PIERCE
LAND
CLEARING
Pond builders for the Lake Conroe estates: finished ponds, fishing water, and stock tanks built into the piney sand and clay around Montgomery, Dobbin, and Richards.
The west side of the county rolls between sandy pine ridges and clay bottoms, with Lake Conroe setting the standard for what water on a property is supposed to look like. Both facts shape how we build here.
Pine ridge sites around Montgomery and Dobbin carry the sand question: the basin has to reach the clay below or bring clay to the bowl, tested with probe holes and priced as a written line. The flats and creek bottoms hand you self-sealing clay and chart-clean pricing.
Most estate tracts here have both within the fence, so siting the pond is half the value we bring: fifty yards can be the difference between a bentonite line item and a basin that seals itself.
Montgomery is estate country now: gated acreage, horse places, weekend ranches within an hour of Houston. A pond here is a feature, not a hole: banks shaped for mowing, water sited where the house and the drive see it, docks planned into the grading, spoil feathered away invisibly.
We build that finish standard with the same machines that cut working stock tanks, and the difference is intent and grading time, not a different price sheet.
Estate build or working tank, the sequence is the same open book from first text 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.
We walk the tract reading two maps at once: the water map, draws, clay depth, spillway routing, and the sight-line map, what the house sees, what the drive passes, where the dock belongs. The best pond site satisfies both, and we find it before anything is priced.
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.
Short. Nearly fifty inches of rain finds a correctly sited basin quickly, and most Montgomery ponds stand full within their first wet season. Seeded dams and blanketed banks make sure the fill season builds grass, not 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. Sandy ridge sites can add tested sealing as a flagged line item; bottom clay sites usually run the chart clean.
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.
Sealing on the pine ridges is the tested, written-line variable. Deed restrictions and subdivision drainage rules are the Montgomery-specific check, and we read them before the quote. Clearing rides on the same sheet at published day rates, and estate finish grading is priced as the intent it is.
Real ponds, real day counts, photographed on site.
Pond basin at dusk, Whitney
Quarter acre dig, Bastrop
Build in Lost Pines sand, PaigeFull process, statewide services, and the build standard: our Texas pond construction page.
Around Montgomery the pond is part of the architecture: seen from the drive, framed from the porch, lit at night. Getting that means construction decisions made early: siting against the sight lines, mowable grades, pinched weed shelves, and a dam that reads as lawn. We plan it like a landscape and engineer it like a dam.
Our documented builds include pond work in the deep Lost Pines sand at Paige, the same geology the pine ridges here pose. Sand ponds hold when the clay is found or brought and fail when it is guessed at, so we probe first, always.
Between the estates, the west county still runs horses and cattle, and the working tank rules apply: firm approach on one bank, depth past six feet, water that stays sweet. Same crew, same chart, different finish spec.
Nearly every site here starts wooded. Our clearing machines and pond machines travel together: mulch the understory, drop and grind what the footprint needs, open the cut. The site goes from thicket to shaped basin without a second contractor.
An hour from Houston, acreage is the luxury and water is its proof. The pond is what guests photograph and what the listing leads with, every time.
Conroe is ten minutes and ten thousand boats away. A stocked pond behind the gate is private water: fishing, swimming, kayaks for the kids, no wake but your own.
The horse and cattle places west of town need honest tanks, and estate country neighbors do not change the physics: depth, firm access, sweet water.
A pond in the pines recruits its own residents: wood ducks, herons, deer at the margins. On weekend-ranch country that show is half the reason the place exists.
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.
Seeding, blankets, and mow-ready grades finish every dam: on estate ground erosion control and appearance are the same job done once.
Aeration and fountains are the Montgomery signature: clear water, no summer stagnation, and a lit fountain that makes the pond the front-of-property feature after dark.
Docks, beaches, and kayak launches all get set during grading, depths correct at the posts, sand where sand belongs, while the machines make it cheap.
Stocking follows the proven script, forage first, bass a season later, and this climate grows them fast. Depth map included, hatcheries an easy haul.
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.
Every acre of ground that sheds rain toward your pond. It, not the hole, decides how fast you get water.
The water level at the bottom of the spillway, the highest the pond is designed to hold day to day.
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.
Montgomery holds the Houston end of our east Texas 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 prices your own size and depth. Pine ridge sites can add tested sealing as a written line; bottom clay usually runs the chart clean. Photos get a real range the same day.
That is most of our Montgomery work. Mowable bank grades, sight-line siting, dock and beach locations set during grading, spoil feathered invisibly, and a dam that reads as lawn. The finish is intent and grading time, not a separate price sheet.
With the sand respected, yes. We probe for clay depth, use it when the cut reaches it, and core or treat the basin when it does not, tested and priced in writing. Our documented Lost Pines build at Paige is the same problem, solved on camera.
Same crew, same mobilization. Understory mulched, footprint trees dropped and ground out, cut opened, one bill. It is the practical advantage of a land clearing company that builds ponds.
Chart pricing starts at 6 feet; in this warm climate we recommend eight or more at center where the ground allows. Depth is weed control and clear water, which on an estate pond is the whole look. The calculator prices every foot honestly.
On most acreage, no: normal farm and ranch ponds are exempt from state permitting. Inside subdivisions, deed restrictions and drainage rules can apply, and floodplain along the creeks deserves a check. We flag what applies on the walk.
Fast. Nearly fifty inches of rain a year means a correctly sited basin generally fills over a single wet season, and creek assisted sites sooner. Grass goes on the dam immediately so the first storm finds it armored.
Two to five working days of digging for most sizes, plus clearing time on wooded sites, per the chart. Estate finish grading can add a day, and it is the best day the pond spends.
Photos, a rough size, and your road gets a real range the same day. We route through the Conroe corridor regularly, and the site walk is free.