I live on 3 acres 8 miles from town. I saw “How to Build Your Own Pond” in Field & Stream" mag in a doctors office. Have not been able to find it since. It was May of 2004 issue. Would like to have a copy of that article. It had info on agencies which would check your soil for free and advise you if it was do-able and what you need to do to do that project on your land. Also comments obvliviously welcome.
Plain old Jim, I’m Plain…and I’m old.
Apologize for putting this in what may be wrong forum. Had something else on mind when I entered forum. Also apologize for length of message. I was never good at “Ten words or less”
Plain old Jim, I’m Plain…and I’m old.
Call your state’s Department of Wildlife (or whatever the equivalent for Arizona is). They’re able to help, or at least they can point you in the right direction.
Hey Jim,
You might also try calling your County
Office and asking them. They may have the
manpower and expertise to help ya and be
closer than the state agencies. Good luck.
Warm regards, Jim
You may want to hold off on with the county,
they may frown on it. Use stealth before you let em know what your up to. ( just a thought may not apply.) Nothing wrong with going with the county on some projects and thsi my be your case but just was not mine.
I put in a pond some years ago on my property. Benotite ( Sp ) comes to mind is what I used to condition the soil then earth dam and what do you know a place to fly fish.
Do a search there is plenty of help online.
Berrer hurry up and get it in quick…at the rate the rain is coming down this year, it’ll be full in a week or two. Really amazing how our lakes are coming up to good levels…some are already full in the Salt River Chain.
Snow on the roof with fire in the hearth
Hi POJ;
I have a ton of experience raising Steelhead, brown trout, Pacific and Atlantic salmon in a government sponsored private run hatchery. All fish are stocked back into the Great Lakes headwater streams for put-grow-take angling opportunities.
There are two variables that determine success for pond raising trout and they’re simple. The water temperature can’t get above 70F and the dissolved oxygen (DO) cannot get below 6 parts per million at the warmest time of the year. (We also worry about dissolved oxygen in the winter because of the ice cap on the ponds, I don’t think you have that problem in AZ though.)
Typically, trout ponds have a cold water inflow of some sort to provide adequate fresh, cold DO rich water.
If you are planning on building a still water pond in Arizona I would suggest warmwater species, bass specifically. Even then you should have at least 20 feet of depth in the center to provide some cooler water in mid summer.
Your best bet is to contact the AZ department of fisheries before you do ANYTHING, they likely have a good deal of information on exactly what you want to do. Worst thing to do would be to spend time, money or effort only to find out that stocking private ponds needs expensive licensing or worse still, forbidden.
Good luck.
Glenn
[This message has been edited by Oncoryncus (edited 20 February 2005).]
Jim with only 3 acres it doesn’t seem like you would have enough land to build a pond. I built two 7 years ago and you first have to have a place to drain the water ,they do overflow and you just cant have the water go onto a neighbors property.
Mine are 25 feet deep and the stocking cost $1000 for each pond. 400 Bass 1000 blue gills, 500 redear, and 500 hybrid sunfish. 1000 flathead minnows to feed the bass. All were 2-3 inch fish. In 7 years the gills are now 9-10 inch and I have caught some 18 inch bass.
A library should have back issues of the magazine to copy
Bill
[This message has been edited by William Fitzgerald (edited 20 February 2005).]
WOW! A Library! Who woulda thunk it?..duh…Not making fun…an excellent suggestion. With Satellite tv, computer’s, dvd’s, the internet, etc…I didn’t think of the library. And I have a card. Good advice from all. I haven’t even mentioned it to my two friends who run a trout hatchery. But icw size…there was a small pond on our property years…uh…too many years ago, that was big enough to practice fly casting…and catch bluegill and it did not take up much land. icw runoff…never thought of that…no one behind me but blm…but that doesn’t mean it not a problem. icw warm water fish…there is stream 2.5 miles from me and I know of a lady (Fran)who caught a 26" rainbow there about 3 weeks ago, I took a photo of Bill who landed an approximate 5 pounder…catch and release…and a fellow named Chris caught a 27.5" there last week. The lakes do freeze over here, you can go ice fishing and some are not even accessible in the winter. Thanks for the posts. Lot more to it than I knew…oh…I am at approx 6,300’ but the lakes go far above that. I am not sure of the highest.
Plain old Jim, I’m Plain…and I’m old.
Here in MS it’s the local (county) US dept of Agriculture that does the soil/water testing.
William, I was surprised to read that your ponds are 25 feet deep. I have been doing my research to build a second pond on my property and the local agent and the written material from the University of MS recommends nothing deeper than 8 to 12 feet because the oxygen content isn’t sufficient at depths greater than that for good fish support.
Michael (Wooly) Woolum
State Certified Hunter Education Instructor
Hickory, MS
Wooly they are a little deep for just a fishing pond. It is a new housing addition (100 homes) and I’m in charge of the ponds–I trap the muskrats. They needed dirt so the ponds were dug.
Bill
First thing you will want to do is contact your extension agency to get a soils report for your area. What I mean by this is that report will tell you the kind of soils you typically will find for your area.
Areas that do not have alot of clay or rock bands can be difficult to hold the water. One comment I saw was in reagrds to Bentonite. This is a type of clay that can be used to line the bottom of the basin to seal the water in. With out a material that can hold the water in your basin you will never be able support a sustainable pond.
Generally it is cost prohibitive to haul this material in if it has to come from any distance.
You really should check with your extension agency because many times they have a program where they will help the land owner determine if a site would be suitable for a pond. In many cases have grants that can help to pay for it. You never know until you ask…
To add a bit to Plain Old Jim’s location…it get’s pretty cold up there in the White Mountains…snow, ice, all that silly stuff. POJ lives about 30 miles or so from a ski run. The lakes in his area do tend to freeze over in the deep part of the winter…while large mouth bass (and small mouths too) are to be had in that area of AZ, LMBass will decimate any trout population that POJ has in his pond, ergo probably no bass. As to water temps, summer time up there isn’t like summer time down in the Valley of the Sun (Phoenix area) and it’s in the Valley where the National Weatherman gets his damnedhot temperatures from in the summer.
POJ, we’re interested in your next step?
Snow on the roof with fire in the hearth
Don’t know if it will help or not, but that Ray guy who started B.A.S.S. has some tapes and stuff on building bass ponds. Might also be of interest to you?
…lee s.
POJ give: [url=http://www.pondboss.com/:835e6]http://www.pondboss.com/[/url:835e6] a try. It might help you out a bit.
Thanks for all the great words from all. I probably need to see iffen I can comment back to an individual post…ahhh…I see that I can. Well, anywhoooo…I can just visualize looking out back and seeing red winged blackbirds landing in the cat-tails at one end of my pond…and or see a fish jump…listening to the frogs…a wabbit, what a peacful scene…