I Turned Backyard TRASH into Bass Paradise! | Pond Build Part 5

Danglers, welcome back to the pond restoration series. And this is where we are taking our old catfish silted in mud hole and we're turning it into a sunfish paradise. And so far, we've made a lot of progress. And in the last video, we actually got a fully formed pond. So, it feels good to come out here, look at the shape, look at some of the structures that we've put in, that being, you know, the ledges and uh the points and the drop offs and things like that. But in today's video, we are going to be adding cover for these fish. So, the goal ultimately is to provide lots of places for our bait fish species like our small bluegills and our fathead minnows to hide, get away, spawn, and keep reproducing to feed our bass. And we did actually get a little bit of rain last week, y'all. And we were able to see for the first time a small bit of water in the pond. It was kind of just the the runoff from all the loose dirt. So, it looked kind of kind of muddy and gross, but the pond did appear to hold that water just a couple inches for at least 3 days. Then the Texas heat of course evaporated everything and we were left with a dry crusty top. That actually got me a little bit concerned and utilizing some of that that fresh rain getting the the surface disturbed. I took the John Deere tractor, took the front tires, and basically pressed in a lot of the bank areas that I was a little worried about eroding. And that top layer of crust that's just crumbling has got me a little worried. So, the first thing that we're going to do today is take a soil sample and check it out. So, I've got some things laying around the Dangle Dome and in the woods that we can use for cover options. And then we're also going to make our own artificial cover options for these fish. So, let's go take a look at our dirt composition, and then let's get to work on building some cover for these fish. Let's do a little soil sampling, shall we? And while we're in here, I want to give you guys a little tour of the new section of the Dangle Dome. So, I've had this metal grid wall just sitting around in the attic collecting dust for years. It's from my days as a sales rep and this would be something that you could go to shows and display your products on and I've had them just sitting around and so I decided to use them in the dangle dome and turn them into something cool. The workbench takes up a lot of room so I wanted to add some cabinet space and I added these metal cabinets. I've got archery stuff set in here. And then over here is honestly kind of empty. That's how I like it. Room to expand. Little bit of metal metal shelv shelving here. 3/4in plywood. I had some of the paint left over from the painted spray foam. So, I use that. Just come over here, keep stuff charged, access to all the nuts and bolts, puts things together, which is what we're going to be doing in today's video. I'll show you the arrow flinging station in another video. I've got a bow to set up, so might as well do it in that one. Let's test some soils. When I took the shovel and I dug out these pieces, you know, this is where we eventually, future video to come, are going to build a dock. This is where we would put the uh the peers essentially. I'd like to add a little more sand and gravel in that area and had have some artificial structures in there as well. And when I took these chunks out, it looked like chocolate fudge. Just hardened like you'd go up to Cabelas and ask for fudge. I don't even know if they still do that anymore. Give me a chunk of fudge. This looks just like that. you know, if it had been sitting out for like 3 days and and a little crusty. What we're going to do here is dilute it. We're going to add the universal solvent, which is water. And we'll also add uh just a little bit of Dawn. What I'm trying to do here is see how much clay content we have, which I think it's over 50%. And I I think ideally you want 30 or 40%. To build upon like that's the minimum. That's what you want to be able as a top layer to hold water. And I I think we definitely got that. So, this will separate from, you know, silt, sand, clay, and the clay particles are so fine, they're going to land on top last. So, it takes a while. And what we're going to end up seeing is that top layer hopefully being pretty thick. So, let's add some water, shake it up, and give it a little bit of time. The old pub over here is a mess. There's a new box. I hope this is what I think it is. That is That's the bee's knees. That's pretty slick looking right there. I can deal with that. Googens.com. The reserve worm. It Okay, it is in here. It's just at the bottom. Happened to have its hats. Tomato. Rotten tomato. If you guys are worm fisherman, die hard like me. Even if you're not die hard, 10-in worms, catch them in the summertime. and purples and reds. I don't know what it is about them, but bass love them. We got a new reserve color and it's rotten tomato. Really cool color. It's got like a a a black with green fleck. Kind of looks like red shad a little bit, but um the red is more translucent. It's like a more of a plummyy type color. Anyway, looks like Rotten Tomato. It's going to be available shortly if it's not already. Now, all that chocolate yohoo in there, that stuff is great when you're talking about compacting clay soils to hold water. But the one of the big problems with my old pond was it was always turbid. So, because of those clay particles are so fine, they'll suspend in the water column, especially when you've got soft water like I do. And then we had just hundreds of catfish. We had, you know, dozens of carp in there. And those those little critters are just on the bottom stirring stuff up all the time. And it would just stay suspended. I I don't have erosion issues. Um, you know, there wasn't like bad runoff issues or anything like that. It was just nasty little bugger fish in there and then shallow water with all this clay. So, it's one of my concerns going into the pond not having a liner, but I want to try to combat that with some vegetation and not putting any carp and very little catfish, if any, in this pond. Well, good morning. Uh, it's time to take a look at our jar of dirt. Yeah, it doesn't look like that. This is exciting. What I'm looking at right here without adding any gypsum or anything is we have a clear separation between the water and it's clear. Yes. But very very fine clay at the top. It looks to me like it's probably 40 or 50% of that. It could just be all clay, but it's micro awesome fine particle clay at the top and looks like 40 50% which gives me high confidence that water is not going to be leaking out of our pond. So, let's start making our cover for our future fish. I really want to try to do four different cover options and mainly use what I have here at the house. So, I have these pallets. I was gonna throw them away. I think the pallets are hideous in the water. However, they are good fathead minnow spawning areas and I might as well use them. I'm not going to leave them in there forever. But for the first year, 6 months, have some cover just so they can go somewhere immediately. Those things are great. And fathead minnows like to spawn underneath that type stuff. I just don't want a bunch of junky pallets sitting in the pond. The other thing that I have here that's really cool is stumps. So, while we were doing some of the woods restoration, I had uh some boat arc stumps and some hackberry stumps that I pushed over using the skid steer. Was able to get them out of the round ground with the roots intact. That's already here. That's natural. It's been sitting in a brush pile. Might as well use that. These structures will be cool. We're going to put some irrigation uh line hose through these. And you know, it's pretty typical what you see people putting in in ponds, but it is nice cuz you don't catch lures on it and that they last, they don't rot and the fish do like them. So, first piece of cover we're going to build are our little fake trees. And since this is 10 feet, I'm gonna I'm gonna do two of these in the cinder blocks that have basically two big branches and all the little plastic branches coming off those. But this will give the fish something to suspend over or get right on in. Since this doesn't have to be exact, just going to be using the the saws all optic nerve protection. Well, bam. GooGansquad.com. You use that promo code LFG. Save on your sunglasses and your rotten tomato worms that are now available. >> Let's make SOME FAKE TREES. SO, THE NEXT THING we're going to do is take this and I don't know how long this is. It's probably about 3 ft. So, the way this stuff is coiled up in its memory, I'm just going to cut it basically in half of what that hose reel size was and just make it like that, like a little cactus tree. And we're going to see if we can pump this old 11/16 in here and see how that does. The only thing I need to measure is how far into the cinder block this is going to be before I start drilling holes. Okay. So, really at 9 in we can start our holes. One, two, three, four, five. That's going to be six branch sections. Okay, that's one hole. See if it's big enough. It's going to be the right fit. appears to be proper. Oh yeah, baby. There we go. I like it. I just so happen to have some I call them big ass scissors. Works great for cutting this stuff. So, I'm going to keep going on that same length cuz it appeared to be just right. For anyone curious on the materials, if you're going to do these at your home pond or or whatever, put these in a lake. Honestly, be pretty good little crappie brush files. This is the Rainbird 1/2 in heavy duty drip hose. I believe it was $16.99 for 50 foot. There's much more expensive hoses out there. Don't get those. Get the cheapest thing. Just make sure it's it's stiff like that. Don't be using PEX. That's ultra expensive. And the other nice thing about the 3-in over the 4 in, I didn't even really anticipate this. I got this cuz it's cheaper. Figured that wouldn't really matter on the diameter, but my drill bits are able to get all the way through there. So, I don't have to kind of measure the other side, look, you know, kind of guesstimate. I can just go right through on the same hole. And I'm drilling the main holes. These are 4 in apart. And then I'm just going in between eyeballing these other ones going different direction. We're almost done with the first one. We'll get it set up. See what it looks like. Try to get as much of that plastic out as I could. Don't want any microlastics in the pond. I don't know how many of these hose tubes we're going to need. We're about to find out. I'm going to say 12. Yeah, 12 should be. The hole is a little bigger than I wanted, but I think they'll still stay in there. Mhm. Oh yeah, baby. Making a fake tree. It would be fun if it wasn't 102 in my garage here. Boys, that's looking like something. If you dig the looks of these and you have a pond, you just don't want to go through all this effort, you can definitely go buy these. There's probably somebody on Facebook Marketplace that builds them around you. Might be me. lfgfish structures.com. It's really fish cover if we're getting down to the technicals. Structure is more of your main components. You know, a ledge, any kind of drop point. We just did something in about 10 minutes. Looks halfway decent. Well, bam. 10-minute fish cover. You know, this is when these are don't have gravity. when it's just in the water. I don't think it's really going to matter on the hole size being a tad big. Straight up cactus looking. I like that a lot. You know, 4 in apart seems to be pretty pretty dag on good. Um, you know, technically 2 in if you go in between there. I like this. Let's keep this production going. We got our four fake trees now. Let's put them in a cinder block. See what this is going to appear like. Double them up. Like an interwoven situation. I'm not mad at it. It's not as uh spaced as I was imagining, but it's kind of cool. It makes a weave. But you run a damn spinner bait in between there. Whoop. It's happening. Up next, we're going to make some minnow motels. I love that name. I don't know if that's actually out there, but Minnow Motel. So, I've got a 10ft. This is uh, you know, French drain pipe. It looks like it's a little bit cheaper than the the PVC. This is 124 in long. So, I'm going to measure 10 in. I'd like for it to be a little longer, but I'm going to make groups of six, and I'm going to bundle them together. So, these actually already have 1/2 in holes it looks like in them. I'm going to put a few more. I'll probably go with a three 3/4. Kind of cool if I did like a pyramid. That might actually be That might actually be dope. 1 2 3 4. So, y'all are going to get to watch me do this, figure this out in real time, cuz to be honest, I really didn't have a plan. But what I'm liking is this little triangle situation. And I've got some galvanized chicken wire. Unbelievable how much this stuff is. We have enough to make two. So, one is going to be the minnow motel. The other one is going to be the tadpole temple. Tell me you don't like that. Grabbed a little malleable wire. And I think to make it easier on ourselves, we're going to use that to wire them together. And then we'll bring in the chicken stuff. I don't like the chicken wire, but it is going to do the job. Okay, we bring it together. We bring it together like that. It's going to work, dudes. That's going to work. That's going to be our our temple, our our minnow motel. I'll put some more holes in here where they can come in from the sides. Um, this will allow them access to get in there, get in there, you know, a solid 5 in. So, each side they might have fish looking in there like, "Woo, what's going on?" on, but they'll they'll have the safety. Yeah, not in love with the chicken wire. That's definitely a lure getter, lure snagger. But I'm not going to be fishing the minnow huts. These are wired together. It makes our life a little easier. I think we're going to have enough room. If I think back to my my Christmas wrapping experience here, we're looking good. Confidence in anything is the key. Big skizzer is definitely handy in the shop. Tie it on itself. Stuff so gnarly. I think the funnest thing about doing all this is just thinking about the reward of, you know, going out there and I actually see minnows in here. You know, I I see bluegill hanging around it. You see reproduction happening. See life. Know that you're you're helping out your little ecosystem that you are in charge of. Now, we have the Minnow Motel, we'll call this one, wrapped with the chicken wire. And what I was hoping for here is to just take these ends and just close them up. I'm trying to make this less hideous than what it is, but it's at the end of the day, it's just going to end up being pretty ugly. Yeah, it's just how I that's how I like to wrap my presents right there. Just kind of do a unif. That's gnarly. I mean, that's that's like a prison. Do some sort of uniformity here. The triangle fold. Oh, that looks good. Okay. Yeah, the first one's never the best. The second fold pretty dang good. I might tie it up a little bit right there where it's loose. Oh, shoot. Microphone just caught. But that's not too bad, y'all. That's pretty futuristic prison looking. Oh, forgot to drill the holes. Does already have some holes, but we we still have room where we can drill some. All right. What do you think these things are, Ben? >> What? >> Sprinklers. >> Sprinklers. Good guess. It is made out of sprinkler material, but this is actually little fish houses. So, I'm going to put these in the pond. The fish like to live in stuff like this. And this is going to be the last of our fakes. Well, we got the the pallet pallets. Nobody's really interested in those. Those are just kind of We're just going to throw them in there. But we are going to add uh some sand as well to our gravel. We're going to have a mixture of the sand and gravel because Ben got a sandbox for his birthday which daddy had had to build and it required a lot of sand. >> Last time I I didn't even tell him to do this. He just watches so much Mark Robber and Dude Perfect that he goes you can read it at.com. Let's go. I was like I don't know how to take that being an influencer. I don't know if I can put my stamp of approval on that. >> You can dig in and do com anytime. >> You can dig in and do anytime. Is that right? >> Mhm. >> Okay. It's free all day at at where? >> At guganquad. >> At guggen quad. All right. Dig away at googquad.com. We are done with our artificial structures. No, we need to add a little weight. So, we got some quick mix here and I got some cinder blocks and we're going to set these. Now, one thing that I did do, I didn't show it on camera when I was doing it, but I just set a couple of wood screws in the bottom of our tree, their artificial tree, just to kind of hold it. Oh, well. Bam. I think these look pretty good. Put our concrete in. Okay, I'm kind of thinking halfway. Not much of a concrete guy, but I think we'll go halfway here. Set them in and then go for it. I need a stick. Gandalf stick. says you don't have to mix it, but just giving it a slight slurry. All right, now we'll pour the rest. We'll spray it down. I'll be honest with you, I didn't. That was without measure at all. >> You might want to wash off those hoes. >> Holy cow. I didn't even realize that. Oh man. >> Wash those off. >> My old man shoes are ruined. Might be enough room where I can possibly pour it down the pipe. Yeah. And then on top. That's not messy or anything. Okay, I think half of it made it in. The other half is in Oklahoma by now. Don't hire me to do your concrete. >> I actually I haven't told you this yet, but I actually talked to a concrete guy today. >> Oh. >> About what we're trying to do over here with with a dock. I was like, "Yeah, you know what? I can I can I can do a dock. I want to do a dock. Let's make it happen. It'll be cool. Cool video." And then I got to thinking about it. I was like, I'm really unqualified to do this. Uh, this would be a fun like video project, but it's also something I'm going to enjoy every day and I want it to be awesome. So, I want to put some more effort into it. So, I got a professional and uh we're going to be building the dock ourselves, but I want the foundation to be set up by a pro. So, got some uh some good neighbors, know a bunch of people, and we're going to line that up, baby. >> We're going to have a dock that you can you can go out there, you can suntan. >> Now, your your feet are probably going to be hanging off. It's not going to be very long, but you can get out there and suntan on the dock with the bluegills. Well, bam. So, we will let that uh let that eat as they say. And the minnow the minnow traps are or the minnow houses are ready to go. So, we can go ahead and put those in there. The tadpole temple and the minnow motel. I'm thinking we definitely put these on our shelves rather than on the drops. You know, just a couple of feet of water. Um, I'm thinking one over here. The gravel area. One over here in the sun. Looks pretty lonely. Probably need about five of those cuz I' I've I think I've built more bass habitat at this point than I have really for the minnows. It's kind of like how the girl decorates so she gets one item has to fill in her bookcase. >> Yeah, >> I need about five more. >> Well, good news is I've got extra materials. So, just another trip to Home Depot. Spending spending money, but I got the chicken wire and I got, you know, we got the tool shop set up >> this. So, the little ones go in there. >> Correct. Mundo, honey. So, think of fathead minnows kind of like betta fish. They like they like their own little broom to get into. So, they're gonna they're going to go in here. They're protected from bluegill bass, obviously. And they'll able to they're able to swim in and out and they can mate in here. Uh they actually like to lay their heads lay their eggs. They have a adhesive type egg, kind of like a a shad. They like to stick it to things up underneath preferably. Um wood is is probably much better. Um, you know, a good foam dock is is primo when you're talking shad and minnows for spawning, but this will suffice. I haven't told you this yet, but we are going to throw those pallets in here as well. Yeah, that's temporary >> while we're trying to raise our minnows. And come to think of it, you know, the the water's probably not going to be up here for like another year. >> So, probably need to move these down. But ultimately, this is where they'll end up. So, what if you like hook into it with a fishing lure? >> Yeah, you're getting stuck definitely. But these these are not going to be something we're going to fish around. The other structures I made, those are lure friendly. So, those are for like the bass and the sunfish to be around. >> Don't cast over here. >> Definitely not you. You're That's a lure magnet. >> I just noticed that everything looks very smooth. Did you use a tractor to regrade everything or is this from the water like coming in? Okay. She was just asking me. She was just asking me off camera. I said, "Turn that camera on." >> It's a serious question. >> He's not paying me to ask this question. >> You notice my work. >> So, yeah. What I did was I took I took the tractor tires and I took a a load of dirt in the front to make them heavy. And I pushed the tractor tires up to the edge. And I just went around and I'm just I'm just trying to push that bank because the the bank has not been pressed in. It has not been tracked. Um, so really the only way to do that would be like with an excavator, taking the taking the bucket and like pressing it in. >> The tractor bucket does not do a good job. But the great thing about the tractor is there's a lot more pressure on like per tire than on the whole track system of the skid steer. That's why we sank so terribly in here. But it it actually helps with uh with pressing in. So every every time it rains and things look a little loose, I'll probably come in here and I'll I'll track over it. But yeah, you like it, don't you? >> Little extra ecological stuff we got going on here. We're going to add some sand before I put my forks on the bucket here. We move some stumps. This is uh not very safe, but I'm going to do it anyway. This is some skills right here. Okay. The old fashioned way. Okay. Rest of the sand will go right here. It's going to be a scrumptious spawning area. Scrumptious spawning area. There you go, honey. I made you a beach. Get out your Get out your chair. Come on in. >> Oh, yeah. Bluegie is going to like that. Got to get some of these branches out of the way. There we go. That's fun. kind of feeling out here maybe. Yeah, that looks pretty good. We got another one and like crisscross them. That'll be pretty nice. This will be the first place to hold water right here by one right there. All right, let's check and see if our little huts are dry. I think they are. Think we can pick him up? Heck yeah. That's looking good. Basically just putting all this in in the deep spots for now and we'll adjust it as as the water comes up. I'm going to put a float or two on on some of this cover. That way I can identify it, pull it up and move it if the water just drastically comes up. But I think what's going to end up happening is it'll slowly come up and I'll be able to come in here on foot and just move these uh exactly where I want. Um I'm really happy with these. I I didn't have a plan for this when I started the video. I know I wanted to do something with the pipe and the irrigation hose, but putting them in the cinder blocks facing opposite directions. Uh, I really like it. The only thing I'm disappointed with is just the the staying. You know, my my holes were a little too big, but I think in the water they'll float it. If they're facing down, it it's kind of cool. It's like a cedar tree where there's there's uh there's cover on the bottom as well. So, I'm not super mad at it. uh the middle motel in the tadpole temple. They turned out really good. I'm happy with these. The pallets are hideous, but they're going to do their job sitting right here while the water comes up. And we're going to weight these stumps down. And I've got more I got I've got more trees that need to come down out here. The trees that are already dead. So, I will try to save the root systems cuz it just makes really awesome cover. And my dream is to be able to film underwater here. I don't know if we'll have that kind of water clarity, but taking our soil sample beginning of the video, I think really just boosted my confidence and being able to get the water clarity up here, maybe adding some native vegetation to to help with that. But I'm excited about what we saw in that jar. And as it says on a pack of Googan baits, just add water, right? But we are not done here. We are going to add a dock. Probably will end up doing some sort of pump irration system out here for these sticky hot summer days. Again, you know, 150 bucks to do the artificial structures and the other stuff we just had on site. So, this is one project thankfully that did not break the bank. And so far, if you guys are curious on the total budget to to renovate this entire pond so far, uh doing most of the work myself, um renting the equipment and getting the supplies, you know, the sand, the gravel, we are about three grand deep right now, which isn't terrible when you're talking about moving dirt. And any you talk about moving dirt, it gets expensive quick. uh when you're when you're paying people that that know what they're doing. But I was able to uh manipulate the machines just good enough. Just be savvy enough to move it around. And I'm actually pretty proud of it. I'm just excited for it to to grow. We got cover, boys. Next thing we need is a juicy dock. So stay tuned for more pond renovations and outdoor adventures, and I'll see you guys on the next one.