Pond Build

[walker450]

hmmm. Walker Lake.
Very interested. I want to do a pond too, but am thinking more along the 100' by 50'.
I think yours is a "bit" larger. How are you getting rid of the soil?

The soil we dug out went into dam except three piles I'll use for other projects.

I'll dig a little more out for fish habitat trenches and just use it somewhere on my property.

 

[walker450]

Did you get permits?
Did you talk to Bureau of Dam Safety?

None required, I talked to local resources and none required for this size of a pond. It has to get pretty large before an engineer type permit is required
I'm nowhere near that size.

I believe I saved the documents I can find them again if you are interested let me know.

 

[EddieWalker]

Here in Texas, you need a permit if you are over 90 acres of surface water. Or if you want to dam up a named creek. We have lots of creeks that do not have names. If it is named, you have to have permission from whatever lake authority controls the water in that creek. It can be very complicated, and most people never get the permits to do that.

 

[ovrszd]

In my County we also have restrictions on the watershed you are going to dam. Otherwise the only restriction that requires permitting is dam height.

Thanks to the OP for starting this thread. I'm a dirt guy so always enjoy seeing what others are doing.

 

[buckeyefarmer]

Very interesting. A pond is one of the first things my dad built on his farm.

 

[walker450]

I rented a mini excavator and I am digging trenches for fish.... any advice is appreciated. I am making some straight walls and some angled walls, hopefully you all can tell in the pictures what I am doing.

 

[ovrszd]

What is the purpose of the trenches? I know, for fish.... But what does the fish do in there? Why would the fish want to go in there?

 

[walker450]

If it's for fishing, be sure to create drop offs, ditches, points, and even underwater islands, for the fish. The uglier it is, the more the fish like it!!

Working on that now!!! I'll call these the Eddie ditches lol

I am digging whatever 6 hours with a Kubota U35 gets me.... then I have 2 hours of work for a friend and the rental goes back.

Maybe I can convince my wife I need to rent a skid steer with a cab to move all this loose dirt

 

[walker450]

What is the purpose of the trenches? I know, for fish.... But what does the fish do in there? Why would the fish want to go in there?

I am not even sure. "Everyone" keeps telling me to dig trenches for fish lol

I am not even a fisherman I just like digging in the dirt so I said "okay!"

I'm looking forward to friends and family visiting to fish our pond in the future, should be good times.

 

[EddieWalker]

The trenches create drop off. Those areas become hot spots for our predator fish to hide. It's where they will find the most feeder fish. The pond has to have place for the feeder fish to hide and escape the predators. This is what log are for too. The edge of those ditches is where the best fishing is going to be. Same as the edges of the log piles.

Since I have channel cats in my pond, along with large mouth bass and copper nose blue gill, I dug one pit in my pond that is about 20x60 and 12 feet deeper then the rest of the pond, which is around 12 feet deep in that area. That hole is a hot spot for catfish, and the edges around it is one of my favorite spots for bass.

When you dig the ditch, pile up the dirt into a big pile. This will give you two areas of habitat. Both work the same way, it provides a place for feeder fish to hide, and predators to hunt.

 

[EddieWalker]

Working on that now!!! I'll call these the Eddie ditches lol

I am digging whatever 6 hours with a Kubota U35 gets me.... then I have 2 hours of work for a friend and the rental goes back.

Maybe I can convince my wife I need to rent a skid steer with a cab to move all this loose dirt

That's a really nice looking trench!!!! Add some stumps to it, maybe a few logs, and whatever else you can think of to make it look as nasty as possible. The fish will concentrate in that area!!!!! You will also have more fish because it will allow them to hide and escape the predators.

 

[Doorman63]

That's a really nice looking trench!!!! Add some stumps to it, maybe a few logs, and whatever else you can think of to make it look as nasty as possible. The fish will concentrate in that area!!!!! You will also have more fish because it will allow them to hide and escape the predators.

And lose more lures………

 

[ultrarunner]

You could build an Island with a lot of dirt…

 

[workinonit]

That's a pretty decent track hoe you have rented. Around here you can't rent a decent hoe. They are all a piece of crap. It was a sad day when I loaded my old Komatsu PC220 on the lowboy. I just couldn't keep it and get a new tractor and I needed the tractor worse.

 

[fishdrivel]

None required, I talked to local resources and none required for this size of a pond. It has to get pretty large before an engineer type permit is required
I'm nowhere near that size.

I believe I saved the documents I can find them again if you are interested let me know.

Some states are quite restrictive. In North Carolina, there is a fee for everything. I think you have to have review if it is over 1 acre? Then they will tell you how you must construct the dam.

 

[ddgood]

Our family property has a 12 acre lake that was built in the early 1950s. There are still logpiles in it that were big stacks of red cedar. Makes excellent structure if you can get some 12-16” butt diameter logs.

You can also use tires. Drill 3 holes with a hole saw on the tread at 10, 12 and 2 o’Clock position and fill with 15lbs of concrete at 6. Big pile of them work great.

How big of a watershed will flow into the pond? What does your spillway look like? Are you using a siphon style setup?

 

[walker450]

Some states are quite restrictive. In North Carolina, there is a fee for everything. I think you have to have review if it is over 1 acre? Then they will tell you how you must construct the dam.

I believe it depended on the amount of acres that ran into the pond exceeding a certain amount or the height of the dam exceeding a certain height. I was well below both requirements.

 

[walker450]

Our family property has a 12 acre lake that was built in the early 1950s. There are still logpiles in it that were big stacks of red cedar. Makes excellent structure if you can get some 12-16” butt diameter logs.

You can also use tires. Drill 3 holes with a hole saw on the tread at 10, 12 and 2 o’Clock position and fill with 15lbs of concrete at 6. Big pile of them work great.

How big of a watershed will flow into the pond? What does your spillway look like? Are you using a siphon style setup?

Approximately 12 acres drains to the pond. This is a guesstimate only I haven't performed any measurements. Grade can be very deceiving and part of this is on my neighbors so I didn't walk around his field with a laser checking grade lol

The spillway is a 40' long flat area at the end of the dam, about 4' below the top of the dam. It then transitions to the native grade going back uphill. We built a small terrace to keep the water away from the dam and divert it well past it to native ground.

I do not know what a siphon style setup is, please elaborate.

 

[walker450]

The pond still has 27" to go before spilling over. I am working on cuttong and trimming trees to improve the view of the pond. Also number 1 priority is getting some grass to take hold!!

I'll post a video later if I get time.

Picture I took yesterday:

 

[deezler]

Excellent! I want one of those. Were you ever able to, or interested in estimating how many gallons of diesel went into building it?