Now that the brutal excavation is behind us, it's time to build out the ultimate ecosystem. A deep pond without structure is just an empty bowl—and if you want to grow trophy bass and a self-sustaining sunfish population, you have to build their habitat from the ground up before the water goes in. In this episode, we take a pile of scrap materials and turn it into an engineered underwater city. We’re building multi-level nursery cover for forage using leftover 4-inch PVC, flexible hose, and fencing, stacking heavy pallet cribs for bluegill sanctuary, and placing excavated hardwood stumps along the deep drop-offs for primary bass ambush points. Plus, we repurpose leftover sandbox sand onto our shallow gravel flats to create the ultimate spawning beds! We also run mason jar soil tests across the basin to evaluate our clay composition and water-holding capability before making the final call on our bentonite seal. Drop a comment below: What’s your favorite type of cover to target when ...