My Pond Project

   / My Pond Project #22  
Great pictures. It's an amazing project that you are undertaking, especially with having to pump out the water so that you can get back to digging. I did just the oposite, in almost the same way. I bought a 3 inch trash pump and put an old fuel tank on top of it with a wood frame. Your metal frame and matching paint job on your tank looks very profesional. Much nicer then mine!!!

With all the dirt you are removing, can you just dig down 4 feet in areas before you do some serious digging to make sure you don't hit bedrock? If you do, you should be able to fill the hole and compact it without creating a leak. If you don't hit rock, you know that you are good to go for at least another two feet of depth. I'd always try to have at least two feet of good clay underneith you just in case the bedrock is just inches under your test hole.

Thanks for the update, it's a fun project for us to follow along,
Eddie
 
   / My Pond Project
  • Thread Starter
#23  
What I plan to do Eddie, is in the yellow hatched area, dig down with my excavator 5 feet, level it off, and get a ramp down in it for my dump truck.

Then dig from that platform allowing me to get that section of the pond 4-5 feet deeper. If I hit bedrock while doing that I'll make sure to cover it back up with 2 ft of clay...

It's too late for me to get the other sections of the pond deeper. It will never be dry enough for me to get in there...

Left-to-dig.JPG
 
   / My Pond Project #24  
As luck would have it, I was in the same situation with my pond, but then we had two years of drought. I joked with my wife that as soon as I finished digging it, the rains would return, and they did. It was the third wettest year in history!!!

Even if it doesn't dry up for you, it sure sounds like you have a good plan and I admire your determination. Maybe when you get that area dug out, the water will move there and you can dig in other areas.

Do you still need the dirt for your building pads? Or do you have enough and you're just digging for the depth?

Eddie
 
   / My Pond Project #26  
ETD66SS said:
Hey, you should have similar fishing ponds in Michigan to what we have here in NY.

I fished a lot of ponds as a kid, and never did I catch any SMB. Always LMB, BG & Sunfish...

Have you fished ponds in your area with SMB? How big were the ponds, were they deep?
Click to expand...

Yeah, there are lots of ponds/lakes around here with SMB. As ponds go they are easier to get to live with something else, ie walleye or bluegill. The only thing that stops a SMB or LMB from eating something is mouth size, obviously LMB has a much larger mouth so they can eat pretty much anything. I think it is a lot of personal preference. I grew up catching smallies and think they are a lot of fun, so that is my preference.

Lots of work, I wish I had the time or equipment to do the same.
 
   / My Pond Project
  • Thread Starter
#27  
So I went to check on the pump progress, 4th day.

Took some pictures:

etd66ss's photos. Get free image hosting at ImageCave.com - free image hosting at ImageCave.com

I checked out the pump, then turned the idle down a bit because it's getting close to sucking the pond dry, I did not want it to run dry over night.

After that, I went over to the discharge hose where it lay in the ditch, and noticed a pile of bullfrog tad pole remains, so decided to take a picture of that:

http://usera.imagecave.com/bhaal/BG/Pump_0160.JPG

As I was taking that picture I noticed something in the water swim really fast past the lens, I knew it could not be a tad pole swimming that fast.

I saw two of these in the ditch, they made it through the trash pump:

Pump_0159.JPG

Pump_0158.JPG

Pump_0157.JPG

Pump_0156.JPG


I guess all my posted & no trespassing signs didn't keep the kids from throwing BG in my ponds...

I was only able to catch one of them and moved it to the smaller pond that I'm not currently pumping out.
 
   / My Pond Project #29  
That's not a bluegill(BG)...its a green sunfish. They have a few characteristics that distinguish them from BG including an ability to survive in almost any water condition. They are also found almost everywhere. They have a mysterious ability to show up in water without any apparent human intervention. I've got a couple of wet weather creeks on my place and they always have greensunfish in them when they have water.
 
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