Design the OB's Dream Pond

I have always wanted a moat around my house


Have a moat around the house and have it feed into a multi acre pond as well.

Put a slip and a boat house by the house....head out in the morning...fish the moat...head out to your spots in the pond....return home....profit.

As a starter

You are doing it the right way, asking questions before the bulldozers are moving dirt

Minimum surface area of one acre

Design - contact the USDA-NRCS district office for your parish/county - they will take soil core samples, if necessary, to insure a proposed pond area will hold water and will then properly design a pond/small lake for you, all at no cost to you, outside of your tax $ that pays their salaries; ask about cost sharing - sometimes there is program that will pick up part of the cost if designed to certain criteria

Drainable - likely a component of a NRCS designed pond.

Bass-bluegill/redear + channel catfish combo

Under no circumstance take advice of anyone who suggest sac-a-lait/crappie

Read every southern state’s recreational pond and lake extension manual and take their recommendations and suggestions to heart

My perfect pond would be 15 acres located just beside a major public river. I would dig a canal just wide enough for a boat to pass through and connect the pond to the river. Then I would sit on the property line and yell at anyone who tried to motor down my canal and catch my fish.

The texasbowhunters.com DIY forum have some Texas baws that have made some A++ ponds. Real nice Clark

Gonna go on ahead and call it before I even try it: TLDR.

Went back and pulled some old pictures from the computer. Actually built the pond in '03 had the date mixed up on when I built my house.

This is when it was flooding and you can see the concrete culvert tiles we used for structure. Also used concrete curbs stacked like lincoln logs.



This picture shows the spillway pipe and the gate valve that leads through the dam.



Picture of one of the feeders in the winter time.





picture of the gate valve from the damn.





One of the bluegill my son caught



A few bass.





Ducks below the dam





Milo in the spillway



couple of honkers my son shot.



AU sunrise clover on the banks



Shooting range beside pond.

Hot dam

quote:

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Wonder how chinquapins would do in pond?

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Chinquapin = redear sunfish = shellcrackers do fine in recreational ponds. Routinely stocked in combination with bluegill, 70-80% bluegill + 20-30% chinquapin.

I just wanted to add some recent pics from my "flagship" pond. It's 12 acres, deepest hole is 20 feet, 2 old cow ponds are inside of it (multiple ledges), it has a creek channel within, multiple trees and stumps and porcupine PVC structures, concrete culverts, over an acre of pea gravel beds and 3 commercial fish feeders. It is stocked in bluegill, bass and magnolia crappie (hybrid) and is restocked in shad every year (or based on the surveys from the fish dudes's surveys). Biggest crappie to date is over 3lbs, at least a dozen 7+ pounders get caught and released every year and have been that way for 3 years (not by me, not enough time to try them unfortunately :( ), biggest has been 11 pounds, but IMO the true trophy fishery is the bream. On the occasion that I get to fish it, I throw back any that are under 3/4 pounds or so.

I went last week an hour before dark since they're bedding and kept 15 and caught maybe 25. All were caught on the fly rod. 15 fish weighed damn near 15 pounds. (The scale is accurate I assure you. It's the one that I make the folks who fish the lake use to log their catch for management purposes. It's cheap, but it works. And the scale is tared for the stringer. I have no reason to lie, aside from the fact that I'm a fisherman.)

I've got to get some youngins out here who've never hooked into a fish before to feel what a real titty bream pulls like. To me, nothing beats monster bull blues, especially on the four weight!



An almost 2 pounder I caught on the 2nd cast. Thought about mounting him but don't know if I should? Is 2 lbs big enough? (Being serious?)