Tell me your experiences with resurrecting old fishing ponds

[elf]

Well, happy fishing! Too much water sounds a lot scarier than not enough. I would love to have a good fishing pond, but I agree with all that this is not a DIY project for such as myself. For now, I'll just work on clearing the trees, and wait until I can afford some professional advice/work. I'm on the outskirts of the University of Ga., so I'm sure I can round up an expert or two. I've more than enough projects to keep me busy for now,and I've got the rest of my lifetime. But I like to research and plan things ahead, so I'm still interested in learning from everyone's success/failure stories. Still think it would be cool to see what happens if that springhead were tapped. Then I'd have a stream running across the bulk of my property. Don't guess it would overfill the pond with just a shallow drilling. Will leave that a mystery until the pond can be repaired. Gotta leave something good to dream of, after all.

 

[elf]

Sounds like you need some major work done. Have you been over to Sufficient Self and asked about this? There will probably be more knowledgable folks over there.

No. Thanks for turning me on to that!

 

[Andy J]

Elf,I don't know about Georgia,but in Mississippi the soil and water conservation office provides the site assessment and recommendations for free.At the time I had the work done,the state would provide 60% of the cost of building a new pond,but would not financially assist with the cost of reworking an old pond,which was my case.Since economic times are not as good as a few years ago,the state probably doesn't offer this assistance any longer.

The cost incurred to rework my dam was due to the length of the dam,about 300',the widest part of the pond.It was built 12' wide on the top to facilitate the concrete trucks needed to pour my house slab later.

I also had to buy my fish to stock the pond.This service also used to be furnished by the state.There is a federal fish hatchery in our city but you cannot get fish from them.I bought my fish from individuals that are in the private hatchery business.

Andy

 

[elf]

Yeah, my work would not be near that extensive. Dam seems in good shape except for what would need reworking if whole pipe has to be replaced. The old one may be repairable, but seems pretty rusty, and I'm a little uneasy about the idea of a rusty pipe with water flowing through. Seems like it could rust all the way through and cave in. PVC sounds safer, but again, I'd rather not have the dam/driveway torn into. Yes, I'll get Soil & Water to check it out. There's no financial help for that now-same situation here as you mentioned. As a matter of fact, for some reason that I don't understand, they no longer allow the building of new ponds/lakes. Something about there being too many. Maybe that's just in my area of Ga. So, I guess I'm lucky in that I doubt they can stop you from fixing what's already here. I found a post on that "Sufficient Self "site about folks drilling springs, installing pipes, capping off, using for their main water source. So, since I already have the stream running from springhead to pond in good weather, a little help should get it going well, I think. I may even eventually try putting in a ram pump upstream, so I can plant and irrigate that part of the property. There is a fair slope to the land. Getting fish should be no problem. We're happy with bream and cats, so just throwing in some butterbean size from when we fish elsewhere would be a start. Oops, that may not be legal, so I never said that.

 

[nittygrittydirtdigger]

I sure wish I knew what the heck you guys are talking about....it's all Greek to me. I have an empty farm pond on my property, about 70'x90', with fairly steep sides, probably around 30' deep at the deepest point. The former owners dug it when there was fear of a drought in the area where our irrigation canals draw water from . They intended to use it to irrigate their orchard. When the drought didn't occur, they eventually let it go dry. I'm told it was always filled just with garden hoses that draw from the well. Told this by neighbors and the local irrigation district, so I guess it's true, but it seems like it would take a jillion years to fill a hole that big with garden hoses. We tried, tho. The water only got about six feet deep but never got higher than that.

I've looked in to pond liners but the best price I've seen is 39 cents a square foot......whowza, that's a lot of money!

If anyone had suggestions on what I can do with this 'pond', I'm all ears. If we ever find a way to get it filled, we want to stock it with crappie, blue gill and maybe some trout (fingers crossed on the trout idea, but it should be deep enough)....
Finding the fish to stock it with looks like it will be a whole other issue, but first, the water!

Thoughts?

 

[elf]

Dirt Digger,filling with a garden hose would be pretty taxing on your pump. Don't know enough about how to get it to fill unless you have a source of water naturally going into it. Before I discovered I had a part time stream (stream was dried up when I moved here and grown up with brush around it), I had pondered drilling a shallow well with my Hydradrill beside the pond and pumping water into the pond with a solar pump. Don't know how feasible this would be, or if your pond would hold that water. If it doesn't hold any water after heavy rains, that probably wouldn't work. Trout are pretty delicate, requiring cold, fast-flowing water,but your bass and crappie might do well. Bream will flourish most anywhere. In Ga., we have a Farmer's Market Bulletin put out by the state with folks selling fish. Maybe you have such? Think I've seen ads on Craigslist, also. Good luck. Let us know if you get your pond going.