Pond construction takes some heavy equipment and involves the movement of
a lot of soil and other materials. Even if a homeowner has access to
the equipment, and even if the homeowner knows how to operate the
equipment, disaster is never far from “do-it-yourself” pond builders.
The best example I know of how an owner-built pond can fail was seen some
years back in the Arkansas Ozarks on a small family farm. The owner
noticed a natural depression close to his home site, and since he wanted a
pond, it seemed a logical place to build a pond. He borrowed a
neighbor’s bulldozer and scraped the soil and rocks to make a dam. A
heavy rain the next week filled the new pond, and the water held just
fine. A few months later, the homeowner stocked the new pond with
fish, and all went well for almost a year. After holding water for
almost a year, the pond totally emptied in one night. The reason? That natural depression which seemed such a good place to make a pond was
nothing more than the roof of a sinkhole in the limestone sub-soil, and
when the water of the pond finally soaked through the compacted bottom of
the pond, the sinkhole opened up and the water drained away like a
bathtub - fish, water, and all.
Bob Schlutheis, natural resource engineering specialist with the
University of Missouri Extension Service says, “Undersized ponds and leaky
ponds are two common problems I encounter. Cutting corners on size
to save money only ends up costing more later in repairing erosion
damage.” Schultheis adds, “The Missouri Pond Handbook, available from the
Missouri Department of Conservation or on-line at
www.conservation.mo.gov,
can help in developing and managing ponds for fishing.”
So, the answer is, “Yes, you can do it yourself,” but I wouldn’t.
What Fish Should Be Stocked in the Pond?
I love fishing in small private ponds. The largest fish I have ever
caught in freshwater all came from small, less than five-acre, family-owned ponds. My largest bass - over ten pounds - came from a small
pond just down the road from my house. I have caught catfish over
twenty pounds from small ponds. So, small ponds can produce a lot of
fish, both for fun and food.
In general, for most of the country, small family ponds will be stocked
with three species of fish. First will be bluegill bream.
These beautiful, fast growing fish reproduce very rapidly, and will
absolutely fill a small pond with lots of tiny, stunted offspring in a
couple of years. The idea is to keep the bream from over-populating. To do this, largemouth bass and channel catfish are also stocked.
Both of these fish love to eat small bream, and both bass and catfish will
get very large from eating most of the bream which are born in the pond.
