Cleaning out an old pond
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- čas přidán 27. 08. 2024
- This is a short video of an old pond that was built in 1973. This pond was 44 years old and has filled up with silt and mud. I decided it was time to clean it out after it turned over a few years ago and killing most all of the fish.
Good luck building your new dam . Great video TXS .
Did almost the same with my pond, cut the dam in April cut a trench in the middle of the pond around July and cleaned out and moved the dam farther down in June of the following year. A lot of work but worth it. When I cut he trench through the muck the ground was springy I had to be careful not to break thru the crust and bury the excavator. Went from a 1.5 acre pond to a 4 acre pond. Silt was at least 6 foot deep.
I live up in Northern New Jersey. There are quite a few ponds and lakes up around where I am. Property's are well-developed so most of these water features are the backyard of some of the nicest, and most expensive, residences in the whole state. We have communities like a Saddle Brook, a Saddle River and a Franklin Lakes just to name a few. Franklin Lakes probably has the highest water/land ratio than any other locality in NJ, at least up in the Northern part. About 20 years ago, a neighbor of mine bought a house on one of the lakes, or maybe it was a giant pond since it was only about 10 acres, and he paid a cheap price. Why? The lake was shallowed out by organics over the centuries. Well he took it upon himself, with the town's permission of course, to get a mucking-out effort joined in by the other lakefront residents to enhance the usefulness and value for their collective interests. He told me that none of about the 10-20 property owners were interested in contributing, so he would do all of the work and assume all of the costs himself, but he persevered. The key was finding a big enough excavating company that had an interest in mining out the rich organic material and re-selling it. As it was the stuff was like a compacted, raw peat moss more than just silt or anything else. So he agreed to work for nothing with his excavators and truckings so longs as he could claim the material. My friend was only responsible for the de-watering with high volume pumps so that each day the excavator would have his access. He told me that cost was projected to be only around $20 grand or so. So it was a very smart on his part. His property, as well as his other cheap-o neighbors probably doubled once the project was complete and today the lake is beautiful and thriving for all to enjoy. I hope a lot more people might use this type of plan elsewhere where this type situation exists. I know there are plenty of places in our state alone where it could really work out. Congratulation Joe! You did it!
Nice pond, good watershed, wow to the vision, I like where you were going with it.
I love that your plan is to make a bigger and better pond. Always sucks to see a pond get drained just to create dry land. That happened to both of the two best fishing lakes I ever knew. Both secret/private/unseen ponds were absolutely loaded with bass. One of the lakes we named "Guaranteed", and we used that name for almost 20 years based on the odds of catching nice fish there on any given day. The other lake, the most ridiculously bass-laden body of water I've seen by far, had just mythical numbers of bass. As our regular routine there we'd first cast from dry land 20 yards away from the pond, to start things off. That way we could catch the fish already holding on the bank we planned to enter, instead of just scaring them away as we tromped carelessly into the pond. The method there was to enter the pond up to waist deep, then wade the perimeter catching tons of bass along the arc.Both lakes were eventually drained for real estate development. Traumatized us, lol. No really, it leaves you hating to see lakes get drained. We heard stories about piles of giant bass, crappie, and bluegill being in the final puddle of Guaranteed. Don't know their fate. Never heard details about the draining of the even better mythical-bass-levels unnamed lake.
We are in the process of re-building the pond. I have been making some videos as we go along of the construction. This pond is a big job and we are now into crop harvest season and will most likely not get it finished until spring. However the pond will be completed sooner or later, I just wish it was sooner.
Very interesting. Here on the farm back in the 70's we had a pond drained and at the time i was around 10 years old or so and was sent in to retrieve what fish i could. I still remember there was hundreds of tiny catfish about an inch long and they was "horning' the crap out of me but i collected all i could while waist deep in mud.
After all that after the pond was cleared of all the mud it would rain and the pond would fill and in 2 day's it would drain out through a under ground stream or opening in the limestone that was uncovered at the bottom of the pond.
Thanks for sharing your work.
The county has a hydraulic engineering dept with a certified engineer! I’m impressed!
Can't wait. It'll be wonderful. Nothing like growing up with a family pond.
Fantastic project, can't wait to see more and the finished pond/lake.
good on you for repairing the land... mother nature is watching and you surely will be rewarded :)
Looks like construction is on hold until all the crops are in. Hopefully back to building in a few weeks or so.
I read though and replied to a bunch of the comments and most were pretty old, and mostly lame. It looks like a great pond and hope you can bring it back to what is was. Thanks for the video. I really enjoyed it!
Johnny B I enjoyed it too! May 2020
Excavators, one of the greatest inventions in earth moving equipment, they're so versatile.
If you use a dozer to bring material to the excavater, always keep one track on dry ground. That black muck will sucker you in. Don't cut below the original design depth, if you break that seal it will leak. If you mix Pam with the fill it will fix a leak. Good luck.
I just found and watched this video, I could almost smell it. How can such a sweet pond smell so awful when it is drained? I do hope you can eventually rebuild it and continue to enjoy it like you did as a child. Maybe you won't work forever and can go back and catch a few big ones. Stay safe and healthy.
Rest in peace to all the fishes who lost their lives 🙏
Look forward to the rebuild video but it looks a long job.Good luck and good work boys.
after that, the lake needs to be cleaned regularly. This is best done by pumping out bottom sediments with a dirty water motor pump and a Bagermaster suction nozzle.
I enjoyed this way more than I should have ....
Have you filled the pond back up yet? I would dig some of it out deeper, add some huge rocks across the dam to help with erosion, and add a few nice piles of rocks as fish attractors, or tie a few old tires together, leave or replant the cattails, help with erosion. Stock with bass,,redear sunfish, crappie. No carp and no catfish. Plus go fishing at other spots, catch, release in your pond. Catch some Florida strain bass, release in your pond, don't get caught, lol. Good luck! John
This is strangely addictive.
So I see from your website, you are a flatlander :-) as my aunts & Uncle's up in Morgan county call their kin that moved down to Lexington . All dad and all his siblings were born just outside of West Liberty. I love that country, but as you know jobs were scarcest , back in the '20's and I doubt much better since I was last back in the '80's. If I wasn't disabled so, I would like to have a smokeless muzzle loader for deer season. Real interesting Pond video. I have to watch the build now.
You could put yerself a little airlift pump in there to keep your water aerated. Some ditched and vegetated terraces above the pond would help to catch the silt before it gets to it.
That driver is nuts going to the edge of that trench that could give way with erosion
Got to have some balls if you want to get anything done...
Brilliant, very dangerous job , but brilliant, Kudos to the excavation guy.
Will be waiting for you to do your new pond soon .
I would like to start the rebuild as soon as possible. However this will require a lot of money. I will need some time to save up to have it re-built. I knew it would take a while to dry out so I wanted to get it drained when I had equipment on my farm last fall. Now to just get the cash for the re-build.....
@@jeffhankins6616 Is it rebuild yet?
Was it just me I was waiting to see cool stuff found at the bottom of the lake
Wish we could have seen the boys catch the fish. That's the best part
Our family vacationed in an area in Pennsylvania every year for about 10 or more years back in the 70's. There was a pond there, and each year you could see how it was dying little by little. No idea if that place still exists. Progress i guess.
midnight rider where is this pond in pa?
Awesome video. I want to see the remake on video too!
If I do rebuild the pond I will video as much of the rebuild as possible.
Very interesting. I didn't know and always wondered, how to clean a pond. Like and sub!
Nice job Jeff. Enjoyed the excavation. Hope you get some good "water witches" from the extension service!
I've got one good one, He can tell you where the water vain is and how deep it is.
if no one has dumped any chemical waste into that pond , that mud once dried will make a great potting soil and could be sold for a nice profit ,,
There's been no chemical waste in the pond. This pond is in the middle of nowhere and I have been fishing in it since I was a boy.
I also was thinking that also,all the decayed plants & fish should make for some Really Rich Soil!!!!!!!! shoot if I weren't hurt I'd buy a load of it if you were to sell some...
I was thinking the same thing. My garden would be SO beautiful with a little of that dirt.
It isn't the soil that costs it's the transport.
You had rusty oil drums in the pond thats pollution bud
Please keep the videos coming during the process. Thanks
"Abner" and "Holler" in the same video... GOLD! hahahaha
wheres part 2'3'4'5 and 6? i want to see it after its all done fixed and filled back up!!!!
This was very interesting. Thanks for posting Sir. Hope to see the next steps.
The kids catching the fish was probably the best part
I found this video far more interesting than I thought I would.
Very interesting, first time I've seen this done, this video just happened to pop up on my CZcams feed so this is the first of your videos I've seen, I will subscribe.
Thanks for subscribing
I enjoyed this video. Please make an update video about the pond.
Deliverance is my favourite Burt Reynolds film.
great undertaking. I hope you can hold the water in the new site.
The green stuff is algae, not moss. That can turn water toxic which is very common in water that doesn't move. The water needs certain types of water plants and the pond water needs aeration to oxygenate the water which would have gotten the algae under control, removed foul odours and improved water quality for fish habitats. They are not expensive and so much easier to do. It might be an idea to keep it healthy in future.
Old trick that I was taught is whole bags of aglime thrown in the dam to keep water clear. Have you ever seen water like that in an area of limestone. It helps keep the lilies to a minimum as well. You can use old concrete bags.
If you mix in some Bentonite in with the dirt, it will seal the pond/lake and it will not leak again...
It will do as you say it will and you can purchase it at most plumbing and well supply houses. As a water well driller, my son has to sometimes use Bentonite to mix with his drilling water. It helps with lining the well hole so that it doesn't collapse before you can get the well casings in before it collapses on itself.It's not cheap, though when you consider how much it would take for a pond that size.
Oilfield uses it also.
I wish I could have seen the boys get the fish
As long as there is turbulence in the water, it won't turn over. Maybe you could put in a wind or solar powered air pump. Laying a tube along the bottom to aerate it and keep it from turning over.
if you line the dam with a sheeting, the water won't leach out. The reason the water was leaching out before was when the muskrats or beaver dug thru the clay liner of the pond, it was like put a hole in a water balloon. Line your pond with clay. Water cay not pass thru the clay. I saw it on your old pond in the video. Go back and look at the drain from the trencher, you can see the grey clay liner towards the front of the pond at 5:01 into the video.
Got this in my youtube recommendations just now. Relaxing watch actually.
I would love to see the job posting in a Sunday paper looking for a county Water Witch!
I love watching lengthy videos like this it intrests me.
Stay tuned for some more videos of the bond build coming up this spring.... As soon as planting season is over. The guy I'm having build it is a full time farmer as well as an equipment operator so he can't get started until after he has all his crops in the ground.
2:32 As for pollution issues, you may want to determine what those three steel barrels held. The EPA might what to hear the answer. Next, you should ask those three steel barrels how they knew where the pod was located. Third, you should discover how they transported themselves through the woods. Lastly, ask the barrels why they jumped into the pod.
I have answered this same question over and over,, if you want to know what was in the barrels read some of the questions and you will find the answer.
I wonder how the pond looks like next year when all tye plants grow again ,,, must be beautiful than
I enjoyed this video. When I was a kid we lived on my grandparents property divided by the pond. I was thinking of buying a property that has a pond that’s being used by cattle. It’s only a 10 acre property. But I was wondering if it could be turned into a fishing pond. I only want a couple of dairy cows & other farm animals. I’m an avid gardener. I’m wondering if this would work for us. 🤔 My concern is that the property probably isn’t big enough to dump the pond without running into other peoples land. I’m not sure how big it actually is. I’d have to do some math on that. Loved your video.
We did a couple of these clearing ponds out in NE Texas. Ended up finding about 10 perfect shaped arrow heads.
We have a lot of arrow heads in my part of the country.
That was pretty cool to watch, thanks.
I would be panning for gold where all that water is flowing through
Fascinating!
Wish I had your problem....
Enjoyed ❤️✌️🇺🇸
Great vid, if you get the water whitch out be sure to film it dosent have to be long, anything related to the pond if you have the time. You can even do it right from your phone.
Great video be a big pond when done.
I am hoping for about 2.5 surface acres.
i hope you notified everyone downstream that you were going to breach your dam. That's a lot of water coming downstream. Interesting to watch.
Down stream,,, really,,, There is no one down stream for miles and miles, plus if you walked up on my neighbors property they would shoot first then ask you what you wanted.
So how is it going? Have you managed to move forward with constructing the new dam yet?
This. Also no new vids.
Tom Brueggen he uploaded a update 3 days ago
Amazing. All his other videos have a thousand or so views. This one has 1.4 million and the update which shows only the empty dry pond has about 40 thousand views. Who would have thunk people enjoyed watching excavating so much.
@@39knights I think we all just wanted to see what was at the bottom of the pond and if there was any fish
Interesting vid. Thx for posting.
Great video, very interesting. Love to see more.
I will be making some more pond videos soon I hope.
Sure , get me hooked into watching this video , where is the follow up ? Removing all that silt/mud must have been too much fun .
I will video it if a decide to spend the money to rebuild the pond.
Omg it took forever to drain that pond. I'm happy your gonna save the fish that's in there and remove them to their new home.
This pond was built a year before my mother was born. Fun random fact
Great video
how is it going? after watching your film... and so I read som of the comments... and telling you!
I can smell the breez trough the trees, in the evenig, after swimming befor cooking them fish out of your lake... and anyway thank a lot from here, Germany for the extra work you did for this movie.
Andreas, Berlin Germany 29. Nov. 2017
Hi Jeff basically you should dig hole first to hold the water from the old pond you are draining, , using a screen to see what kind of fish you have inside old pond , , instead of just draining them into a field. & killing them
First off I knew there were hardly any fish left in the pond, as I fished it for years and know when the turn over took place. Second,, all the fish left in the pond, all 10 of them were pushed down stream into the river, where they had a much better chance to survive than in this stagnant pond. Third, spending thousands of dollars to dig a hole to save the life of a few fish would not be a wise investment....
Jeff, I’d like to see how this project went over the summer, are you planning to post that video?
Idk why but videos like this are super satisfying to watch. Just the erosion is so satisfying
it costs a bit of cash but you can get liners made for this so it holds water. clay bottom holds or a bought liner works well. otherwise your spending alot of time and cash to find out the hard way.
@3:20 'basically, a fish drowns when it comes out of the water' lol thanks for the laugh!
I knew a guy who did bridge diving to check for structual integrety etc, he found alot of guns and odd things, intrasting
So satisfying
this is like tearing down your house when you need to vacuum. Pond management is an art. It could have been done in such a less dramatic way. 1 what kind of plant life is around it water in water out. and the amount of oxygen you're generating. I wish you would have talked to people who manage wetlands oh, you could have saved yourself a lot of trouble and revived your leg without spending so much money and destroying so much at the same time. seen it done many many times!
Apparently you did not watch or listen to the entire video. This pond was full of mud and muck, Yes I know I could have had it cleaned out, but like I said in the video I am wanting to make it bigger. That would be hard to do without moving the damn. There's always more than one way to do something, This is the way I chose to do it.
Thanks for sharing Best wishes for your new pond
It's a wonder if any fish were in that nasty hole. Water looks almost stagnant! Whew
Dam!
That's a dam big job to move that dam dam a little way down the dam stream and then dig out all that dam earth to make an even dam bigger dam.
Dam good job!
We would like some dam updates if you get a chance.
Cheers!
From dam Australia :)
We started the re-construction of the pond this fall. Did not get it all done as weather did not cooperate and crops came in to harvest, but we will be back on it this spring... Look for the videos under my channel. I think I have 10 construction videos.
Stagnant water will kill off a pond. It removes the oxygen so the fish cannot live and an alge grows suffocating any fish.
Strangely, satisfying to watch... ;)
I truly wish there was more of this. Recut the inland waterways and there would probably be less flooding.
I love this type of work!
I saw some old barrels, did you guys have the water tested for chemicals first, it doesn't seem normal for all the fish to suddenly die. I find this so sad. I hope you got it up and running again.
Good job, keep us posted!!!
That would be a great trout pond brother.
It’s kind of funny that so many people are telling him what is wrong and how to fix it. Er...did they see the video?
David Beach
Wonder if that will ever dry out enough to get a little dozer in there to clean it out and make it a little deeper.
Shane K My Dad cleaned out our 3 acre pond years ago and yes it will dry out to allow cleanout
17:00 you really needed to install an overflow/scour-drain/standpipe, from the deepest point thru the dam to the drain-stream, so you'll never have to do this again. Of course the fish don't leave, they'd have to swim from what's left of their home, the remaining deep water, up onto the mud-wash. If you remember, this pond was a stream, and it won't drain until you have an inclined path from the deepest point, to below the dam. Else, the mud puddle will remain until the feeding stream dries. Unless you had those barrels full of methyl-ethyl-bad-stuff, you should excavate the mud for compost.
That mud would grow tomatoes you could use as cannon balls. Been there, done that.
I would put loads of rocks along those banks. Just dump them down the sides after a dozer has cleaned it out.Rollover means the top layer with Oxygen in it through water inversion becomes the bottom and the oxygen deprived bottom layer comes to the top. It all mixes up and the fish can't stay alive in the oxygen poor water. The air can do the same thing early morning or late afternoon. That's why it can suddenly feel a lot colder all of a sudden.
Cool to watch👍🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟
.....good video sir
.....any updates on your new pond?
.....you have us very interested, please do a follow up video if possible, thank you
When and if I do a rebuild of the pond I will for sure be videoing as much of it as I can.... Believe it or not I caught an 8 3/4 pound large mouth bass out of that pond back in 1989. I have it mounted and hanging up in my shop. Biggest bass I ever caught.
@@jeffhankins6616 Nice!
You have alot of drop in the topography. Might be better to have 2 ponds or you'll have to build a massive and tall dam to get water level up to original pond. Upper pond could be a duck pond that is planted, then dam closed to fill for duck hunting in fall. Lower pond for fishing or use to circulate water to upper pond for duvk hunting or raising catfish for sell.
Lot of good topsoil there
I wonder what's down stream of this pond? Bet some neighbors are wondering what's going on up stream!
I aint got no neighbors.......................
missed a huge chance to use a sifter with the stream of water could have got a couple grams of gold easily
That looked like a hellva deer trail you were walking
Great to see the THREE old metal barrels half sunk in the pond! Hmmm wonder what could have been in them?? Used to be a great pond. Ya, right. Probably a great garbage dump too.
You are such an IDIOT..... You have no Idea.
This is one way to catch the pond monster.