re: Building a 5 acre lake in SWMS

I spent in excess of 100K on a 10 acre lake in Madison County in 2021. That includes stocking.

We did everything we wanted though, ie 18-20’ on deep side, trenches, load upon load of pea gravel, had close to 50 concrete culverts (think huge circle ones/squares) delivered for structure, mounds, creek channels, etc. We also limed the lake bottom prior to it filling up. The monthly management cost suck, too. For example, we just spent $2,500 on a load of threadfin shad and another $1,750 to kill off some algae that started growing. The feed alone for the bluegill is $150/month, plus the monthly fertilizing cost. Having said that, our bass make 2 years old June 11 and we shocked them a few weeks back and we already have bass around 4.5 pounds. Just keep these extra cost in mind if you want to do it right.

You should know going in that these projects seem to grow. It's like building a house. We ended up moving over 50,000 yards of dirt and we had to have state engineers come out to name and permit our levy due to size and water volume being impounded.