PIERCE
LAND
CLEARING
Pond builders for mesquite ranch country: stock tanks and fishing ponds cut deep into the red dirt around Jacksboro, Perrin, and Bryson, built for the dry years.
West of the ninety-eighth meridian the arithmetic flips: rain is scarce, so the tank has to catch everything and lose nothing. The good news is Jack County dirt is built for the job.
The rolling red beds around Jacksboro pack into basins and dams that seal tight with nothing added, and the broken country gives every pasture a defined draw a dam wants to sit in. This is classic stock tank geology, the country the technique was invented for.
The occasional sandstone ledge is the local wrinkle: we read the cut for rock on the walk, say so honestly if we expect it, and price the contingency in daylight instead of springing it on day two.
Rainfall here is half of what east Texas gets, and evaporation takes several feet off open water every summer. A shallow tank in Jack County is a temporary tank. Depth is the entire defense: less surface per gallon, cooler water, and reserves that carry stock through the years the sky forgets.
We size the watershed generously, cut deep bowls with pinched shallows, and treat every acre foot like the bank account it is out here.
Ranch country does business straight, and so does the build: photos, a walk, a written number, machines, water.
Text or call with pictures of the spot and what you have in mind. Because the price list is published, we can give you an honest range on the first call, then put a boot on the ground to firm it up.
We walk the draw, read the catchment feeding it, probe the cut line for sandstone, and talk herd access and spillway routing on the spot. If the site you picked is not the best water on the place, we say so and show you the better draw.
You get one page with real numbers on it. Excavation, dam construction, spillway, transport, and any flagged contingency, all in plain terms. No allowances that balloon later, no asterisks doing heavy lifting.
Mobilization is usually measured in weeks, not months. The dozer and excavator arrive on a lowboy, we stage at the site, and from that morning the build runs continuously until the pond is done.
The dig itself runs two to five days on most builds. Topsoil is saved for the banks, the core trench goes in first, and the dam is built the slow, right way, in compacted layers rather than one loose push. You will see the pond take shape daily.
We do not leave until you have walked the finished pond with us. The dam, the spillway, the bank grades, the topsoil dressing, all of it inspected against what was promised, and corrected on the spot if it falls short.
Honest answer: out here the sky sets the schedule. A correctly sited Jack County tank catches its water across a wet season or two, and the deep bowl means that once it is caught, it stays caught. The dam gets seeded immediately so the first storm builds grass instead of gullies.
Published, not hidden behind a form. Prices and build times are based on 6 feet of depth at center with a 4:1 bank.
| Pond Size | Starting Price at 6 ft depth, 4:1 bank | Build Time |
|---|---|---|
| 1/4 acre | from $12,300 | 2 to 3 days |
| 1/2 acre | from $19,200 | 3 to 4 days |
| 3/4 acre | from $23,300 | 4 to 5 days |
| 1 acre | from $27,000 | 5 to 6 days |
| 1 1/4 acre | from $30,400 | 6 to 7 days |
| 1 1/2 acre | from $33,800 | 7 to 8 days |
| 1 3/4 acre | from $36,800 | 8 to 9 days |
| 2 acre | from $39,500 | 9 to 10 days |
Chart prices are for a 6 foot deep pond at 4:1 banks. In Jack County we usually recommend going deeper than the baseline, and any rock contingency gets flagged at the site walk, not after.
Size it, tell us what to do with the dirt, then draw the pond right on a photo of your land. Your estimate comes back by email, along with a preview of the finished water.
We would rather explain the number before you sign than after. This is the whole anatomy of a pond quote.
The number includes the pond, whole and finished: design against the watershed, staking, topsoil stripped and banked, core trench, compacted-lift dam, cut spillway, finish-graded slopes, and dressed banks. Getting the iron to your gate and the closing walkthrough are in there too.
Rock is the Jack County variable: sandstone ledges show up in some cuts, we read for them at the walk, and any hammer time is a daylight line item, never a surprise. Mesquite grubbing and brush clearing ride on the same quote at published day rates.
Real ponds, real day counts, photographed on site.
Pond cut in limestone country, Burnet
Basin cut, Gatesville
Stock tank holding water, MarionFull process, statewide services, and the build standard: our Texas pond construction page.
Jack County runs cattle on big country, and surface water decides how the country grazes. A deep tank in the right draw spreads the herd, saves the good grass near the pens, and takes the August water haul off the calendar. It is the highest return dirt work a ranch out here can buy.
Every tank we cut west of Fort Worth is designed for the dry stretch, not the average: deeper bowls, generous watersheds, spillways that handle the rare big storm without giving back the stored water. When the neighbors’ shallow tanks crack in a bad year, the deep ones keep the operation whole.
Between the oaks and the mesquite breaks, Jack County leases live on water. A tank bends deer movement predictably, pulls dove like a magnet in September, and gives the camp a bass hole. Same dirt money, twice the return.
Most tank sites here wear a mesquite thicket, and we are the outfit that grubs it right: roots out, not sheared to regrow. The same mobilization clears the site, grubs the footprint, and opens the cut. One crew, one bill, no waiting on a second contractor.
Reliable surface water in every pasture means rotation happens on grass logic, not water logic, and nobody hauls a trailer tank down 199 in a heat wave.
The dry years are coming; they always are. Reserve depth bought at dig time is the cheapest water the ranch will ever own when they arrive.
Water concentrates wildlife in dry country better than feed ever will. A tank raises the hunting lease value and gives the camp a fishing hole as a bonus.
Ranch buyers west of Fort Worth ask about water before they ask about fences. Tanks that hold through a dry September are the improvement that moves the price.
When the dirt work is done you can keep the same crew on the finish work. These four add-ons turn a new basin into a finished pond.
Dams get seeded native immediately: out here a bare dam faces both gully washers and wind, and established grass is the armor for both.
Aeration earns its keep on deep stock tanks by keeping the water sweet for cattle and fish through the long hot stretch between rains.
A gentle armored stock slope on one bank, cut during construction, saves cattle bogging and bank damage for the life of the tank.
Stock a deep tank on the standard schedule and dry country does the rest: less fishing pressure than the lakes and cool water under the surface grow bass the camp brags on.
The team with Pierce Land Clearing were great to work with. Taylor was prompt to respond, took the time to help me understand the process and options and got me scheduled for a date for service. Bobby our operator was incredibly nice.
Daniel W, Google review
Pierce Land Clearing just finished a 2 day job forestry mulching my 10 acre lot. Most of the job consisted of making dead pines and oaks, standing and fallen, disappear.
Grace Dacy, Google review
I cannot say enough good things about my experience working with Pierce Land Clearing. We have a large piece of very heavily wooded and overgrown property and their equipment was able to clear a clean, wide road and open several acres.
Jenna Kelly-Landes, Google review
Learn these six and you can grade any pond quote you are handed, including ours.
Where the dam dirt comes from. On a well designed pond it is the basin itself, so every yard dug does double duty.
One acre of water a foot deep, about 326,000 gallons. The unit that decides whether a stock pond needs a state permit.
Saving the living top layer before the dig and dressing it back over the banks after, so grass takes the first season.
Clay you can roll into a ribbon in your hand. The soil that seals a pond, and the first thing we look for on the walk.
Texan for a working pond built to water cattle. Usually smaller, always practical, and built with the same dam discipline.
A keyway cut below grade under the dam and packed with clay, so water cannot travel beneath the structure.
Jacksboro anchors our northwest pond routing. Every town below is a local pond page with its own soil notes and pricing.
The published chart starts at $12,300 for a quarter acre at 6 feet on 4:1 banks, and the calculator above runs your size and depth. Out here we usually recommend deeper than the baseline, and the calculator shows exactly what that adds. Photos of the draw get a real range the same day.
Jack County red clay is some of the best tank ground in Texas: it packs tight and seals itself in almost every draw. The occasional sandstone ledge is the thing we watch for, and we flag rock honestly at the walk instead of surprising you mid-dig.
Deeper than the chart baseline. Six feet prices the tank, but with this evaporation we like eight to ten at center where the ground allows: cooler water, slower loss, and reserves that carry the herd through the dry years. The calculator prices every foot of it honestly.
That is half our business. Mesquite gets grubbed out by the roots, not sheared to come back, and the same mobilization that clears the site cuts the tank. Grubbing, clearing, and dirt work ride on one quote at published day rates.
Bigger than east Texas thinks. With twenty-eight inches of rain we want generous catchment per acre foot of storage, and we read the draws on the walk before recommending tank size. An honest watershed answer up front beats a pretty tank that never fills.
Constantly, and it is often the best money on the place. Old tanks silt to half depth and lose exactly the reserve that matters in a drought. Drain, dredge, deepen, rebuild the dam, and the tank carries twice the dry season it used to.
On ranch land, almost never: normal farm and stock ponds are exempt from state permitting and the county adds none. Genuinely large impoundments with real dam height get an engineering conversation, and we tell you honestly when a project is one of those.
Two to five working days for most tanks once the iron is on site. Mesquite grubbing ahead of the cut adds a day or two. Fill time depends on the sky out here, which is exactly why the bowl gets cut deep while the machines are already there.
Photos, a rough size, and your county road gets a real range the same day. Deep tanks are drought insurance, and the site walk is free.