YT YouTube2Text

YouTube2Text → Transcripts → Dig It Once, Eat Fish for Life: How to Build the Ancient Pond (Depth, Fish Count and Cost)

Dig It Once, Eat Fish for Life: How to Build the Ancient Pond (Depth, Fish Count and Cost) — Transcript

by Merritt Garden · 5,560 words · 771 segments · language en · Watch on YouTube

Open in transcriber Summarize with AI Download SRT/VTT

Full transcript

0:00A pond is the one thing on a homestead
0:02you build once. Dig it right and it
0:04feeds you fish for the rest of your
0:06life. Dig it wrong and you own a marsh
0:09or a very expensive puddle.
0:11After my video on the ancient pond, the
0:13question I got most was how do I
0:16actually build one? How deep? How many
0:18fish? What does it cost? So today there
0:21is no story. Today is the build, shovel
0:24to fish fry with every number I have.
0:27One quick thing first. The three Merit
0:29Garden manuals are finally finished and
0:31up on the website. The link is down in
0:33the description or just scan the code on
0:35the screen. The pond you're about to
0:37build is one of the 20 systems in the
0:39systems manual. Right, to the pond.
0:42If growing your own food the way it was
0:44done before the supermarket is something
0:46you care about, take a second and
0:47subscribe before we get into it. That's
0:49all I'll ask.
0:51Here is the first rule and it is the one
0:53most people get backwards. You do not
0:55choose where the pond goes. The water
0:58chooses and your job is to notice.
1:00In the first pond video I told you to go
1:02out in the rain and watch where it runs
1:04and where it gathers. Now I'll give you
1:06the number behind that advice. A pond
1:09that fills from rain running off the
1:10land needs a catchment, the ground that
1:12drains into it, of roughly 10 to 15
1:15acres for every acre of water, which is
1:17the figure the Kentucky Extension
1:18Service gives. Scale that down to the
1:21pond I'm going to use for this whole
1:22video, a quarter acre, about 100 ft by
1:25100 ft, and it wants somewhere between 2
1:27and 1/2 and 4 acres of land to building
1:30gently toward it. Less than that and it
1:32fills in the spring and shrinks all
1:34summer and a shrinking pond is a dying
1:36pond. If you don't have that much slope
1:38feeding in, you have three up taps, a
1:40spring, a well or the roofs of your
1:42buildings. And a barn roof is worth more
1:44than you'd think because an inch of rain
1:46on a thousand square feet of roof is a
1:48little over 600 gallons.
1:50Now the ground. You want a gentle low
1:53spot, not a ravine and not a dead flat
1:55field. A natural dip with a bit of slope
1:58above it gives you the catchment for
1:59free, and it usually means there is clay
2:01down there because clay is the reason
2:03water sat there in the first place.
2:05Take a shovel and dig a test hole 3 ft
2:07deep right where the bottom would be.
2:09Take a fistful of damp subsoil, squeeze
2:11it, and push it out between your thumb
2:13and your finger. If it holds a ball and
2:15ribbons out an inch or two before it
2:16breaks, you have clay, and you have just
2:19saved yourself a few thousand dollars.
2:21I'll show you exactly how much in a
2:22minute. If it crumbles like cake, it's
2:24sand or silt, and you'll be buying a
2:26seal.
2:27How big and what shape? A quarter acre
2:29is the size I'd aim for. Much smaller
2:32and the fish struggle, and below about a
2:34tenth of an acre, you are better off
2:35with a tank because a tiny pond swings
2:38in temperature like a bucket left in the
2:39sun.
2:41Shape? Round or kidney-shaped holds the
2:43most water for the least bank, and bank
2:46is where the weeds, the leaks, and the
2:48sealing money all live. So, no long,
2:50narrow fingers.
2:51Lay the outline out with stakes and
2:53string before the machine comes, and set
2:56the long side of the pond in line with
2:57the wind you get most because a wind
2:59blowing down the length of the water
3:01stirs air into it for free every
3:03afternoon.
3:04Then measure as you dig with a marked
3:06pole, not by eye. Every pond I've seen
3:08come out shallow was dug by eye. Before
3:11a single bucket of soil moves, three
3:13calls. The first is 811, the free
3:16national call before you dig line a few
3:18working days ahead so the utilities come
3:20out and mark their buried lines because
3:22a bucket through a gas line ends the
3:23project and sometimes the person.
3:26The second is your state's water or
3:27natural resources agency. Damming a
3:30stream or filling anything that behaves
3:31like a wetland needs permits at the
3:33federal and the state level, while a
3:35pond dug in an upland low spot with no
3:37dam and no stream is the simplest case
3:39there is. But you ask in writing, and
3:42you keep the answer. In some states, you
3:44also need a permit just to stock fish if
3:46your pond could ever connect to public
3:47water. North Carolina is one. The third
3:50call is the county because setbacks are
3:53local, and some towns treat a deep pond
3:55like a swimming pool, fence and all. And
3:58one rule that isn't legal, but matters
4:00more than all of them. If there are
4:02small children on your place or next
4:04door, you fence it. Drowning is the
4:07leading cause of death for children
4:08between 1 and 4 years old in this
4:10country, and a pond is water.
4:12Now, the number everybody asks first,
4:15how deep? The honest answer is that it
4:17depends on where you live, because depth
4:20is about two things, summer heat and
4:22winter ice. In the southeast, the North
4:24Carolina state recommendation is an
4:26average depth of 6 to 8 ft with the
4:29deepest point 10 to 12. Kentucky says at
4:31least 6 ft. Missouri says if you want
4:33catfish, at least 8. Ohio says a quarter
4:36of the pond should be deeper than 8 ft
4:38and 10 to 12 in the north of the state.
4:40And by the time you get to Minnesota,
4:42they want a quarter of the pond at 14 ft
4:44or more, because that's how much water
4:46has to be left under 3 ft of ice for the
4:48fish to breathe until April. So, find
4:50your state on that ladder. The rule that
4:52falls out of it is simple. The further
4:54north and the harder your winters, the
4:56deeper the deep end, and I wouldn't dig
4:58a deep end shallower than 8 ft anywhere
5:00in this country.
5:01Why not just dig the whole thing deep
5:03then? Because deep water in summer
5:05splits into layers, warm on top, cold
5:08and airless at the bottom, and the more
5:10of your pond sits in that dead bottom
5:12layer, the less of it is actually
5:14growing fish. So, you want one deep hole
5:16for winter and a lot of medium water for
5:19growing. That is why the biologists say
5:21an average of 6 to 8 and not 12
5:23everywhere.
5:25The banks are where small ponds go
5:26wrong, so stay with me on this one. The
5:29edge should drop 1 ft for every 2 to 3
5:31ft you walk in, and it should reach 3 ft
5:34of depth within a few steps of the
5:35shore.
5:36Here is why that matters more than
5:37anything else about the shape. Cattails
5:40and the other weeds that stand up out of
5:41the water can't root much deeper than
5:43about 3 ft. A pond with a long shallow
5:46shelf grows a ring of cattails that
5:48creeps inward every year until you own a
5:50marsh. A pond with steep banks and a
5:52sharp drop stays open water for decades
5:55with no spraying and no raking. If you
5:57want marginal plants, and you do a
5:59little for the ducks and the insects,
6:01give them one corner, a shelf about a
6:03foot deep and 10 ft long, and keep the
6:05rest steep. Dig in levels like a
6:07staircase, a shelf at 3 ft, a floor at
6:096, a hole at 10, or whatever your
6:11state's ladder says. The soil you take
6:14out is not waste, it is the berm. But
6:16let me put the size of the job in front
6:18of you. A quarter acre dug to an average
6:20of 6 ft is about 65,000 cubic feet of
6:23dirt, which is roughly 2,400 cubic
6:25yards, about 240 dump truck loads.
6:28Nobody digs that with a shovel. So let
6:30me be the first to say it plainly, the
6:32dig is the expensive part, and it is a
6:35machine job. You have two ways to pay
6:37for it. Hire it out, and a contractor
6:39with an excavator and a dozer will
6:40typically quote a pond this size
6:42somewhere between 5 and 12,000 dollars,
6:44depending on your ground and your
6:45region. Get three quotes in writing, and
6:48ask each one where the dirt is going to
6:49go.
6:50Or you rent the machine and sit in it
6:52yourself. A 20-ton excavator rents for
6:54roughly two to four and a half thousand
6:56dollars a week, plus three to 500 to
6:58deliver it, and the diesel to run it.
7:00And a first-timer should plan on most of
7:01that week. Our grandparents version was
7:04a team of mules and a slip scraper and a
7:05winter of evenings, and that is still an
7:07honest option if you have the mules.
7:09Now the seal, and this is where that
7:11fistful of subsoil pays off. If your
7:13test hole showed clay, the pond will
7:15mostly seal itself, but you help it.
7:17Strip the topsoil off the whole basin
7:19and set it aside for the berm. Then lay
7:21back 12 to 15 inches of the clay you dug
7:24in layers and compact it down to 8 to 10
7:27inches with the machine's tracks, with a
7:29rented sheep'sfoot roller, or the old
7:31way, with a herd of something heavy
7:33walked back and forth across it for a
7:34week. The old-timers called it puddling,
7:37and it works because a hoof is a
7:39compactor. Where the pond is deeper than
7:4110 ft, double the clay because the
7:43weight of the water is what pushes it
7:44through.
7:45And keep the clay damp while you work
7:47it. Clay that dries, cracks, and a crack
7:50is a drain.
7:51If you have no clay, you have two
7:52choices. The first is bentonite, a clay
7:55powder that swells to many times its
7:57size when it gets wet and plugs the
7:59pores in sandy soil. The Kentucky
8:01extension figure is 1 to 2 lb per square
8:03foot, raked or disked into the top few
8:06inches and compacted. And on true sand,
8:08the suppliers will tell you it takes
8:10more, which is one more reason to dig
8:11that test hole.
8:13Now, do the arithmetic before you buy
8:15because this is where people get a
8:16shock. The bottom and banks of a
8:18quarter-acre pond add up to about 11,000
8:20square feet. At 1 to 2 lb a foot, that
8:23is 5 and 1/2 to 11 tons, 220 to 440
8:2750-lb bags. Bought in bulk at 15 to 30
8:30cents a pound, that's roughly 2 to
8:31$7,000. And bought by the bag with
8:34shipping, it can be twice that. The
8:35second choice is a rubber liner, and
8:38here is the honest math. A good liner
8:40runs around a dollar a square foot. So,
8:42a quarter-acre is more money in rubber
8:45than most people spend on the dig. And a
8:47liner can be holed by a hoof, a root, or
8:50a heron.
8:51Liners are for small ponds, the garden
8:53pond, the duck pond of a few hundred
8:55square feet laid on a bed of sand with
8:57sand over the top. For a quarter-acre,
9:00you find the clay or you pay for the
9:02bentonite.
9:03Whichever seal you use, the outlet
9:05matters as much as the bottom. Every
9:07pond needs a spillway, a wide, shallow,
9:10grassed notch in the low side of the
9:12berm, a foot below the top so that when
9:14the big storm comes, the water goes over
9:16the grass and not over the dam. A dam
9:19that overtops once is a dam that is
9:21gone. And set a standpipe or a simple
9:24drain through the berm if you possibly
9:25can because a pond you can lower on
9:28purpose is a pond you can fix, harvest,
9:30and clean.
9:31Then you let it fill. Dig in the dry,
9:34late summer in in of the country, and
9:36let the fall and winter rains do the
9:37filling, which is why the calendar I'll
9:39give you at the end starts in autumn. A
9:42new pond always leaks a little the first
9:44season while the clay settles. So, drive
9:46a post in and mark the level every week.
9:48A drop of an inch or two a week in hot
9:50weather is just evaporation. A drop you
9:52can see from one day to the next is a
9:54leak, and you find it low on the outside
9:56of the berm where the ground is wet when
9:58nothing else is.
10:00Don't put a fish in it until it has held
10:02steady water for a few weeks, and don't
10:04put a fish in it until you've heard the
10:06next part because the fish are the
10:08cheapest part of the whole build, and
10:10also the easiest to get wrong.
10:12Quick pause because this is exactly
10:15where people get lost between the video
10:16and the shovel.
10:18Everything I've just walked through, the
10:20depths ladder by state, the bank rule,
10:22the clay and bentonite numbers, the
10:24calls to make before you dig, is laid
10:26out step-by-step in the Backyard Systems
10:28Manual in the pond chapter with a
10:30printable stocking plan for the fish I'm
10:32about to give you. That manual holds 20
10:35systems like this one and 122 numbered
10:38methods, and it is on the website now.
10:40Link in the description or scan the code
10:42on screen. Right, the fish. Here is the
10:45first thing to understand, and it's the
10:47part I left out of the first pond video.
10:49You are not going to build a Chinese
10:51pond with Chinese fish because in this
10:54country most of those fish are illegal,
10:56and I'll explain the law in a minute.
10:58What you are going to build is the
10:59American translation of the same idea
11:02worked out by state fish biologists over
11:04about 80 years, and it starts with a
11:06recipe that has a number on every line.
11:09The recipe is written per acre, so I'll
11:11give it per acre and then per quarter
11:13acre. North Carolina State's recipe for
11:15an unfertilized pond is 350 bluegill,
11:19150 redear sunfish, 50 channel catfish,
11:22and then the following June 50
11:24largemouth bass per acre. Fertilize the
11:26pond and every one of those numbers
11:27doubles.
11:28Mississippi State uses the same bones
11:30and adds five triploid grass carp per
11:32acre to keep the weeds down. Arkansas
11:34goes 400 bluegill, 100 redear, 100
11:37catfish, 50 bass, and 3 to 10 lb of
11:39fathead minnows. Kansas goes 500
11:42bluegill, 100 catfish, 100 bass, and 3
11:44lb of minnows.
11:46Different states, the same picture. A
11:48big base of sunfish, a layer of catfish,
11:50a handful of bass on top, and minnows to
11:52start the food chain.
11:53For our quarter acre, divide by four.
11:55About 90 bluegill, 40 redear, 12 to 15
11:58catfish, a pound or two of fathead
12:00minnows. And the next spring, 12 to 15
12:02bass. And the order is not optional. The
12:04sunfish and the catfish go in first in
12:06the fall, once the pond has held water.
12:08The bass and the minnows with them go in
12:10the next spring, after the sunfish have
12:12had a season start. Put the bass in with
12:14them and you have fed your whole forage
12:15base to a dozen fish, which is the
12:17number one way a new pond fails before
12:19it starts. The balance works because of
12:21a difference in the two fish that the
12:23old-timers knew without a thermometer. A
12:25bass spawns once a year when the water
12:28first hits 63 to 68°. While a bluegill
12:32spawns from May to October every time
12:34the water sits between 67 and 80.
12:37One fish makes the mouths, the other
12:39makes the meals.
12:41Now the money, because everyone assumes
12:43this is the expensive part. And it is
12:45the opposite. Fingerling prices at a
12:47county conservation district sale, many
12:49counties hold one every spring and fall,
12:51run about $78 to $88 per 100 for
12:54bluegill, redear, and catfish, and about
12:56154 per 100 for bass.
12:59So our quarter acre fully stocked is
13:01roughly $75 of bluegill, 35 of redear,
13:0411 of catfish, 20 of bass, and a bag of
13:06minnows. Call it $150.
13:09The fish are the cheapest thing in the
13:10pond. The water is the expensive thing.
13:13Three fish you never put in, no matter
13:15who offers them free. Crappie, because
13:18in a small pond they breed into
13:19thousands of stunted 3-in fish and eat
13:21every bass fry.
13:23Bullheads, the same, and they stir the
13:25mud. And common carp, which turn a clear
13:27pond brown inside a year and never
13:29leave. A neighbor's bucket of free fish
13:31has ruined more small ponds than any
13:33disease. And now the sentence I wish
13:36someone had told me before my first
13:37pond. So, I'll say it slowly.
13:40A pond under an acre is a feeding pond,
13:43not a self-stocking one. The bass and
13:45bluegill balance that lets a big pond
13:47feed itself needs more water than a
13:49quarter acre gives it. In a small pond,
13:52the bass eat themselves out of food, or
13:54the bluegill stunt, and you end up with
13:56a lot of small fish and very few meals.
13:59The small pond fix, straight from the
14:00extension sheets, is to stock for the
14:02table and feed. Either channel catfish
14:05alone at about 200 per acre, 50 on a
14:07quarter, or 100 catfish and 300 hybrid
14:10sunfish per acre, which is 25 catfish
14:13and 75 hybrids on our quarter. Fed
14:15through the summer, fished out as they
14:17reach the pan, and restocked. The
14:19old-timers had a phrase for it, put and
14:21take. It isn't the self-feeding pond of
14:23the story. It is pound for pound the
14:25most food you will ever take out of a
14:27quarter acre of water, and I would
14:29rather you had the honest version. So,
14:31here's the choice in one line. An acre
14:33or more, the full recipe and let it
14:36balance. Under an acre, catfish and
14:38hybrid sunfish fed, and you take them
14:40out as fast as they grow. Now, the law.
14:43The classic Chinese pond runs on four
14:45carps, silver, bighead, grass, and
14:47black. And here, you mostly can't stock
14:50them, and you mostly shouldn't try.
14:52Silver, bighead, and black carp are
14:54listed as injurious wildlife under the
14:56federal Lacey Act, the same list as the
14:58snakehead. So, bringing them into the
15:00country takes a federal permit, and
15:02state after state bans keeping them at
15:04all.
15:05These are the fish jumping out of the
15:06Illinois River into boats. Nobody wants
15:08them in your watershed.
15:10Grass carp, the fourth, are the
15:12exception, and even they come with
15:13conditions. Many states allow only the
15:16triploid kind, which is sterile, and
15:18usually by permit. North Carolina, for
15:20instance, waves the permit for a pond
15:22you own outright under 10 acres if you
15:24stock 150 fish or fewer.
15:26Texas makes you get one and bans the
15:28other three carps outright.
15:30Tilapia, which a lot of people reach for
15:32next, are restricted in many states as
15:34well because in a warm state an escaped
15:36tilapia lives through the winter and
15:37spreads. So, you check your state's list
15:40before you buy anything and you buy from
15:42a licensed dealer who hands you the
15:43paperwork.
15:44So, how do you keep the ancient idea,
15:47one fish for every layer of the water,
15:49with legal fish? Like this.
15:51The plankton, which the silver and
15:53bighead carp ate, has no legal standing
15:55you can buy. Fathead minnows and young
15:57bluegill take some of it, 3 to 10 lb of
15:59fatheads per acre, and the bass eat most
16:01of those.
16:02The weeds go to triploid grass carp,
16:04three to five per acre to keep weeds
16:06away, 10 to 15 in a small pond that is
16:08already weedy. And they'll eat your
16:10marginal plants, too, so go easy. The
16:12snails, the black carp's job, go to
16:15redear sunfish. The old-timers call them
16:17shellcrackers, 100 to 150 per acre. The
16:21bottom scraps go to channel catfish, 50
16:23to 100. The insects go to bluegill, 350
16:27to 500. They are the main crop. And on
16:30top, the next spring, 50 to 100 bass to
16:33keep the sunfish from stunting. Six
16:35fish, four layers, legal in most states
16:38with the right paperwork, and the same
16:40idea the old fish farmer wrote down,
16:42translated. Then the ducks, because in
16:44the first pond video, the ducks were the
16:46engine, and I need to put a number on
16:48them. The figure the serious pond people
16:50agree on is five or six ducks on two
16:52acres of water and never more than 10.
16:55On a quarter acre, that means a single
16:57pair of ducks is already over the line.
16:59Go past that and the manure the Chinese
17:01pond runs on turns a small pond green.
17:03The algae bloom, the algae die, the
17:05oxygen crashes, and you find your fish
17:07floating on the first hot still night in
17:09July. So, here is how you keep the
17:11engine without the crash. The ducks live
17:13on the land and visit the pond an hour
17:16or two a day, let in and heard it out,
17:18or they get their own water, a stock
17:20tank or a kiddie pool you tip onto the
17:21garden every few days, which is the
17:23richest liquid fertilizer you will ever
17:25own, and is where that manure was always
17:27meant to go. And one thing that did not
17:29exist when the old book was written,
17:30bird flu. Wild ducks carry it, and a
17:33pond that wild ducks use is a pond your
17:35ducks shouldn't. If your pond gets wild
17:38visitors in spring and fall, your birds
17:40stay off it those months. And if you
17:42ever find a bird dead or sick for no
17:43reason, there's a free federal number
17:45for that. I've put it in the
17:46description.
17:48If you've been taking notes, you can
17:49stop, because I did it for you. Every
17:51stocking recipe, the per acre and per
17:53quarter acre numbers, the fingerling
17:55prices, the state rules on carp and
17:57tilapia, the four-layer American pond
17:59step-by-step, and a printable stocking
18:01plan and fish log are all in the pond
18:02chapter of the Backyard Systems Manual,
18:04next to the fish barrel, the free
18:06chicken feed builds, and 17 more systems
18:08that run a small homestead on almost
18:09nothing but. It's on the website, link
18:11in the description or the code on
18:13screen, and it costs less than the
18:14fingerlings.
18:15Now, oxygen, which is the thing that
18:17actually kills ponds.
18:19Fish don't die of cold, and they rarely
18:21die of hunger. They die of no air. The
18:23number is 5 mg of oxygen per liter of
18:25water. Below that, the fish stop
18:27growing. Well below it, they die. It
18:29happens at two times of year, a hot,
18:31still, cloudy stretch in late summer,
18:33when the warm top water holds little
18:34air, and the algae that make oxygen in
18:36daylight burn it up at night, and the
18:38dead of winter under snow-covered ice,
18:39when no light gets through. The sign is
18:41the same both times, fish at the surface
18:43at dawn, mouths out, gulping. If you
18:46ever see that, stop feeding that day and
18:48get air into the water. Which is why a
18:50pond under an acre gets an aerator, and
18:52I'll tell you which kind, because most
18:54people buy the wrong one. Not a
18:56fountain. A fountain is pretty, and it
18:58moves the top foot of water, which is
18:59the foot that already has air. You want
19:02a bottom diffuser, a small compressor on
19:04the bank, a hose to the deepest point,
19:06and a disc on the bottom that sends up a
19:08column of fine bubbles, which lifts the
19:11dead bottom water to the surface and
19:13turns the whole pond over. The The
19:15sizing rule is half to one horsepower
19:17per acre. So, a quarter acre wants an
19:19eighth to a quarter horsepower, and a
19:21good kit that size runs around a
19:22thousand dollars. A quarter horsepower
19:24draws about as much power as a couple of
19:26old light bulbs on a timer, something
19:28like ten dollars a month. Set that timer
19:31from midnight to eight in the morning
19:32when the oxygen is lowest, and leave it
19:34off in the afternoon when the sun is
19:36doing the work for free. Run it every
19:38night from the first hot week of summer.
19:40In winter, you have a choice, and you
19:42make one, not both. Either keep the
19:44aerator running with the diffuser lifted
19:46to about two feet below the surface.
19:48Left on the bottom, it turns the warmer
19:49deep water over and chills the whole
19:51pond. Or, if you would rather not run
19:53it, go out after each snow and clear the
19:55snow off a quarter to half of the ice so
19:57the light gets through, and only when
19:59the ice is at least four inches thick.
20:01Never both. A bubbler keeps a hole open
20:04with thin ice around it, so keep the
20:06children and the dog off it.
20:08Feeding is where a small pond goes from
20:10a dozen pounds of fish a year to a
20:12hundred, and it is simpler than people
20:13make it.
20:14Floating pellets, 28 to 32% protein, the
20:17catfish feed from any farm store.
20:20Feed only when the water is between 65
20:22and 90°. Below that, they won't eat it
20:24and it rots. Above that, they're
20:26stressed and the uneaten feed burns the
20:28oxygen you just heard about.
20:30Feed what they'll clear in 10 to 15
20:32minutes, in the same spot at the same
20:34time, and never more than 10 pounds per
20:36acre per day. Two and a half pounds for
20:38our quarter acre, and most days a good
20:40deal less.
20:41Floating pellets are the point. You can
20:43see what's eaten, and a day they don't
20:45come up to feed is a day something is
20:46wrong, and you're the first to know.
20:48Cost, a 50 pound bag of floating catfish
20:51feed runs about 35 to 45 dollars. A
20:53quarter acre fed a pound a day through a
20:55five month season is about 150 pounds of
20:57feed, three bags, roughly 120 dollars.
21:00At the usual conversion of a pound and a
21:02half to two pounds of feed per pound of
21:03catfish, that comes back as 75 to 100
21:06pounds of fish. There aren't many better
21:08trades on a homestead.
21:09If you'd rather not feed, there is the
21:11older trick, and it's the one that
21:12Chinese ponds ran on. Feed the water
21:14instead of the fish. Fertilizing a pond
21:17grows the green plankton that grows the
21:19insects that grow the bluegill, and it
21:21roughly doubles what an unfed pond
21:23gives.
21:24You start in spring once the water is
21:26past 60° with a pond fertilizer from the
21:29farm store, and the old test for how
21:31much is your own arm. Push it in to the
21:33elbow. If your hand just disappears, the
21:35water is right. If you can see it
21:37clearly, feed the water again. If it
21:39vanishes at the wrist, stop, because
21:41that is a pond one hot night away from a
21:43crash.
21:44Never fertilize a pond with water
21:46flowing through it because you are
21:47fertilizing the neighbors, and don't
21:49fertilize a pond you're already feeding
21:51because the uneaten pellets are doing it
21:53for you.
21:54So, what do you actually take out and
21:56when?
21:57Bass. Leave them alone until the third
21:59year or until they're 12 to 14 in
22:02and then take 10 to 15 lb per acre a
22:04year, which on our is three or four
22:07pounds, a handful of fish. Go easy on
22:09the bass because they are the police of
22:11the pond.
22:12Bluegill and redear. From the second
22:14year on, and here you do the opposite.
22:16You fish them hard, up to 40 lb per acre
22:19a year, 10 lb on our quarter. And the
22:21more pan-sized bluegill you take, the
22:23bigger the ones that are left grow.
22:26Catfish. If you feed them, 300 to 500 lb
22:29per acre a year, 75 to 125 lb on a
22:33quarter acre. Taken as they reach a
22:35pound and a half or two, and restocked
22:37with 8 to 10 in fingerlings because
22:39anything smaller, the bass will eat.
22:41Fish with a rod, with a hoop net, or the
22:44old way. Lower the pond with the drain
22:46in October and pick them up. And now the
22:49honest yield, all in one place, because
22:51this is the number that was missing from
22:52the first pond video. A quarter acre
22:55unfed and unfertilized gives you about a
22:57dozen pounds of fish a year, a few good
23:00meals. Fertilize it, and that roughly
23:02doubles. Feed it catfish heavy, and you
23:05are at 75 to 125 lb, which is a family
23:08eating fish every week from May to
23:10October. The Chinese ponds in the old
23:13records give 90 to 230 lb for every
23:161,000 sq ft, and I want you to hear what
23:18sat behind that number. 500 to 1,000
23:21kilos of manure per mou of pond, plus
23:23bought feed, plus a family working it
23:26every single day. An unfed American pond
23:29gives about 1 lb per 1,000 sq ft. The
23:31pond has not changed, the inputs have.
23:35Which brings us to the bill, and I'll
23:36give you two of them, the best case and
23:38the worst. The best case, you have the
23:40low spot, you have the clay, and you sit
23:42in a rented machine yourself. A week of
23:44excavator with delivery and diesel, 3 to
23:476,000. A drain pipe, a spillway, and a
23:49bit of gravel, 200. Fish, 150. A quarter
23:53horsepower bottom aerator, around 1,000.
23:56Feed for the first summer, 120.
23:59Call it 4 and 1/2 to 7 and 1/2 thousand
24:01dollars, and about 200 a year after that
24:04for feed, power, and a handful of
24:06catfish fingerlings.
24:07The worst case, you hire the dig, 5 to
24:1012,000. You're on sand, so add the
24:12bentonite, 2 to 7,000, and the same
24:15fish, aerator, and feed on top, 8 and
24:171/2 to 20,000 dollars.
24:19Most real ponds land somewhere in
24:21between.
24:22And I'll say what the brochures won't.
24:24On fish alone, a pond doesn't pay.
24:27100 lb of catfish is worth something
24:29like 3 to 400 dollars at the store, and
24:32after feed, power, and fingerlings, you
24:34keep maybe half of that. So, even the
24:36best case pond takes decades to pay for
24:38itself in fish.
24:39People build ponds for the fish and keep
24:41them for everything else. The water in a
24:43dry August with a pump and a hose
24:45running to the garden, the stock water,
24:47the ducks hour a day, the nearest thing
24:50to a fire hydrant a country house will
24:51ever have, the dark green of the beds
24:53you water with it because pond water is
24:55weak fertilizer every single time. The
24:58frogs, the swallows, and the way your
25:00children spend their summers. Build it
25:02for that and let the fish be the bonus.
25:05So, here is the whole year on one card.
25:07Fall, dig while the ground is dry and
25:10stock the bluegill, the redear, and the
25:12catfish into any pond that has held
25:14water for a few weeks. Fall is when the
25:17fingerling sales are.
25:18Winter, the bubbler 2 ft down or the
25:21snow off a quarter of the ice, one or
25:23the other.
25:25Spring, stock the bass and the minnows
25:27with them. Set the aerator timer for
25:29midnight to 8. Keep your ducks off the
25:32pond while the wild ones are passing
25:34through.
25:35Summer, start feeding when the water
25:37reaches 65°. Run the air every hot
25:40night. Fish the bluegill hard and the
25:42bass gently. And when the water goes
25:44over 90, stop feeding until it cools.
25:47Then fall again. When you lower the
25:49pond, take your catfish and put the next
25:51batch in.
25:52That is the pond year, and after the
25:54first one, it runs itself as near as
25:56anything on a homestead does.
25:582 and 1/2 thousand years ago, a fish
26:01farmer in China wrote down how to build
26:03a pond that would keep feeding a family
26:05year after year. He was right. But, the
26:07ponds that grew out of his book ran on
26:09half a ton of manure at a time and
26:11rivers full of free carp, and you are
26:13working with a quarter acre, a county
26:15permit office, and a bag of pellets.
26:17The idea survives the translation. One
26:20fish for every layer of the water. The
26:22edge steep so the weeds can't take it.
26:25The duck on the land and the manure on
26:26the garden. The deep hole for winter.
26:29The air at night in August. And a hand
26:31that takes fish out at the pace the pond
26:33puts them in.
26:34Dig it once, get those six things right,
26:37and you have the ancient pond, not the
26:40story of it, the thing itself. And it
26:43will be feeding your family long after
26:45you've forgotten what it cost.
26:47Next week, I'll be back with another old
26:49skill worth having. Until then, thanks
26:52for staying to the end. Now go and dig
26:55that test hole.

About this transcript

This page contains the full transcript of Dig It Once, Eat Fish for Life: How to Build the Ancient Pond (Depth, Fish Count and Cost) by Merritt Garden, generated from the public captions YouTube serves with the video. The transcript has 5,560 words across 771 segments, with the original timestamps preserved so you can click any line to jump to that moment in the embedded player.

What you can do with it

Use the transcript to take notes, quote the speaker, build a study guide, generate a summary with ChatGPT or Claude via the YouTube Summary tool, or export it as a timed subtitle file with YouTube to SRT. You can also re-open it in the transcriber to choose a caption track available on the video.

Free YouTube transcript tool

YouTube2Text is a free YouTube transcript generator — no signup, no daily limit. Paste any YouTube link and get the full transcript instantly, with timestamps, click-to-jump, caption language selection, AI prompts for ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini, and exports to TXT, SRT, VTT, or Markdown.