Water hole ideas...

[DEERSLAYER]

Are you going to put in a pond on your place Dan? You have a lot of wasted space over there.

[dan]

Are you going to put in a pond on your place Dan? You have a lot of wasted space over there.

Thinking about it...

[Jeanie]

Aquatic Food Plots™
Wait until the water warms up before planting tubers or plants. They don't start growing until May or June. Have them planted by August 15.
Start with a section or plant a large area, it doesn't matter. Aquatic Food Plots™ need partial to full sunlight, you may need to trim brush or trees.
Fence off or cover plants with strong wire for the first year until plants become established. Leaves can grow out between the fence and wire. The leaves can be chewed off but the roots need to remain in tact. If new plants are not protected, the entire plant and roots may be pulled out.

Jeanie http://www.aquaticbiologists.com/about- ... life-ponds

[kurt]

Jeanie im interested in hearing about some of the 13 ways you mentioned to fill and maintain water levels. Esp for lose hard to get to areas.

[DEERSLAYER]

I don't know what Jeanie may have in mind, but you could use a Guzzler to fill your water tubs and keep them full for you. I posted a pic of one on here awhile back, but I can't find it so I did a search and found this pdf that should give you some idea's.
http://www.tpwd.state.tx.us/publication ... 0_0032.pdf

I also checked out youtube and found a video you might like too.

[bbvideo=425,350]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xwxiTBn7moM[/bbvideo]

http://www.mackspw.com/Item--i-WPVPW13? ... Mgod7BMANA
This 13 Quart automatic waterer should work OK and minimize evaporation.

[kurt]

Do you think that 13 quart is enough. i like the guzzler design though but i think i would just use it to catch water in spring and maybe fill a menards landscape pond or kiddie pool and maybe a couple times fill it up without having to haul anything or i proably could rig a float valve pretty easy to fill either.

[bbrilmyer]

Great PDF... Thanks for that!

[DEERSLAYER]

Do you think that 13 quart is enough. i like the guzzler design though but i think i would just use it to catch water in spring and maybe fill a menards landscape pond or kiddie pool and maybe a couple times fill it up without having to haul anything or i proably could rig a float valve pretty easy to fill either.

For a pan I would prefer something a little bigger like this one that's 25" X 13" X 4 1/2" (or maybe a little bigger yet), but I think a natural looking water hole that you could make with a liner would be the best.


The smaller one is all they need though and quite a few people seem to use that model. Like this guy (he shows pics of deer usage). With such a small amount of water exposed evaporation should be minimal too.
[bbvideo=425,350]http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&v=cKcwraWbHP4&feature=endscreen[/bbvideo]

There are a lot of float valves available. Most run $8-$48 like this one on ebay for $13.98 TYD.



I have never used a float or barrel system. Only a cheap passive system that had the roof (Catchment) just off the ground and the water flowed directly into a trough, a kiddie pond, goldfish pond from a yard and garden place and even a line of cheap plastic totes. The totes only made it a few years before they cracked. The deer (and bear) didn't use them very long either. I think the totes were leaching chemicals into the water. If I had some land I would build one like the guy in the video above and put 6-8 interconnected FOOD GRADE 55 gallon drums under it for storage with a hose coming out the bottom of one barrel and an overflow hole at the top. Depending on the circumstances I might run large PVC tubing from the overflow to the watering pan to wash out the debris too. I would have a screen over the drain hole in the bottom of the gutter and I would use one of those gutters that keep the leaves out. Depending on the situation I may run a 150' hose from the drum to the water pan, trough, water hole with liner, or whatever it is I decide to use.


BTW, the formula for rain “Catchment” is...
Rainfall in Inches X Square feet of surface area (“catchment”) X 0.623 = Gallons

Example: Last month we had 7.47" of rain (2.5 times our average) and so far this month we have only had 1.05" so if I used two sheets of plywood for an 8'x 8' guzzler I would have trapped....

8.52" x 64 sq ft x 0.623 = 339.7 gallons of water for the wildlife {or just over six 55 gallon drums full of water}.

If you wanted you could even use a battery operated timer with a low pressure valve on it to only allow water to flow into the pan, trough, etc, during a certain time time frame of the day.

[Stanley]

Interesting thread.

[kurt]

im thinking a roof /gutter guzzler system sounds good. I might have a lead on one of those metal crate plastic tank things their 275 gallons i heard. Just rigging it to flow into like a pond after so much water has been filled then have a manual fill valve too for maybe one visit in june july and aug. to a pond like a lawn and garden size. Im worried about float valves and freezing temps. Im assuming those pans and auto fill buckets use float valves otherwise i don't know how they work. I guess i could put that smaller pan out for summer to be sure they have water if my small pond runs dry and remove it come sept or oct. when pond should suffice with less heat and more rainfall