Youngsville · 3.5-Acre Fishpond

The work

This stretch of South Youngsville ground sat so low it only dried out enough to mow two to four times a summer. The owner had a bigger picture in mind: a real fishpond, a house pad, and drainage that actually worked. The plan got sketched on the back of a napkin over dinner. Then we went and dug it.

Over roughly two years we excavated and hauled off about 90,000 cubic yards of dirt, shaping a 3.5-acre fishpond up to 20 feet deep, with submerged cypress-tree islands, pea-gravel breeding beds, and a boat launch, alongside an 80-by-100-foot house pad and about eight acres of reshaped, properly draining ground. By agreement with the owner, the dig ran as a constant in the background: we kept moving dirt on Austin Rd whenever the calendar allowed while taking on dozens of other jobs in between.

It ran on a small arsenal: two John Deere 450 dozers, a Deere 200C LC and a Kobelco 200-series excavator, three dump trucks, and a string of tractors and attachments. Six years on, that napkin sketch is a showpiece. The owner is building his retirement home on the rise in front of the water, with talk of a white-sand beach off the back patio.