Creating a Lake

[EddieWalker]

I'm looking for some suggestions and advice on about shaping the bottom of the lake I'm building.

The Lake is in the 4 acre range. It is spring, creek and rain water fed. The entire thing is made of clay, either red, black or grey.

I'm going to cut the banks down fairly quickly to get to four feet. Then it will be more gradual to the average depth of 8 feet. I'm told this helps keep shoreline vegitation to to a minimum since it can't grow in deeper water. Any thoughts?

Is there any advantage to haveing some areas, or holes, that are deeper in the middle of the lake? How deep and how big? Why is this a good idea?

I've read that fish spend most of their lives in the top 4 feet of water. Would it be smart to create a few ridges that run from the shoreline to the middle of the lake that have 4 feet of water over them?

If I make the ridges, or fingers, I could also have sections that are even closer to the surface for water lilies. Maybe 3 feet deep in areas.

Would water lilies improve the habitat for the fish?

I could also make some submerged islands that have 3 to 4 feet of water over them for plants that wouldn't spread to other areas of the lake. Is this a good idea?

Is there any advantage to haveing a shallow beach area? Say for minnows or baby fish?

I'm planning on using the stumps that don't burn as structure in the lake. I'll half bury them at various places throughout the lake, but don't know how deep they should be. Any thoughts?

Eddie

 

[Louisiana_John]

I would go here and ask your quistions it is the Mississippi Pond Wildlife Forum The moderator is Dennis Riecke MDWFP Fisheries Biologist. They will help out of state from what I have seen. He helped me clear my water up. The is a lot of pond info more than I have found anywere.
John
http://www.mdwfp.com/forums/forum.asp?FORUM_ID=5

 

[tjkadar]

Eddie,

Here is a link to a pdf that might be of some help: Excavated Pond Construction and Management

Hope you can find something useful there for your endeavors.

 

[MMM]

I'd stay away from lilies. They have choked all but deepest sections of my pond. I have to kill them and worry if decay will kill fish.

 

[jinman]

Eddie, I could make some suggestions, but the best one I could make is to have you get in touch with Fishman. He knows just about as much as anybody about Texas ponds and fish. There's a guy I'd love to have advice from on building any lake/pond. He's forgotten more than I'll ever know. /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif

 

[EddieWalker]

Thanks for the links!!! There's some really helpful information there.

The lily pads are a big question mark. I really want them, but don't want them to take over. I'm learning that they can grow in water six feet deep!!! /forums/images/graemlins/shocked.gif

That's a bit of a suprise, so now I'm thinking that I'll build an island that will be about 2 feet under water with 8 feet of water around it and plant the lily pads on it.

To create interest and have some fun, Steph and I are thinking of different shapes to make the submerged island. Being in Texas, a star is always popular. I'm also considering a "W" for my last name, but also the name of the RV Park.

The idea is to have lily pads that wont spread past the bounds of the submerged island, but from the air will have a distict shape. Crop circles type of metality. /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

Thanks,
Eddie

 

[EddieWalker]

The last of the trees are down. Still need to clean up the area and keep the fire going, but the touphest part is over. I'm cutting the stumps off my good, straight oaks and saving them, so that's gonna take a few days. I have my dad cleaning up the shoreline and what's on the ground. I figure tomorrow will be the last day for the rake for awhile. When it comes off, we'll start digging and moving dirt. Time to get the dump truck running.

The picture was taken this morning, after the Thanksgiving parade on TV. /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

It gives you a good idea of the area we've cleared and the size of the burn pile. I still haven't taken any measurements yet, so it's anybodies guess what size it will be.

I've been saying it's at least 4 acres of surface water when done. My Dad thinks we've cleared 7 acres. Neither of us actually know, but are just guestamating. /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif

Eddie

 

[EddieWalker]

Here's Steph and her daughter on the shoreline. Pictures don't capture the slope of the hill as it comes down to the lake bottom, but it's there.

The picture is of the hole from a stump I dug out with my backhoe. It's right next to two areas of mud that we've had trouble with. Dad came real close to getting stuck in the mud, and I had to use the hoe stick to pull myself out on the backhoe.

This was a suprise though. I didn't see any sign of water while digging. In fact it was two days later that I was back in this area and saw that it had filled up with water.

What I'm thinking is the hill is a aquafier of some degree and it forms a spring at the bottom of the hill. The wet spots we got stuck in are just off to the side less than 50 feet away.

So I got reall lucky and have a spring of some degree. I won't know how much water comes out of it until I'm done and open it up, but any water is better than no water. The other really big bonus is that the water level appears to be just above my planned shoreline.

Eddie

 

[EddieWalker]

This is a named creek that is my southern boundry. I own the right half of the creek. We've been having a drought and are over a foot below normal rain this year. Lucky me for building, but it's caused everything to be extremly dry. As you can see in the pic, the creek is flowing nicely.

This is my water supply if the spring and rain water doesn't do the job. One way or another, I'll take advantage of all this water flowing by.

The lake will be in the dirt area to the right of the pictures on the other side of the brush pile. I cleaned up the creek shoreline with the backhoe. I just dragged the teeth on the bucket through the brush. Two feet at a time. /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

Eddie

 

[MMM]

That's about right on the 6' iLily depth ssue Eddie. I've got a 75X75 hole in the middle where pond runs 6-11ft that's clear. Problem is you can't fish it from bank. When Lilies first shown up, I thought cool, fish heaven. They took over in 2 years.

 

[Birdhunter1]

</font><font color="blue" class="small">( I had the NRCS come out to my place just a few weeks ago. They said I could build a dam/lake anywhere I wanted, no permits needed. )</font>

Just my .02 cents but tell the NRCS to get lost and go pee up a rope!
We deal with them regularly at our hunting club and I see them as an agency to appropriate a budget to and spend money!

 

[RobA]

Eddie,
Have you checked out Pond Boss yet? Great resource. Magazine, books and best of all a message board .

A lot of people on that site are from your area.

 

[EddieWalker]

Rob,

Yes, I've been reading all the posts over there and started a few topics of my own asking some questions. I've even managed to make an enemy on a post about the value a pond adds to the land and my experiences with apraisals. Seems one guy thinks I'm a crook and deal with crooks since appraisers are not influenced by their clients when putting a value on a piece of property. They are above that. hahaha

It's pretty funny, but otherwise, it's a fantastic site with some exptremely knowledgable people there with some very useful advice and ideas.

The links to some of the different state agencies has also be very useful.

I've got a good idea of how I want to create the bottom contours of my lake now. Adding structure and spawning beds are my next concern, but not a priority. Same with the Ram Pump I'm going to build to get water from the creek to the lake.

Eddie

 

[RobA]

After I posted that suggestion I happened to go to the Pond Boss site and noticed your recent post. There is a lot of info there but they do get rough sometimes. I think the people on TBN are much less likely to attack a poster.

I have a 2 acre pond that needs a LOT of work. I'm trying to get things organized now. I am amazed when I read how easy the people in Texas have it with regards to regulations and the number of excavators that do pond work down there. Things are nowhere near that easy up here in the Northeast!

I like the updates you are giving on the pond and your other projects. Keep them coming.

 

[EddieWalker]

Here's the lake site all cleared and ready for dirt work. The burn pile is getting smaller, but it's happening very slowly.

Eddie

 

[EddieWalker]

One of my concerns is what to do with rain water. The creek is right before the brush line.

My plan is to dig out the lowest part of the lake at the lowest part of my land into a giant bowl. This will be where rain water collects while I'm working on digging out the rest of the area.

This trench is to drain the collection bowl.

Eddie

 

[EddieWalker]

Now that I have a way to drain the rain water, I scraped the top soil away. Not that I dont want any topsoil, but it's the little twigs that are all over the place that I don't want.

Then I started digging the keyway for the dam.

Eddie

 

[EddieWalker]

This part of the dam will be the tallest point. I expect it to be six feet tall to hold back the water and another 2 feet of freeboard for a total of 8 feet of height.

There is a formula for how big the keyway needs to be based on the height of the dam, but I'm just winging it. I know that 4 feet wide and six feet deep will be way more than required, so that's what I've dug.

Eddie

 

[MMM]

On my pond the core trench was as wide as dozer and roller so clay could be compacted. Depth was whatever it took to cut a couple feet below clay layer. The clay wasn't flat layer, but ran from 2' deep on hillside to 6' deep under watersand in bottom. Contractor said if you don't "walk" it in and compact, it will seep, and that a general rule is a minimum foot width for a foot water depth because of hydraulic pressure exerted .