Building a duck impoundment

KKrueger

Senior Member
I'm thinking of building a duck impoundment, but I'm not really sure where to start. The area I'm looking at is in a relatively low/damp creek bottom. The adjoining creek has pretty good year round flow, even during this past dry year.

Is it as simple as clearing the trees, building a levee around the area, planting for ducks and flooding it?

Are there any permits I should pursue?

What would be an adequate size to attract and hold ducks?

Should I even worry about clearing and planting the area or should I just create the levee and begin flooding it?

Any idea what kind of cost per acre there would be to do something like this?

I dug up and old post under the food plot section where someone created exactly what I'm talking about. I did a search for "Duck Pond". Unfortunately the member has since been banned. It really looked good. His impoundments were 3 and 4 acres in size.

Any help would be great.
 

MudDucker

Moderator
Staff member
There can be a lot involved. I just finished a pond, other than installing the water control devices. While mine is subject to draining, planting and then flooding, it is actually an agriculture based pond, which is exempt from much of the permitting mess.
 
Me and my brother-in-law will be working on one this spring. It is a still lake on the river, we have already talked with both the game warden and the county and notified them of our plans, both verbal and writen. They have both replied in writing that we would need no permits, and it would be no problem as long as in any way we didn't hender the flow of the river or allow sediments to enter the river.

Now with all that said we will be building a dam about 20ft from wear the water enters at the river. In this dam we are going to install a value, this value will allow use to add water and lower or raise the water. We will be removing most of the trees in the are so that the ducks will find it easily. We haven't desided exactly what we will be planting, except corn will be planted in the deeper water.

My brother-in-law works at a plantation that has this whole planting, flooding, and draining thing down. We have got allot of ideas from there program and made a few changes.

Let me say this as well, AGARR maybe very right, but we could be very wrong. Now they have been doing this program on the plantation for years. But on January 10th I shot my first Bull Can. on one of there flooded ponds, and it is no where near a large body of water other than Seminole and its about 2 hours away.

You know how the saying goes, "If you build it they will come" now for granted it might take a few years but I had much rather do it and wait a few years to see it produce than not do it and fight to have a place to ducks hunt.
 

dgflowers90

Senior Member
that sounds pretty cool when building one do you need ducks in surrounding area and also how high does the levy need to be????
 

across the river

Senior Member
I'm thinking of building a duck impoundment, but I'm not really sure where to start. The area I'm looking at is in a relatively low/damp creek bottom. The adjoining creek has pretty good year round flow, even during this past dry year.

Is it as simple as clearing the trees, building a levee around the area, planting for ducks and flooding it?

Are there any permits I should pursue?

What would be an adequate size to attract and hold ducks?

Should I even worry about clearing and planting the area or should I just create the levee and begin flooding it?

Any idea what kind of cost per acre there would be to do something like this?

I dug up and old post under the food plot section where someone created exactly what I'm talking about. I did a search for "Duck Pond". Unfortunately the member has since been banned. It really looked good. His impoundments were 3 and 4 acres in size.

Any help would be great.

Contact the corps of engineers for permitting before you modify a "creek." The only thing on a creek you can modify is a beaver dam, which you can tear down without any permitting or concern as long as the debris is placed on dry land. You will probably also need permitting from the county. You usually have less concern if you just dike up a place that is currently dry and pump it full.
 

GSURugger

Senior Member
ACE, NPDES, GSWCC, EPD, EPA
Just a few agencies that have a say in any hindrance/construction of a state water.

State water-has wrested banks, and crosses property lines. (a very general and brief definition)
 
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