MY NEW DAM.

[tiges]

Got a dam built on my property. Not a huge one, but still a decent hole in the ground. It's about 35m long, and around 12m at it's widest, and about 6m deep . Put some lay down timber in there. Need serious rain now (preferably in about 2 weeks time, working on the house and gonna have some of the roof off). Then I can get some plantlife, and bait critters in there. And then eventually some real fish.

[tiges]

The dogs like it.

[tiges]

Now some rain please.

[Tim_01]

nice dam tiges, what are you planning on putting in there, bass, yellas and silvers maybe? Just make sure that the plants are well established and the smaller fish are breeding before you add some larger fish.

cheers, Tim

[tiges]

Probably mainly bass Tim. But I wouldn't mind a few Toga, and maybe try a few barra too eventually. Got a lot of good sources for both plantlife and bait nearby. So once it's got enough water in it, I'm gonna get the plants established. Then trap baitfish and shrimp daily and pour the little buggars in there. When I know I've got a healthy little ecosystem in there, then I'll look at the fish stocking. It's not gonna happen o'night, I know it's gonna be a drawn out affair.

Cheers
Tiges

[Green]

Ohh the anticipation, you must have a truck load of patience tiges. Every mans dream, to fish in his own backyard, good luck with the project.

[fish_outta_water]

hi mate
looking good , wish i had that kinda room looks like a nice catchment slope into it
just wondering if youll be lining it with clay? stops the water seeping away into ground table, sounds like a long time between fills (depending where you are)
so are you gonna leave the logs in as snags?

[tiges]

Yeh the logs will stay in there as structure. It's all lined with clay already. You can see in the last pic where we hit clay about halfway down. The back wall has clay compacted almost a metre thick. Didn't seal the top half of the front wall, the water can't escape back up the hill and it allows seepage though the topsoil. I live at Lake Macdonald where there's no shortage of clay, guess that explains why the brickworks are down the road. We're pretty close to the coast so we pick up all the coastal showers, and with the storm season coming on as well, shouldn't be too long before some water gets in there.

[fish_outta_water]

nice

[Feral]

Gunna plant something along the wall to give a bit of shade, and attract the bugs etc? (to drop into the water for the fish, encorage some surface action!)

[Kendall249]

sounds like every anglers dream.

[roydsy]

half your luck mate, very nice. When I first saw it i thought man thats too small, but after i saw the dog in the dam i realised how deep it was. Will you have any problems with flooding, and have you implemented any form of pumping water out in that case of overflows.....? By the way, when are we all coming around to try out our lures in her... hehe

Be sure to keep us all informed on your progress, i too would love to do what you have done.

cheers

Roydsy

[tiges]

Roydsy, it is designed so the water will overflow out the end at the top in the last photo. It feeds into a gully and down the hill to another gully/creekbed. Will have to design some kind of fish barrier for the overflow area. Gonna be a long time before any lures are thrown in there I think .

[Chimo]

Hi Tiges

(Oops Double Post second post has a little extra, sorry)
Nice hole, with 6 m depth should stay nice and cold in the bottom and low evaporation with small surface area.

Used to survey and design farm water supply systems and dams in a previous life so hence the next question......

Have you thought about putting in a screened, drop-inlet trickle flow outlet? This thing will also solve your fish loss problem too.

Then you could dispose of the water below the toe of the embankment. You don't run water over the embankment for long periods, only for the briefest of time, depending on the size of the trickle flow pipe.

With a hooded entry to the pipe installed in the bottom of the screened drop inlet box you can run a full pipe (no vortex) and if you drop the discharge pipe into an energy dissipator in the drainage line below your dam, no erosion either.

Just a thought.

Cheers
Chimo

[Chimo]

Hi Tiges

Nice hole, with 6 m depth should stay nice and cold in the bottom and low evaporation with small surface area.

Used to survey and design farm water supply systems and dams in a previous life so hence the next question......

Have you thought about putting in a screened, drop-inlet trickle flow outlet? This thing will also solve your fish loss problem too.

Then you could dispose of the water below the toe of the embankment. You don't run water over the embankment for long periods, only for the briefest of time, depending on the size of the trickle flow pipe.

With a hooded entry to the pipe installed in the bottom of the screened drop inlet box you can run a full pipe (no vortex) and if you drop the discharge pipe into an energy dissipator in the drainage line below your dam, no erosion either.

Why didnt you spill some topsoil down to fsl on the embankment face to grass it up quicker?

Just a thought. Sing out if I can give you any more info, if your want.

Cheers
Chimo