PIERCE
LAND
CLEARING
Our dirt crews run out of the Johnson City area, which makes Blanco County the shortest mobilization on our map. Pedernales ranch country, quoted by people who drive it every day.
Blanco County is classic Hill Country: limestone benches, cedar draws, and river valley soils that reward the builder who knows which draw to trust.
The high pastures between Johnson City and Blanco run thin soil over layered limestone, honest Hill Country rock. Upland tanks want the soil pocket at the head of a draw, and ledge gets the hammer-by-the-day treatment, flagged before we start.
A lot of upland sites are better served by moving the pond downslope, and we say so when it is true.
The river and creek valleys carry the county’s real pond dirt: silty clays that dig clean and seal with compaction. Valley builds run the published list, and the same draws that flood the Pedernales fill a well placed pond fast.
Floodplain lines get checked on every valley site, because this river has a reputation it earned.
Blanco County ground is honest and so is our process. Here is a Johnson City pond build from first call to full pool.
It starts with photos of the site and a rough idea of size. We answer with a same-day ballpark off the published price list, and if the number works for you, we schedule the site walk. No sales funnel, just a conversation.
Around Johnson City the walk moves between granite outcrops and limestone draws, sometimes on the same forty acres. We read where the pond wants to sit, sort rippable rock from hammer rock, and hunt the clay every seal depends on. Pedernales country sheds storms fast, which is good news for filling and serious news for spillways, and both get sized on the spot with you standing there.
The quote reads like a plan, not a mystery: dig, dam, spillway, and any contingency for rock, each priced in machine days. If clearing is needed first, it is on the same sheet at our published day rates. What is written is what you pay.
Within a few weeks of signing, the lowboy delivers the iron. All we need from you is gate access wide enough for the machines and somewhere to drop the trailer. Everything else is on us.
Most ponds take two to five working days. The sequence never changes: strip and save the topsoil, cut the core trench, raise the dam in thin compacted lifts, shape the basin. Watch as much of it as you like from outside the swing radius.
The build ends with a walkthrough, not an invoice. Dam, spillway, slopes, and dressed banks, checked against the quote with you standing there. Anything off gets fixed before the lowboy is loaded.
Johnson City ponds fill the way the Pedernales rises, quickly, on a handful of storms a year. A pond matched to its draw makes those events count and holds between them. Grass the dam before the first one, check the spillway after each, and be patient in the gaps. Blanco County has been routing water to the river forever; your pond just borrows some on the way.
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 |
Being based out this way, Johnson City quotes carry the shortest mobilization we write. Valley clay runs the list; bench sites carry a rock variable; the bentonite work pictured above is the sealing answer when a basin needs help.
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.
Every quote we write splits the same honest way. Here is what is inside the number and what gets flagged separately.
Every quote covers the complete pond: watershed-matched siting, staking, saved topsoil, a true core trench, a dam raised in compacted lifts, a shaped spillway, mowable slope finishes, and banks dressed with the topsoil we saved. Transport of the machines is included, as is the final walkthrough.
Hammer time when granite or solid limestone stops the rip, flagged up front and billed by the day. Clay borrow or bentonite when the basin needs sealing help, decided at design, never on the invoice. Cedar clearing at published day rates when the site starts brushed, and spoil stays on the property in nearly every build.
Real ponds, real day counts, photographed on site.
Bentonite sealing, up close
Lampasas, north: half acre, 5 days
Liberty Hill: fifth acre, 2 days
Burnet: quarter acre, 4 days
The finished product: water that staysFull process, statewide services, and the build standard: our Texas pond construction page.
Mobilization is a real line in every dirt quote, and for Johnson City it is the smallest one we write, because the machines are already out this way. That shows up as scheduling flexibility too: Blanco County jobs slot in fast, and a two day tank does not wait a month for a lowboy.
This county wrote the book on working ranch water, and the old tanks along the Pedernales prove the pattern: modest surface, real depth, dams keyed into the grade, placed where the draw does the gathering. We build to the same pattern with better compaction, and the result outlives the warranty conversation entirely.
Most Blanco County pond sites start under cedar, and that is convenient: clearing the draw is the first day of the pond job anyway. Cedar out means more runoff reaches the pond, the view opens with the water, and the whole transformation happens in one mobilization instead of two contracts.
The granite that makes Blanco County scenery also complicates its ponds. Outcrop ground moves water sideways through fractures, and decomposed granite drinks it outright, so the seal is engineered, clay keyed into the trench and floor, bentonite when the property cannot lend enough clay. A Johnson City pond that holds was designed to hold before the first bucket of dirt moved.
The Pedernales can rise feet in an hour, which tells you everything about how this ground handles storms. A pond sized to its watershed catches a serious share of every event. We put the basin in the draw the land already trusts and cut the spillway for the storm after the storm, and the pond fills on nature’s schedule, usually faster than owners expect.
Blanco County summers take feet of water off shallow ponds. Eight or more at center is the standard: cool water under the fish, stock water into September, and margins too tight for the weed beds that claim warm shallows. When footprint and depth compete for budget, depth wins, every time, in this county.
The dam wants grass before the first storm and the water wants residents in order: forage fish first, bass a season behind. A pond stocked in sequence feeds itself; one stocked backward eats itself. Three years of patience makes a fishery that outlasts every shortcut.
Pond sites here usually start as cedar over granite, and clearing them wrong scars the place. We grub and mulch as the Johnson City clearing crew we already are, protect the oaks at the root zone, and dress the finished grades with saved topsoil, so the pond looks born to the property.
A pond is dirt work first, but it does not have to end there. One call covers everything from grass on the dam to fish in the water.
Seed and matting close every dam we build, because Pedernales country rain does not wait for grass to volunteer. Established turf is the cheapest armor a new dam ever wears, and it has to beat the first storm there.
A bottom diffuser keeps the column oxygenated through the still heat of summer, sparing you the algae mats and fish kills of stale water. Near the house, a fountain does the same work and improves every evening on the porch.
Say the word dock on the site walk and the pond gets built dock-ready at no real cost: shelf shaped, approach graded, depth honest. Retrofitting one after the water is up costs triple and fits worse.
Forage first, bass later, the stocking order is non-negotiable if you want a fishery instead of a story. Done right, a Johnson City pond gives you Pedernales-quality evenings without sharing the bank with anyone.
They did a fantastic job clearing fence lines, opening up pastures and breaking trail in dense overgrowth. Taylor does a great job recommending the proper equipment for the job and being transparent.
Taylor Small, Google review
Just had a fence line for a 50 acre tract cleared. Some ravines, trees, trash trees. It is amazing! Will with his magic machine cleared that path and much more. Stumps, dead trees, things that the pioneers could have only dreamed of.
Jeannie Thurmond, Google review
Highly recommend Pierce Land Clearing! Fair price. Showed up on time and work was as promised. 4.5 acres of solid cedar, oak, mesquite etc. taken care of in less than 3 days. I will not shop around on the next project.
Aaron P, Google review
The site walk comes with vocabulary. Here is what the crew means when they say it.
Saving the living top layer before the dig and dressing it back after. On thin Blanco County ground it is the difference between grass in one season and bare dirt for three.
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.
The dam built up in thin layers, each packed tight by the machine before the next goes on. The opposite of a pushed up pile.
The armored low route storm water takes around the dam instead of over it. The difference between a rain event and a rebuild.
Our home ring, every town of it worked weekly.
Because our dirt crews are based out this way, and Blanco County is the shortest mobilization on our map. That means faster scheduling and a mobilization line your neighbors in farther counties would envy.
Published list: quarter acre from $12,300 at 6 feet, 4:1 bank, calculator above for your numbers. Valley clay sites run it clean; bench sites carry a rock variable, and hammer time, if any, is flagged by the day.
Often, with the floodplain maps checked first, always. This river floods hard and fast, and pond placement outside the mapped lines is non-negotiable design, not paperwork.
It is usually day one of the pond job. Cedar off the draw means more runoff to the pond and one mobilization for the whole transformation.
Fastest of anywhere we work. Blanco County jobs schedule around weather, not around trucking.
Ours: sodium bentonite going into a basin that needed sealing help, the standard fix for thirsty Hill Country ground and priced as a line item when a site calls for it.
Send photos and a rough size. The machines are already out this way, and the walk usually happens within days.