosion as much as possible. Water loss is still looking good. Averaging 1/8" per day on these hot 90 degree + days. That loss is on the low end of what calcs are showing for expected evaporation loss.

 

[ponytug]

You probably have some benefit from being surrounded by trees that reduce wind speed across the pond, slowing evaporation.

Congratulations on the low water losses!

I hope that you get more rain.

All the best, Peter

 

[HawkinsHollow]

Yeah, I would say your fix worked! Congrats!

 

[BackRoad]

Woo-Hoo!

Guessing it's still a little early for 10# Bass??!!

 

[EddieWalker]

I forget what you're plan for stocking it is. You can put minnows and bluegill in there now. Then when it's full and the water clears up and the plant life starts growing, you can put in your predator fish. It's too small of a pond for two predators, so it has to be a type of bass or a type of catfish. Depends on what you want to fish for. Or you can just have pan fish as your predator. Bluegill are what I have, but a lot of people really like to catch and eat Crappie

 

[jk96]

Woo-Hoo!

Guessing it's still a little early for 10# Bass??!!

Yeah probably. Hopefully I can stock it next spring, or at least start with fingerlings. Water at the moment is 3 ft tapering to 8ft as it reaches the dam.

 

[jk96]

I forget what you're plan for stocking it is. You can put minnows and bluegill in there now. Then when it's full and the water clears up and the plant life starts growing, you can put in your predator fish. It's too small of a pond for two predators, so it has to be a type of bass or a type of catfish. Depends on what you want to fish for. Or you can just have pan fish as your predator. Bluegill are what I have, but a lot of people really like to catch and eat Crappie

Would like to do bluegill and bass.

 

[jk96]

Started working a bit yesterday piling some rocks along the waters edge in a few places for some additions fish structure. These all came from digging out the pond bottom on the redo work. Should put these at about 4 ft of depth when full.

 

[jk96]

Our drought here continues. A drought declaration for the state was issued last month. Since July 31st we have had a total of 3/4" of rain. Most of that coming last week. Despite that I've been able to get some grass established on the hillside I pulled the clay from. Saving and spreading the top soil helped a bunch.

I've also spread some gravel in the 2 to 4 foot range of some of the banks for spawn beds. Today I laid a piece of 8" drain tile I've had laying around as a 2nd overflow and cut a channel for it so if it's ever used it will flow around and not down the dam. I'll be surprised if it's ever used much if at all.

Took a measurement today I have exactly 4 ft to go for the pond to be full. That means it's about 9 ft at the dam and anywhere from 3ft to 5ft around the rest of the pond. I'm only down about 5" from end of July when the rain stopped. Will update next spring/summer on any additional progress.

 

[Buppies]

Coming along nicely sorry it’s so dry

 

[EddieWalker]

Great to know that your fix solved the leak!!!!!!

 

[HawkinsHollow]

Such a great project! So glad you stuck with it and made it work. It will all be worth it very soon.

 

[Kyle_in_Tex]

Still enjoy seeing reports of your pond. Hope y'all get some rainfall, we are in severe drought here and under burn ban too.

 

[BackRoad]

You've done well to be down only 5 inches over three relatively hot and dry months!

Very encouraging!