Project name: Pilot Grove Pond Watershed size: 200 acres Year began: 2008 Year Complete: 2009 SWCD Contact: Montgomery Phone: (712) 623-9680
Purpose: Improve water quality Soil and Water Conservation District(s): Montgomery Other partners: Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship, Iowa Department of Natural Resources, Natural Resources Conservation Service, Montgomery County Conservation Board

The bad news at Pilot Grove Pond was that fishing had become poor as the pond silted in to a depth of only 4 feet. The good news is that a watershed project led the way to the pond being renovated, enlarged, and restocked with bluegill, bass, catfish and crappie, and overall recreation being improved at Pilot Grove Park.

Two sediment control structures, built just above the pond to protect it against further siltation as part of the Pilot Grove Pond Restoration Project, will control all the watershed runoff that drains to the pond.
“That paved the way for building a new dam about 350 feet downstream,” says Richard Price, Director of the Montgomery County Conservation Board. “The new dam at Pilot Grove enlarges the pond to 7 acres of water, up from 2.5 acres before renovation. And the depth will be increased to 23 feet, significant for fishing.”

The two structures had to be in place to control further silting, Dan Case of the Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship says, as a condition for building the new pond. “The county could only get fish habitat money from fishing sales through the Iowa Department of Natural Resources if we had the drainage to the pond controlled,” Case says.

Price and Case both say there used to be big bass in the pond, but siltation and turbidity made for poor fishing more recently. “Now we’ll have clear water; that will be good for fish and for recreation,” Case says.

“It’s going to be an excellent fishery for anglers once again,”’ Price says, “and a bigger and better park.”

One in a series of summaries of watershed projects in Iowa carried out by local conservation districts, the Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship, Division of Soil Conservation, and other partners.

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