Dug Right. Sealed Right. Holds Water.
Texas Hill Country · Quoted by the Cubic Yard, Not the Guess
Ranch ponds, stock tanks, and retention basins. We fly your site, compute the exact yardage, and build a compacted clay core that actually holds water in Hill Country ground. A pond that leaks is just an expensive hole — we build the other kind.
Five Kinds of Water.
One Crew That Builds All of Them.
Ranch Ponds & Stock Tanks
The classic Texas tank — livestock water, wildlife draw, or just the pond your place deserves. Dug, shaped, cored, and compacted to hold through a Central Texas summer.
Recreation & Fishing Ponds
Deeper basins with shelf structure for fish habitat, a dock-ready bank, and slopes graded for safe access. We shape the underwater terrain on purpose, not by accident.
Retention & Detention Basins
Engineered stormwater basins for developers and site plans — built to the civil drawing, with documented grades. Inspection-ready, with the as-built data to prove it.
Silt & Erosion Control Basins
Sediment traps and silt ponds that slow storm water and drop it where you want it — not across your pasture or down your neighbor's fence line.
Pond Cleanout & Enlargement
Existing tank silted in, shrunk, or leaking? We drain, muck out, re-cut, re-core, and hand it back bigger and tighter than the day it was built.
Berms, Swales & Water Shaping
The earthwork around the water — diversion berms, swales that feed the pond, and overflow paths that protect the dam when the big rain comes.
The Hill Country Is
Where Ponds Go to Leak.
Here's the frank version: this region sits on fractured limestone. Dig a hole, catch some rain, and watch it drain out the bottom by July. Most leaky ponds were dug by someone who owned an excavator — not by someone who builds ponds.
Holding water is a construction discipline: test what soil you actually have, key a core trench down to tight material, then build the liner back up in thin compacted clay lifts with a sheepsfoot roller. Skip any one of those steps and you own a seasonal mud flat.
- Soil evaluated before we quote — if your dirt can't seal, we tell you what it takes (clay import or bentonite), or we tell you not to build
- Core trench keyed into tight material under the dam
- Clay placed in 6–8" lifts, compacted at moisture — not pushed in and hoped for
- Freeboard and an emergency spillway sized for real Texas storms
Build Spec — What's In Every Pond We Cut
From Drone Flight
To Full Pool.
Fly & Model
We fly your site and build a terrain model. You see the pond footprint, the dam location, and the exact cut volume before anything moves.
Soil & Water Check
Clay content, rock likelihood, and drainage area get checked. If the site needs imported clay or bentonite to seal, that's in the quote — not a surprise later.
Fixed Number
You get a section drawing of your pond and a quote priced from the actual yardage. Not a day rate that runs long. A number.
Strip & Core
Topsoil stripped and saved, core trench cut to tight material under the dam line, then backfilled in compacted lifts.
Shape & Compact
Basin cut to plan, dam built in lifts, clay liner sheepsfoot-rolled at moisture. Slopes and shelves graded to the drawing.
Finish & Document
Spillways shaped, topsoil respread, banks left seed-ready. You get the full documentation packet — drawings, volumes, and photos of what's under the water.
What We Build.
And What We'll Tell You Needs an Engineer.
We Build
- Ranch ponds and stock tanks — most fall under Texas's stock-pond exemption (up to 200 acre-feet impounded for domestic & livestock use on your own land)
- Off-channel recreation and fishing ponds
- Retention / detention basins built to a civil engineer's drawing
- Cleanouts, enlargements, and re-sealing of existing tanks
- The clearing, access, and dirt work around the pond — same crew, same mobilization
We'll Flag for Engineering
- Dams tall enough or impoundments big enough to trigger TCEQ dam-safety review — that's PE territory, and we'll say so on the site walk
- On-channel impoundments of flowing creeks — water-rights questions get answered before dirt moves, not after
- Anything where a failure would put water on a road, a house, or a neighbor — we build conservative or we bring an engineer
Built for the People
Who Own the Land.
Ranch & Estate Owners
The tank for cattle and wildlife, or the pond the grandkids fish. Usually paired with cedar clearing on the same mobilization.
Developers
Retention and detention basins cut to the civil plan, with as-built documentation your engineer and inspector can sign off on.
Civil Engineers
A dirt contractor who reads the drawing, hits the grades, and hands back real as-built data instead of "looks about right."
Land Buyers
New acreage, big plans. Clearing, access road, pad, and pond — sequenced as one project instead of four contractors.
What Landowners Ask
About Pond Construction.
That depends on your soil, and we check it before we quote — not after you've paid for a hole. If your site needs imported clay or bentonite treatment to seal, that goes in the quote up front. And if the ground genuinely can't hold a pond economically, we'll tell you that too. A no from us is cheaper than a leak from someone else.
Most ranch ponds don't — Texas exempts stock tanks up to 200 acre-feet built for domestic and livestock use on your own property. On-channel dams, bigger impoundments, and anything in a floodplain are a different conversation, and we have that conversation on the site walk, honestly, before you spend money.
By the cubic yard, off a drone survey of your actual site. We compute the cut volume before we quote, so the number reflects your terrain, your soil, and your access — not a guess with contingency stacked on top. Rock, clay import, and haul-off are called out as line items, not discovered later.
Usually it stays on your land and works for you — the dam itself, berms, pad sites, or filling low spots. Using the cut on-site is almost always cheaper than hauling it off, and we plan the balance in the terrain model before we dig.
Yes — cleanouts and rebuilds are a big share of this work. We drain it down, muck out the sediment, find why it leaks (it's usually a missing core or thin liner), then re-core and re-compact so the rebuild outlasts the original.
A typical half-acre to one-acre stock tank is days-to-a-couple-weeks of machine time depending on yardage, rock, and weather windows — clay work wants the right moisture. Your quote comes with a schedule, and dry-season builds are the smart play in Central Texas.
Show Us the Spot.
We'll Fly It and Give You the Yardage.
Tell us roughly where the pond goes and how big you're thinking. We'll fly the site, model the terrain, and hand you a section drawing with a real number on it.
Texas Hill Country · Licensed + Insured · Documentation Packet on Every Job