New Project

[Gravel Road]

That pond is going to be fantastic! I had one pond the same size dug out a few years ago, but it's not nearly as nice. It's just a cow pond so stays muddy. I put 100 4-6 inch channel cat in it and caught some bluegill and threw them in too. The next year they were about 1-1.5 lbs and this year they are 2-3 pounds and maybe 3-4 lbs by the end of summer. The bluegills have bred and look like they are going crazy, so may have to stock some bass. Anyway, it's just a blast trying new things and seeing how they work out. I have one more pond that needs cleaned out soon and I hope to expand it a bit and set it up more like yours. It'll definitely get fenced so the cattle can't get to it though. Thanks for the inspiration!

 

[H20fwler]

It’s been rain off and on most of the week.
Got the overflow in, still to soft to finish the beach area.


My wife blessed the pond with a lucky horseshoe.

 

[H20fwler]

Pond is pretty much finished now, just need to put sand on the beach yet.

Beach area


Stone block to keep sand from sliding down into deep water, about 2’ high. It should end up with water around 5’+ over the top of it when pond is full.


Last of the fish structures we made out of bricks and pavers, small fish and crawdads should have lots of places to hide.






Darcy swimming in deep end, water maybe 3’ now.


Pond guy graded the building lot all off perfect before he took the big equipment away. It is from 3’-4’ higher now than it was three weeks ago.

 

[yoderjac]

Jelly, jelly, jelly!

 

[Tree Spud]

Looking good!

 

[Kdog]

I've been out of pocket the last three weeks and have been looking forward to catching up on your pond. Looking great as expected!

 

[H20fwler]

A buddy of mine flew his drone over the Little Woods to get a birds eye view of the new pond from the air.







The video he shot

We will be starting on the dock later this week. Putting in an all concrete 10’X16’ one, it will have large concrete columns for the base and top will have pre-fab concrete beams and top that will be fit after the columns cure. It will be going in on east end between beach area and corner.

 

[Bassattackr]

If you want crawfish, they love to live/hide/spawn in pea gravel and chunk rock!

Plenty of that in the lakes around here, Table Rock etc..

 

[H20fwler]

Revised the dock size to make sure it is out away from bank and deep enough that it will stay safe for diving.
Added another section to it, when completed it will be 24.6’ long and 10’ wide.



Got the footers for the columns poured. They are 36” round and 5’ deep.

 

[yoderjac]

Revised the dock size to make sure it is out away from bank and deep enough that it will stay safe for diving.
Added another section to it, when completed it will be 24.6’ long and 10’ wide.

View attachment 35979

Got the footers for the columns poured. They are 36” round and 5’ deep.

View attachment 35980


View attachment 35982

View attachment 35983

If the pond is rain fed, do you have enough dry periods where the water level will drop significantly? If so, consider a design that will float up and down loosely attached to the posts. Otherwise you can have issues getting in and out of a boat (presuming you plan to use one.

Nice work!

 

[H20fwler]

If the pond is rain fed, do you have enough dry periods where the water level will drop significantly? If so, consider a design that will float up and down loosely attached to the posts. Otherwise you can have issues getting in and out of a boat (presuming you plan to use one.

Nice work!

The dock bell has already been rung, paid the bill on it a month ago. Everything that will be above the waterline is pre-fabbed and is already made. Will be putting a stainless steel ladder of some sort off the dock.
Should always be able to just run a boat up on the beach if we would need to.

 

[H20fwler]

Got the columns poured today. Should be setting the concrete prefab beams and deck later this week.

 

[H20fwler]

Finished most of the dock, took some pics to kind of show the process.












The youngest sons friends were a tremendous help with the whole dock project.
Now all that is left to do is add a set of prefab concrete double steps to the front and a stainless ladder off the left side.
Very pleased with how this turned out, way bigger and beefier than I thought it would be.

Going to build and place a couple short sets of the plastic fish structure trees under the dock this weekend.

 

[Bill]

That’s not a dock, that’s a parking garage floor.

 

[bjseiler]

Enough room for the Texas Hunter fish feeder out there.

 

[Mortenson]

That’s not a dock, that’s a parking garage floor.

Lotta runway there for H2O to gather speed for his 1st jackknife into the new pond.

 

[entropyfx]

Where is the duck blind gonna go??

Sent from my SM-G996U using Tapatalk

 

[H20fwler]

Where is the duck blind gonna go??

Sent from my SM-G996U using Tapatalk

Excellent idea! The wife would prolly put her foot down on blocking that one.

It does bring up the next project out there which is to plant some bigger spruce along the spoil pile around 6’-7’ this fall. I think we we need twenty five to thirty of them, should make a nice natural duck blind.

Going to get a pump to water right out of the pond with for next summer, will also be watering about forty new apple/pear trees along the woods too that go in next spring.

 

[Telemark]

You can shoot stationary ducks with a silenced 22mag from 100 yds without spooking everything on the pond. Shooting birds with silenced rifles is pretty common here. Everything from a 22LR up to a 223. Some guys even use a 6.5x55, but the ammo starts to get expensive. They shoot everything from Ptarmigan up to geese and capercaillie with rifles. For larger birds it's even the preferred method.

Might be a somewhat unconventional "duck blind", but it's a very effective way to hunt birds without blasting out the entire area with a shotgun.

 

[H20fwler]

You can shoot stationary ducks with a silenced 22mag from 100 yds without spooking everything on the pond. Shooting birds with silenced rifles is pretty common here. Everything from a 22LR up to a 223. Some guys even use a 6.5x55, but the ammo starts to get expensive. They shoot everything from Ptarmigan up to geese and capercaillie with rifles. For larger birds it's even the preferred method.

Might be a somewhat unconventional "duck blind", but it's a very effective way to hunt birds without blasting out the entire area with a shotgun.

They lock you up for shooting them with rifles here!
Wardens are real fussy about federal migratory game birds.

We have the two ponds over at the other farm that ducks&geese are in all the time, don’t know how much waterfowling the wife would put up with on this one with our house being next to it.
I think it will be fun to watch the ducks and geese right from my front porch here someday.