New Project

[H20fwler]

You can always do it in the future with a boat.

Yep, the big stuff was my biggest concern and that worked itself out Tuesday.
If it isn't raining to bad tomorrow I'm going to build and put in a bunch of the small fish structures, if weather is bad will do it later this weekend.
Then I'm going to focus on getting dock pilings in and it framed up, and whole place planted in grass. Then it will be on to phase two of our project...pole barn.

 

[Troubles Trees]

Your pond is coming along great H20! What a fun project to do man, a lot of work but at least it is fun work! Great job bud.

 

[H20fwler]

Your pond is coming along great H20! What a fun project to do man, a lot of work but at least it is fun work! Great job bud.

Thanks!

 

[H20fwler]

Oldest son made some fish structures yesterday down at his house for us, they will be wired with copper or stainless wire to cinder blocks.


One of my friends had a big roll of water line that he donated to me yesterday that I will be making the bucket and PVC structures with today.


It rained and drizzled on and off all day yesterday but still not much more than an inch. The ground soaked most of it up, made everything a muddy mess. We have some wind but temps are cooler hopefully it dries enough that we can get out and put new structures in tomorrow or Monday.

 

[Tree Spud]

Oldest son made some fish structures yesterday down at his house for us, they will be wired with copper or stainless wire to cinder blocks.
View attachment 35031
View attachment 35032
One of my friends had a big roll of water line that he donated to me yesterday that I will be making the bucket and PVC structures with today.
View attachment 35033

It rained and drizzled on and off all day yesterday but still not much more than an inch. The ground soaked most of it up, made everything a muddy mess. We have some wind but temps are cooler hopefully it dries enough that we can get out and put new structures in tomorrow or Monday.

Love that Idea! I have some old water tube also.

 

[Tree Spud]

Oldest son made some fish structures yesterday down at his house for us, they will be wired with copper or stainless wire to cinder blocks.
View attachment 35031
View attachment 35032
One of my friends had a big roll of water line that he donated to me yesterday that I will be making the bucket and PVC structures with today.


It rained and drizzled on and off all day yesterday but still not much more than an inch. The ground soaked most of it up, made everything a muddy mess. We have some wind but temps are cooler hopefully it dries enough that we can get out and put new structures in tomorrow or Monday.

You could cut up that drain tile and line the old garbage can with both ends open to create minnow egg laying habitat in you shallow spots. Minnows like to lay their eggs under hard horizontal surfaces. You could also use wood pallets too.

 

[H20fwler]

Got a good start on them today, made a few of these.

 

[H20fwler]

Wanted to see how the stuff I made today would look so I ran out to the pond and drug them down in it and put them in place and concreted them in.
Working on a couple more tomorrow with the oldest son.

 

[Bill]

That looks as good as a hinge cut mess in the timber.

 

[yoderjac]

Fish are gonna envy this pond!

 

[IkemanTx]

Starting out with a whole lot of minnows, then some hybrid sunfish.
A few months later largemouth bass and smallmouth bass, channel cats and a few flatheads and some perch. A few black crappie.
Would eventually like one pike and maybe a few walleye also to help keep little bream in line.

The main reason we are digging so deep is to see if we can sustain some smallies in the pond, even if we can’t the boys will be tossing in some adult ones every year anyway.

We plan on doing a lot of ice fishing over the structures and keeping a lot of bream to eat. We also like eating catfish caught in colder water.
Both my boys are crazy about bass fishing and fishing in general, so the bass will be #1 in the pond fished pretty regular whenever it isn’t frozen…I like fishing for bass to relax also.

The bulk of the stocking will be over a three year period with minnows being added every spring and fall. The plan is to have a LOT of fish fries in the future, our family and friends all enjoy a good fish fry!
No fish will be exempt from being eaten but bass will normally get a pass.
The minnow stocking will probably never stop.

Hopefully it will be a great place for family and friends to fish and swim for generations.

I would make sure to incorporate a good amount of minnow spawning habitat... it could provide 10x more minnow for the money compared to buying them in twice a year.

We have been considering doing 6 or 8 of the structures in this video per pond at my dad’s place. They look really straightforward and would last a LONG time before deteriorating.

For structure for the larger fish... I would have as many depths and variations as possible. If you can get some of those big concrete slabs to overhang above a slope, it makes a KILLER bass ambush location. I love wooden stake fields and Christmas trees for crappie. Most of my childhood, we would drive around with a trailer collecting Christmas trees before waste management companies took them. We just dropped the trunks into a 5gal bucket of concrete, let it cure, then dropped them overboard from a boat. In deeper water, they easily last a decade or more, in 4’ and under, you get 3-5 years out of them.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[H20fwler]

My oldest son and I worked on some more fish structures this afternoon…being able to spend a few hours with him made my weekend!

Getting some things at various depths and different varieties of structure to give little fish and crawdads places to hide. Going to double up the split trash can ones to make more cover placing another behind each one and put sand/pea gravel and some big concrete paver type things on the ledge.





Starting to look a little fishy……

Should finish up beach Tuesday.

 

[Tree Spud]

My oldest son and I worked on some more fish structures this afternoon…being able to spend a few hours with him made my weekend!

Getting some things at various depths and different varieties of structure to give little fish and crawdads places to hide. Going to double up the split trash can ones to make more cover placing another behind each one and put sand/pea gravel and some big concrete paver type things on the ledge.


Starting to look a little fishy……

Should finish up beach Tuesday.

Would be cool to snorkel around those fish structures.

 

[H20fwler]

Would be cool to snorkel around those fish structures.

That is exactly what my sons were just talking about doing once the fish are established!

 

[Gravel Road]

Those fish structures look great. How did you decide what depth to place them? Do you have to worry about them being too deep or is that even a factor?

 

[ruskbucks]

Great job on your pond. I don't think you could of done anything better. I've been a excavator for almost 25 years and dug probably around 75 ponds. I was going to give some suggestions but I can tell the excavators you hired know what they are doing and they did it right. There are a Lot of bad excavators out there that would of cut corners like leaving the sand veins and not caping them with clay. What I have also noticed in my years is to look at the equipment they own. If a company has new equipment like they have new JD hoe, GPS dozer it reflects in their work. If they would of pulled up with equipment beat to crap from the 1970s I would of been worried. Great project you have.

 

[ruskbucks]

Great job on your pond. I don't think you could of done anything better. I've been a excavator for almost 25 years and dug probably around 75 ponds. I was going to give some suggestions but I can tell the excavators you hired know what they are doing and they did it right. There are a Lot of bad excavators out there that would of cut corners like leaving the sand veins and not caping them with clay. What I have also noticed in my years is to look at the equipment they own. If a company has new equipment like they have new JD hoe, GPS dozer it reflects in their work. If they would of pulled up with equipment beat to crap from the 1970s I would of been worried. Great project you have.

 

[H20fwler]

The wife wanted to run out and take a look at the fish structures today.
We walked down into the pond and she started pointing out little shorebird tracks and where coon had been curiously searching around already.


Then she says;
“hey look a deer was down in here”
I say I don’t think a deer would come down into the pond honey……

She just points to the ground and walks off with that smug look of hers.

 

[H20fwler]

Those fish structures look great. How did you decide what depth to place them? Do you have to worry about them being too deep or is that even a factor?

Thank you!
We wanted some deep stuff for big fish to suspend on especially in winter, we also wanted some things at different depths but not to high as to ever effect swimming at all or if someone would dive in off the edge.
The wife also laid down the law that no structures go into the east side (beach end) of pond where most of the swimming will take place. The dock will also be on that side of pond and if one day we end up putting a diving board on it didn’t want any chance of anyone hitting anything.
We do plan on putting a couple small structures under the dock.

 

[H20fwler]

Great job on your pond. I don't think you could of done anything better. I've been a excavator for almost 25 years and dug probably around 75 ponds. I was going to give some suggestions but I can tell the excavators you hired know what they are doing and they did it right. There are a Lot of bad excavators out there that would of cut corners like leaving the sand veins and not caping them with clay. What I have also noticed in my years is to look at the equipment they own. If a company has new equipment like they have new JD hoe, GPS dozer it reflects in their work. If they would of pulled up with equipment beat to crap from the 1970s I would of been worried. Great project you have.

Thank you!
We have been very happy with our pond guys work…and I have tried to stay pretty much hands off and not bug him after they got started.
I think I talked to him once for just a couple minutes last week.