|
Pat
|
|
Veteran Member
|
|
|
|
|
Reged: 09/15/02
|
|
Posts: 4904
|
|
Loc: SouthCentral Oklahoma
|
|
Raining Fish?
05/08/07 05:31 PM Attachment
|
Edit
|
Reply
|
|
|
Well not really raining fish but the ponds are overflowing due to the ground being saturated by previous rains. I walked through a field this morning and found thousands of small fish in the pasture swimming through the grass in water ranging from 0 to 2 inches deep from an over flowing pond. The swath with fish in it was up to 20-40 ft wide and 200 feet long (interpond distance.) They seemed to be mostly bluegill, and crappie, and maybe perch (I do better with ID with adults.)
It was some weird. At first when I saw motion near the dam of the lower pond I suspected tadpoles as they were 6-10 feet from the pond. It was strange walking through a pasture 100 ft from either pond and having multitudes of little fry swimming around my feet trying to avoid me.
They were mostly swimming up stream but I believe they were from the pond at higher elevation. At lunch I invited a neighbor to come over and net a bunch to put in his pond. The flow had subsided considerably but he got a hundred or so in 5 min without getting into water over his shoe soles.
Lots of the little fry are getting stranded and the birds and critters will have a picnic.
Pat
"I'm not from your planet, monkey boy!"
Edited by Pat (05/08/07 05:33 PM)
Post Extras:
|
|
Pat
|
|
Veteran Member
|
|
|
|
|
Reged: 09/15/02
|
|
Posts: 4904
|
|
Loc: SouthCentral Oklahoma
|
|
|
This pond has a 12 inch rain pipe which is totally under water and only recognizable by the whirlpool above the inlet.
Pat
"I'm not from your planet, monkey boy!"
Post Extras:
|
|
Pat
|
|
Veteran Member
|
|
|
|
|
Reged: 09/15/02
|
|
Posts: 4904
|
|
Loc: SouthCentral Oklahoma
|
|
|
All my ponds are full and overflowing. many have drains ranging in size from 12 to 30 inches. All with drains less than 30 inches have emergency overflow swales. Here is a picture of the flow in one of the swales.
The dam in this picture has a 12 inch drain pipe through it which is submerged and is gushing a considerable flow into the next pond in the chain. The emergency overflow routes the water well away from the back of the dam and into th same pond the drain pipe dumps into.
The water in the swale is aboiut 6 inches deep and flwing quite swiftly.
Pat
"I'm not from your planet, monkey boy!"
Edited by Pat (05/08/07 05:43 PM)
Post Extras:
|
|
Pat
|
|
Veteran Member
|
|
|
|
|
Reged: 09/15/02
|
|
Posts: 4904
|
|
Loc: SouthCentral Oklahoma
|
|
|
My smallest pond has a 30 inch diameter drain as its dam is part of my driveway and I don't want water going over that dam. The 30 inch culvert was 1/2 full. The culvert is several feet below the graveled surface so it would be full and well under water (accelerates flow) before the water would go over the top (UNLIKELY.)
"I'm not from your planet, monkey boy!"
Post Extras:
|
|
Pat
|
|
Veteran Member
|
|
|
|
|
Reged: 09/15/02
|
|
Posts: 4904
|
|
Loc: SouthCentral Oklahoma
|
|
|
Inlet side of culvert.
"I'm not from your planet, monkey boy!"
Post Extras:
|
|
Bird
|
|
Veteran Member
|
|
|
|
|
Reged: 09/12/02
|
|
Posts: 1694
|
|
Loc: Corinth, TX, USA
|
|
Re: Raining Fish?
[re: Pat]
05/08/07 08:34 PM
|
|
Edit
|
Reply
|
|
|
It's either feast for famine, isn't it? Here we've been under drought conditions, the lakes incredibly low, etc. and now the lakes around here are full, the ground is saturated, as is yours, we got another 1.2" last night between 2 and 5 a.m., and we're under a flash flood watch until Thursday morning, and a tornado watch until midnight tonight. 
Post Extras:
|
|
Pat
|
|
Veteran Member
|
|
|
|
|
Reged: 09/15/02
|
|
Posts: 4904
|
|
Loc: SouthCentral Oklahoma
|
|
|
Bird, Never a dull moment, eh? Actually typical in Oklahoma is boredom punctuated my periods of stark terror. Mostly the weather variability and ferocity are responsible for the excitement.
I'm glad the engineering I did on the pond drains and overflow provisions seems to be working.
The pond is at the back and to the right in this picture. The water in the mid and foreground is the overflow. This pond doesn't have a drain pipe. Its overflow goes to the little pond with the 30 inch culvert for a drain (previous posted pix.) The 30 inch is because that little pond has no engineered overflow and I don't want it to overflow. The top of its dam is my driveway. The dam is several feet higher than the culvert so it should move lots of water when several feet submerged. So far the most water I have seen in that culvert is just 1/2 full and that was this recent series of rains.
Pat
"I'm not from your planet, monkey boy!"
Edited by Pat (05/09/07 04:44 PM)
Post Extras:
|
|
Pat
|
|
Veteran Member
|
|
|
|
|
Reged: 09/15/02
|
|
Posts: 4904
|
|
Loc: SouthCentral Oklahoma
|
|
|
The water in this picture is only about 4 inches deep but is flowing swiftly. The boots I am wearing are about 16 inches high and the force of the water nearly splashes up to the tops. I poured leftover concrete from the house construction on the down stream side of the dam which is part of my driveway. This swift water is coming out of the 30 inch culvert under the driveway. OF course there is no erosion with concrete.
Pat
"I'm not from your planet, monkey boy!"
Edited by Pat (05/09/07 04:49 PM)
Post Extras:
|
|
Pat
|
|
Veteran Member
|
|
|
|
|
Reged: 09/15/02
|
|
Posts: 4904
|
|
Loc: SouthCentral Oklahoma
|
|
|
This is the pond I built and stocked with channel catfish and fathead minnows. Hopefully they didn't wash away. There is a 12 inch drain pipe in the middle of the dam but it is totally submerged. The overflow swale is doing its job. The water depth in the swale close to the pond is about 6 inches. and it is fairly swift but is going much faster in the background of the picture. I think I need to put some large gravel (fist to bowling ball size) in the lower portion of the overflow path because I did get some erosion.
Pat
"I'm not from your planet, monkey boy!"
Edited by Pat (05/09/07 04:54 PM)
Post Extras:
|
|
Bird
|
|
Veteran Member
|
|
|
|
|
Reged: 09/12/02
|
|
Posts: 1694
|
|
Loc: Corinth, TX, USA
|
|
Re: Raining Fish?
[re: Pat]
05/09/07 05:39 PM
|
|
Edit
|
Reply
|
|
|
In reply to:
The overflow swale is doing its job.
We'll hope no fish go that way. I can remember when I was a kid and neighbors had a mesh fence only a couple of feet tall across the "spillway" or overflow swale to keep from losing fish when we had heavy rains. Those folks had no indoor plumbing, so they bathed in the pond (it was a big pond or small lake out of sight of the road in the woods at Healdton) in the summer. And they hung their clothes, towels, etc. on that fence. I remember once when my buddy and I and his dad went to go swimming there and a big snake struck at his dad from the other side of that fence. Fortunately the mesh was much too small for the snake to go through, so we killed the snake and went swimming.  I probably wouldn't even consider going swimming in such a place now. 
Post Extras:
|
|
EddieWalker
|
|
New Member
|
|
|
|
|
Reged: 10/05/04
|
|
Posts: 20
|
|
Loc: Just North of Tyler Texas
|
|
Re: Raining Fish?
[re: Pat]
05/09/07 06:26 PM
|
|
Edit
|
Reply
|
|
|
Pat,
Great pictures!! It's just amazing how much water you have moving though your land.
Thanks for the great pictures.
Eddie
Post Extras:
|
Previous
Index
Next
Flat
Threaded
