It's just a little 1/2 acre or so farm pond that had been used as a stock tank since forever. During the drought of '81 it got really low so Pops had dozer guy
come out and do some work on it. Basically he pushed the muck from the edges into the middle and made a caldera so the cattle could get a drink without getting stuck.
Fast-forward a few years to 2007. Mrs. Augie and I bought ten acres from my folks and built a new house. The pond was on the part of the property that we bought.
It got really low again during the drought of 2011 and in August of that year it ran out of oxygen and all of the fish died. That was a sad deal because it was loaded
with channel cats, largemouth bass, crappie and bluegill. Not little stunted fish either, big, whopping fish. 5lb+ largemouth, channel cats up to 20lb, 12" bluegill.
It wasn't deep but it was rich from all the cow poop over the years.
So, I had dirt guy come out and cut the dam so it wouldn't fill back up. The next spring I bought an old half wore out industrial loader tractor, which we needed for
farm stuff anyway, and started the process of cleaning out the pond. I began by working my way in from the edge on the shallow side, removing the muck and hauling it off
to a sippy hole down by the creek. It was slow going, working on it when I wasn't at work or doing other projects around here, but it gave me time to drink beer and
have some time to think about what I wanted to achieve as an end result for the pond. And I didn't have to write a big check to dirt guy for the work. We were still
pretty much tapped out from building the new house and taking it in the shorts on the sale of our old house due to the downhill slide in real estate that was happening then.
I can't find the earliest pics of the work. Changed cell phones somewhere in there and didn't start using dropbox until after the phone swap.
This first pic is fairly early in the process. You can see the difference in color of the material that's being removed compared to what's underneath. For a little
perspective, the loader bucket on the tractor is 7'6" wide.
Looks like it rained again. I've lost count of how many times I've had to pump it out.
Compare the cut in the dam in the first pic to this one and you'll get an idea of how much material has been removed so far. My goal is to have 12'-14' of water in the middle
when the pond is at full pool. I haven't measured it yet, but I'm estimating here it would be about 10' if it were full. I'm going to build a fishing/swimming dock about where the tractor is sitting.
I gave up after this rain last fall.
This is what it looked like this morning. Two days ago it was empty. Two weeks ago the water was above the spot where the discharge line comes out of the cut.
I'm super happy with the new pump. It's rated for just over 3000gph and will handle 1/2" solids.
This what it looks like now after 8 hours of running the pump. All I need is a few days without rain and I'll be able to get in there with the tractor and resume work.
