If you dig it (a pond), will it hold water?

Question for anyone out there who has added a pond to their property.

Basically, if you dig a pond, how do you know it will actually hold water when you’re done? Is there a certain minimum soil profile where it can’t be more than XX% sand or must be XX% clay at the bottom or how would you know?

My idea is to add a watering hole to a property that currently has no other source of water for the deer. Location of the pond would be at a natural collector point and if necessary we would drill a sandpoint well to provide filling and/or keep it topped up.

It feels kind of stupid to ask this question, but once I thought about it, I have no idea how I would know. It’s sure be an industrial-grade Charlie Foxtrot to spend all that time, fuel, and labor to dig a water hole and then find out that the water drains right out the bottom.

Obviously, I’m talking about soil only ponds here, just digging a hole in the ground. I understand anything could be made to hold water if it were plastic lined, etc, but I’m not thinking that would not be cost feasible. Or maybe it would compared to hauling in clay???

I honestly have no idea, the more I think about it, the more puzzling questions I come up with.

Grouse

I have no idea how you would know. You could do what I did and try a small hole and see what happens. Mine did not hold water so I put a kiddy pool from Menards on the bottom of the hole and filled in around the edges and now it does. It sounds like you want a pond though, so this may not work for you.

I do know that if you make the hole and let cows walk in it they will seal the soil to a point. The farm we used to hunt had a water hole on it. When the pond would start leaking he would borrow cows from the neighbor and fence them in around the pond and they sealed it back up.

How big of a water hole are you anticipating?

We did discuss essentially what you did, Sticker. Just put in a stock tank. Even though there’s no stock.

The downside I can see to that approach is that there is very little in terms of natural water collection for a stock tank. It has to be filled every so often, which adds to the complexity as the property is not attended on a daily basis. I’m sure there’s a high-dollar automated solution here, but cost IS an issue…

So once I got thinking about digging a pond, then I’m thining OK, what if it doesn’t hold water? It’d be a real mess to say the least.

Grouse

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How big of a water hole are you anticipating?

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This is a matter of some debate. I was thinking about 20-30 feet in diameter, my theory being that if there’s any chance of making it mostly self-sustaining with natural water collection, bigger is better. And I’d also want to dig down so while there would be a shallow edge, the middle of the pond would have a spot that would be 4-5 feet deep.

Maybe I’m nuts here and a stock tank is the only cost-feasible way to go? It’d have to be an old-school windmill setup, because no way would we be running power out to this location, so that’s another consideration.

Grouse

Some members of IDO have buried these pools flush with the ground.

I went a slightly more extravagant route since I knew I’d need to refill the tank occasionally.

Me filling the tank.

This water supply lasted from late June last year until September when I added a few hundred more gallons. You’ll be surprised how long the smaller puddles will last.

There is a key element to building a waterhole in June heat. The cooler on the left of this picture.

check out growing deertv.com. its a web based show on managing and improving your hunting land. the last episode they made a pond and covered it with a sort of clay. not sure the cost but maybe an option…

Not knowing where your property is located, I would suggest a few very simple things that will help you better understand your immediate water table.

First, go to google and search “NRCS Web Soil Survey”
Path for what you are looking for –> ‘Start WSS’ ->Zoom Tool to your land –> box in your AOI (area of interest) –>click on ‘Soil Map’ tab at top (this tells you your soil types by % of AOI and maps soil types) –> click on ‘ Soil Data Explorer’ tab beside Soil Map –> click water management on left –> click excavated ponds within that sub category –> click View Rating button (This results in a rating response description per soil type)

Further information comes from clicking on Soil Properties and Qualities –> click Water Features on the left –> Depth to Water Table within that sub category –> Click View Rating (gives your rating in centimeters per soil type)

Further information comes from clicking on Soil Properties and Qualities Tab –> click Soil Qualities and Features on left –> click Hydrologic Soil Group within that sub category (gives you information on your soils hydric soil properties per soil type) (You are looking at maybe C’s, but optimal D’s for your soils capacity to hold surface water run off into your pond, where as the other directions give you information on your ponds capacity to fill via water table.

Another tool that will give you some good information is the MDH
Google Search “MDH County Well Index” –> Start the tool –> zoom into your general land area –> click “identify well” on the left –> click through the wells in our general area (this will give you soil types hit at each given depth in laymans terms).

Another piece of information that will help is the general type of septic systems rural homes need to install. If there is an abundance of ‘mound type’ septics in your area this indicates a shallower water table as state rules and regulations manage the distance from drainage fields to seasonally saturated soils.

These are very simple and free ways to better understand your soil types and water table. These properties allow you to understand what your infiltration rates and capacity to hold soil are.

Hope this helps Shoot me a PM if you have difficulties getting through any of this stuff, or understanding what it is telling you

Sorry to hijack your post Grouse….I have a smaller hole dug that does not hold water. If I were to get a rubber liner how would I hold it in place? There is a small swale that feeds this hole, and I am worried about holding the rubber on that end so the water does not eat out the dirt underneath the rubber. Would putting larger rock on the rubber at the water entrance work? Again, Sorry Grouse!

Nut

We considered the rubber liner option out west, but we simply don’t get rain this time of year to refill ponds/holes. Our thought process was to dig the hole and line it with rubber material. The “feeder” are would also be tapered and lined, we planned the hole in a low lying “creek” spot. Then we would take the millions of field stones we have and secure the edges and the “feeder” area. Build a RIP/RAP of sort. To cut down on erosion. Not sure how it would work, but that was our thought process.

Bentonite clay will help. I don’t think it would be too difficult to find. It’s used in lots of ponds, landfills, and drilling operations as a liner. There are different types. You would be looking specifically for sodium bentoninte.

A quick google search brought me to this:
http://stoneycreekequip.com/form/pondseal.htm

We put in 3 ponds 4-5 years ago just for a water source to hunt over in the woods by key tree stand sites. We dug them out about a foot deeper than we wanted to keep them then put in a cheap plastic liner(menards 10 mil plastic)then covered the plastic with 1′ of dirt. These were 25-30′ dia ponds, two we put in where the water naturally runs into it. These were great the first couple years because they filled with water every rain but they eventually filled in with silt also. Now they are have the size of what we started with. Our best pond we put in the woods right on a top of a ridge. Even when we get along period without rain it still holds water plus it has never filled in with silt. After a few years the with the deer and critters compacting the soil in the ponds I am sure they would hold water even without the liner. Ps those ponds in the woods are magnets come the rut.

We dug a pond in the back 15 yrs ago. I went to Fleet Farm and bought the plastic for covering a bunker silo. It comes in 100′ rolls. Our pond is about 15’x30′ I folded the plastic so I had a double layer of plastic. I covered that with 1/2 ” rock and filled her up. ( Approx. 4000 gal. )15 yrs later it’s still good. I don’t remember what the plastic cost, but it wasn’t much.
WKW

About 15 years ago, I attempted to add a couple to our property. Fortunately, I know an excavator very well and he did a couple shallow bore samples for me. Rock, rocks, and more rocks. He advised me to either down scale the ponds to put in liners or truck in a few loads of clay. For me, they were cost prohibitive and I didn’t do it. My neighbor at the bottom of the hill from me did a few. Lots of clay at the bottom of the valley and his rock!

Many thanks for all the replies and to Flat for the online tools.

It looks like the safe bet is to downscale the size, then spend a little more money and go with a poly liner. A clay liner is not an option because the pond area is not accessible for dump trucks to bring in the clay and hauling it overland by the bucket load would be time prohibitive.

The project now is to determine exact loacation to maximize natural filling from runoff. Again, it would be nice if we could just turn on a tap and fill her up like a swimming pool, but that won’t work so it’s going to have to be 100% natural filling if it’s going to work.

Grouse