Pond re-do Part 1

[Barton]

The property is in Turner County, GA and belongs to my daughter, Michele, and SIL, Tony. They reside in northern Indiana. Michele met with Stan, the pond man, when they were down here visiting last July. She wanted to get the "mess" over with before they retired to their farm.

The pond, built in 1952, had not been properly maintained for many years and it was badly leaking. Greg, a great neighbor who has been of tremendous help, came up with a couple of ideas to help with the rebuilding of the pond. The first thing he suggested was to start siphoning before draining the pond. Below are a couple of pictures of the full pond and a couple of the pond after several days of siphoning.

And three pictures the day before the big event. As you can see the siphoning worked great.

 

[Barton]

Michel and Tony flew down last Friday to participate in the once in a life time, for us, event. Stan kicked things off early Saturday morning and it didn't take him long to do his thing. As you can see there were some pretty good size trees growing on the dam.

 

[Barton]

Greg felt that there was a right good amount of fish in the pond and it would be a shame for them to go to waste. He suggested a fish fry which sounded like a good idea to us. Greg's 2 sons and the neighborhood's twins were the first in the pond. It struck me as odd that nobody called the twins by name, but just by "the twins." Even their dad introduced himself to me as, "I'm the twins father."

So the fun begins:

 

[EddieWalker]

Great pics. Love the Link Belt!!! That just looks like TOO MUCH FUNNNNNN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

How big is the pond? What is the goal with it?

Eddie

 

[Barton]

It wasn't long before others wanted to help. That's Greg in the white tshirt, my brother in the gator hat pointing the fish in the right direction and Justin on the far right. More about him later.

 

[Barton]

Well, I just couldn't stand it any longer. I had promised my daughter that I would take a bunch of pictures, but I had to do it. So down with the camera and off came the boots and socks. After I got out there I realized that I was the oldest and those young fellas were about 45 years younger and 100 lbs. lighter. Probably had bigger feet, too. :laughing:

I was going out to the center of the water but about 6 feet from the bank, I sunk up to mid-thighs in the muck. Justin helped me pull myself out. So after that I held a net to block one end of the seine and after about an hour got out to take more pictures.

Then Michele got in on the fun. Tony stayed on the dam to help ferry the fish to the tank.

Time flew on us and ,sadly, the fun was over.

 

[Barton]

Here's a couple of pictures of what we used to hold the fish and carry them to the fish cleaning area. The equipment belongs to Greg.

 

[Barton]

It was a blast! There were a lot of spectators standing on the dam and we had plenty of volunteer help.

After the main event was over Stan cut through to the smaller settling pond that was on the west side.

I'll add more tomorrow.

 

[doall]

we did the same thing last year on one of my friends ponds. He does dirt work so we had all the toys too. It was a blast. But where are all your snake pictures?

 

[Barton]

Hi Eddie,
Yeah, some of it was just a real hoot. After the water level got down to just a few inches deep you could see the bigger fish swimming against the current, kicking up half water and half mud. My wife was standing on the dam on the other side of the Link Belt with the "peanut gallery." Several of them were hollering out, "There goes one!" and pointing, etc.

Of course, those young fellas were at least knee deep in mud, with a few inches of water on top, and didn't have the same perspective as the folks standing on the dam. It wasn't like they could see as well or even run. :laughing: Every now and then one of them would step in a hole and half disappear.

I'm sure a few big ones "got away."

The pond is about 2 acres with about half acre settling pond on the west side. Stan is going to rebuild the dam making it a bit longer. He is going to take out the island, take out the ridge between the 2 pond areas, take out all the trees on the north and west sides. I suspect the pond will end up being about 3 acres. He's, also, going to cut in some deep holes.

John,

Oddly enough, we didn't see one snake and haven't ever seen any snakes in the water. I did see one huge Eastern King snake on the dam last year, so maybe that's the answer. Michele saw a huge rattlesnake last July while she was riding around on the gator. By the time she got turned around it had slipped into the brushy border of the hardwood bottoms.

I'll attach a couple of pictures of those younguns after the wayward fish and one of the old man. :laughing:

 

[Barton]

I realize that the fish cleaning, frying, and eating isn't part of the pond re-building, but I think some of you might enjoy some pictures of the affair.

A neighbor of Greg's loaned us his fish scaler (actually a de-scaler) with electric motor and Greg built the blue one the week before. The fish were put in the small one first and then the blue one for final de-scaling and rinsing.

We had a lot of help cleaning and filleting the fish.

Another picture of Greg's 7220.

And Justin had the coolest "ride". :thumbsup:

 

[Barton]

The fish cleaning and fry was across the road at Greg's place since there is no electricity and nor fresh water at the pond site.

About this time my brother and I and families left to go check in and cleanup at a motel in Ashburn. We live about an hour west of the farm.

When Warren got back he fired up his 2 deep fryers and Greg fired up his 2.

I could tell the hunger was building and people were getting a bit restless.

One thing great about being a musician is that they get to eat first. :licking:

 

[Barton]

On the menu was: bass, brim, catfish, hush puppies, french fries, baked beans, cole slaw, bread & butter pickles, onions and my wife made, in addition to the beans, a quadruple batch of brownies.

The musicians warming up. The pickin' and the grinin' went on past sundown.

 

[dieselscout80]

The pond, built in 1952, had not been properly maintained for many years and it was badly leaking.

As a new pond owner of a three year old pond what maintenance should have been done to the pond?

 

[Barton]

The biggest issue was keeping the trees from growing on the dam. I guess the dam may have been built according to the standards of the day but certainly not to today's standards. It was way to narrow at the base and the top of dam making it impossible to mow. It was almost a sheer drop off of at least 20' on the backside of the dam.

Also the amount of fish and types were not kept at proper ratios so the pond ended up with stunted fish, but they still tasted good. :licking:

 

[doall]

Man thats fun stuff.