First, Select a Site
The location and particular characteristics of your hunting pond will dictate how well it is used by deer, particularly those elusive mature bucks. To begin, look for some suitable sites somewhere between or adjacent to doe bedding and close to food plots. Deer will naturally travel along this route and a watering hole that suits their habits will be used more readily than one that requires them to travel off course. Ideally, your hunting pond will be located near the border of a carefully maintained sanctuary area, where deer are already accustomed to feeling safe and secure. Just beyond the hunting pond, opposite the sanctuary, might be an excellent location for a downwind stand or two with easy access to perform maintenance checks on the pond with minimal interaction with the deer.
Next, make sure to select a site that offers good cover or where you can establish some in quick order. If the site doesn’t offer secure cover, mature bucks will typically choose to drink at night rather than exposing themselves in daylight. Good cover will usually include shade, perhaps from a good overhead tree canopy. This is a good feature since abundant shade will minimize both evaporative loss and algae growth.
Finally, you can choose one of two pathways: look for some natural depressions where water already tends to puddle. These sites are already located along a natural slope within the drainage basin and are well situated to benefit the most from rain runoff. Alternatively, you might consider locating a deer pond on higher ground, especially if your lower elevations already have plentiful water available year-round. Small ridges and hills tend to be drier since water drains into the basin rather than uphill. If this area has other favorable features like plenty of bedding sites with good cover and a location that’s remote from human activity, adding a deer pond and some food plots could make all the difference in the quality of your hunting parcel.
Keep in mind that a ridge-top pond will capture very little runoff, so it is likely to need supplemental water during dry seasons, meaning that easy access is a must. This is also a situation where installing a larger pond is beneficial since it has more storage capacity, which translates to fewer visits overall for topping off, and much less risk of stressing the deer with human activity.
Prepare the Waterhole
If your hunting pond will be in a low-lying area, where you intend for it to benefit from runoff from rainstorms, you’ll want to install it slightly below ground level, as in an existing depression. Ponds placed even slightly above ground level are likely to have most runoff travel around the raised lip of the pond. This is a good point to keep in mind: if a pond is installed to take advantage of runoff, it may need little to no supplemental water from year to year.
If you have long, dry seasons or are threatened with drought, it’s a good idea to plan for a pond that can hold plenty of water. A relatively large storage capacity means that the pond may be able to maintain a good water level even with weeks between rain events. If you end up having to top off the pond during an extended dry period, one large top off every month for a 500-gallon pond is much less distressing to the local deer than frequent small visits to keep a 100-gallon tub filled. This is a critical consideration because once deer realize that a specific water source is unreliable (i.e., dries up from time to time), it will no longer be part of the herd’s regular itinerary. Consistency and dependability are important.
To maximize the holding volume of your pond, remember that deeper ponds hold more water, but it’s not worth it to make a pond so deep that the deer can’t reach it without going for a swim. A pond with relatively steep sides and a flat bottom is going to hold considerably more water than a cone shaped hole. Some hunters describe the ideal profile as bowl-shaped, which is a good description.
If you’re taking over an existing depression or vernal pool (see the caution below for vernal pools), you’ll probably want to expand or reshape it for your own purposes. Once the excavation fits your needs, take time to carefully remove any large rocks, sharp roots, or other obstructions on the bottom of the hole. Water is very heavy and the weight of a column of water pressing down onto a few roots or a large angular stone over months can lead to cuts or tears in even the strongest tubs or liners.
After your excavation has been cleared and evened out, you can choose to use a preformed tub, livestock tank, or flexible liner as your container. This is an important step, because even in soils with a relatively high clay content, water will inevitably seep through, and your pond’s water level will drop. See more in our next section on leaks!
A word of caution: actual vernal pools or ephemeral ponds are a unique type of wetland that are filled with water for a season or two, rather than all-year round. They are often hosts to a variety of amphibian and insect species that are especially adapted to this environment. Because of this, vernal pools on your property could be protected as wetlands by the EPA. Check with them to see if you need a permit or look for another site. Not all natural depressions are vernal pools!
