PIERCE
LAND
CLEARING
Between the Blanco River and Cypress Creek, Wimberley already knows what good water looks like. We build the private version: ponds and stock tanks in the valley soils, sealed honestly where the limestone argues.
Wimberley tracts change character between the river flats and the divide ridges, and the pond conversation changes with them.
Down toward the Blanco and the creek valleys, tracts carry real soil depth, silty clays the rivers left behind. This is Wimberley pond ground: it digs clean, seals with compaction, and a quarter acre tank comes together in a couple of machine days.
These sites usually run the published price list without drama.
Climb out of the valleys toward Fischer or the Devil’s Backbone side and the soil thins over limestone fast. Ridge ponds are possible, but they are bentonite and liner conversations, and sometimes the honest answer is putting the pond lower on the tract where the draw carries soil.
We tell you which conversation your land is on the first walk.
Between the Blanco and Cypress Creek, water is the whole point of Wimberley. Here is how we add some of your own, step by step.
The first step costs nothing: photos, a rough size, your location. We come back same day with a range from the published list, and the site walk gets scheduled only if that range makes sense to you.
A Wimberley site walk starts with respect for fast water. This valley has watched the Blanco rise hard and quick, so we read every draw twice: once for how it fills a pond, once for how it behaves in a flood. Then comes the karst question, what the ledge and the clay have done on the builds behind us, and the verdict on whether the ground seals itself or needs help. You hear it all straight, on the spot, including when the right answer is a different corner of the property.
We put the whole build on paper in machine days, dig, dam, and spillway, with rock or liner contingencies called out up front where you can see them. The number you sign is the number you pay.
Once the quote is signed we get you on the calendar, typically a few weeks out. The machines arrive together, stage near the site, and stay until the job is finished, no disappearing mid-build.
Count on two to five working days of iron time for a typical pond. Every build follows the same discipline: saved topsoil, a real core trench, a dam raised in compacted lifts, and slopes cut so they can be mowed, not just admired.
Last step: a slow lap around the pond together. You check the dam, the spillway cut, the slope finish, and the dressed topsoil against the quote. We load the machines only when you are satisfied.
Wimberley ponds fill the way the Blanco runs: in surges. A pond sized to its watershed can catch most of a storm season in two or three good events. While you wait, the work is simple: grass on the dam before the first big rain, eyes on the spillway when it comes, and patience in between, because Hill Country rain keeps its own calendar.
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 |
Valley sites run the list; ridge sites can add seal material or hammer days, always flagged in the quote. The Wimberley variable is elevation: where your tract sits between creek and divide predicts the build better than acreage does.
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.
The quote has two halves: what every build includes, and the site-specific items we flag before work starts.
One price, one finished pond: siting matched to the water the land actually sheds, staking, saved topsoil, core trench, a dam packed up in lifts, a proper spillway, slopes you can mow, and banks dressed to grass. Machine transport and the walkthrough are never extras.
Rock hammer time when the dig meets solid limestone, flagged and priced by the day before we start. Bentonite or a liner when the karst will not seal on its own, decided at design instead of discovered later. Cedar clearing at our published day rates when the site is brushed, and generous spillway sizing comes standard here, because this valley knows exactly what fast water does.
Real ponds, real day counts, photographed on site.
A new pond taking on water
Bentonite, the ridge country answer
Liberty Hill, north Hill Country: 2 days
Lampasas expansion work
The finished product: water that staysFull process, statewide services, and the build standard: our Texas pond construction page.
Wimberley lives with a river that floods hard and a county that maps every drainage feeding it. Pond sites near the Blanco, Cypress Creek, or their tributaries get checked against the floodplain lines, and the 2015 flood is the reason nobody should skip that step. Fifty yards of placement is usually the whole fix.
Half the ponds we talk about in Wimberley are not for cattle, they are for the axis deer, the whitetail, the birds, and the view from the porch. A well placed half acre pond with a gentle 5:1 wade-in bank becomes the busiest spot on the property inside a year, and it raises what the land is worth the day it fills.
The best time to dig a Wimberley pond is exactly when it looks least necessary: late summer, ground dry, machines efficient, basin ready before fall and spring rains do the filling. Calling in a drought is not too late, it is right on time.
Everyone in Wimberley measures floods against 2015, and a pond here should be built with that memory in mind. That means real freeboard, a spillway cut generously and armored to work, and a dam keyed and compacted so a violent rain passes around it instead of through it. We build every pond in this valley as if the Blanco is watching, because it is.
Cypress Creek runs clear because this ground moves water through rock, which is wonderful for swimming holes and merciless on unsealed ponds. On the walk we find out whether your site owns enough clay to seal, and when it does not, bentonite or a liner gets designed in from the start. A Wimberley pond that holds is engineered to hold.
Summer evaporation in the valley takes feet off a shallow pond and leaves the rest warm and weedy. Eight feet or more at center is the standard we push for: cool water under the fish, stock water into late summer, and banks that stay banks instead of mud flats. Depth costs dirt once and pays every August after.
The day the machines load, the dam wants grass, matting on the steep spots, and a season to knit. The pond itself wants its food chain built in order, bluegill and minnows first, bass the following year. Wimberley water grows fish fast when the order is respected and strips itself bare when it is not.
Trees are half the value of a Wimberley property, and we treat them that way. Haul paths avoid the root zones, the cypress along any creek stays untouched, and the cedar comes out clean because we are a Wimberley clearing crew at heart. What you get back is a graded, dressed site where the pond looks native to the land.
Most clients add at least one of these. Planned during the build, they cost less and land better than bolting them on a year later.
Valley slopes shed soil fast when they are bare, so the dam gets seeded and matted before we call the job finished. Grass is the cheapest flood armor a new Wimberley dam can wear, and it needs to be growing before the first surge, not after.
A diffuser or fountain keeps the water column turning through the hot months, which means oxygen for the fish, less algae, and clear water that fits the valley. We rough in the power path during the build so the finished install is clean.
If a dock is in the dream, say so on the site walk. We shape the shoreline and set the depth shelf while the basin is dry, so the dock lands level, reaches real water, and never needs the awkward retrofit treatment.
Stocking goes forage first, bass later, always. Give the bluegill and minnows a head start and the pond becomes a fishery that holds its own against a morning on the Blanco, thirty steps from your porch and never crowded.
It has been an absolute pleasure working with the Pierce Land Clearing family. Everyone is professional, caring and has a great attitude. Highly recommended! Thank you for the beautiful transformation!
Harley Jones, Google review
They did an excellent job and were highly effective and the price was an incredible value. I am so thankful for them and will use them for all of my forestry needs.
Red, Google review
I can not say enough about this great family owned and operated company. My call was answered on a Sunday morning and they moved their machine in the very next day and began work, the week of Christmas.
Chris Bartsch, Google review
Dirt crews talk in shorthand. These are the six terms that matter most on a pond build.
Four feet of run for every foot of drop. Gentler banks are safer and easier to mow; steeper banks get more depth from less dirt.
The dry dam height above full pool. In a valley that remembers 2015, it is the margin we never shave.
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.
The Hill Country ring around Wimberley, and the crews already working it.
Published list: quarter acre from $12,300 at 6 feet on a 4:1 bank, calculator above for your own numbers. Valley tracts usually run the list clean; ridge tracts can add bentonite, liner, or hammer days, flagged before we start.
Often yes, but placement gets checked against Hays County floodplain maps first, every time. Most tracts have a compliant spot within a hundred yards of the one the owner pointed at, and finding it on paper is free.
No, it is a different build: bentonite where the soil is marginal, a liner where the limestone wins, or a site lower on the draw. The lined and bentonite work pictured on this page is exactly this situation, solved.
A 5:1 wade-in bank on at least one side. Deer, birds, and kids all use the same gentle entry, and the calculator shows what the extra dirt costs against a steeper 3:1 build.
A storm season, usually. Wimberley rain comes hard when it comes, and a pond sized to its watershed catches most of a wet spring in a few events. We size to the watershed as part of design.
It is half our Wimberley work. Same mobilization: cedar out for the view, pond in the draw, dam grassed before the rain.
Send photos and a rough size. We will tell you whether your tract is a valley build or a ridge conversation, and what both cost, before anything loads.