Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Deer Hunting Birth of a deer camp

Ryan, We poured 72 yrds this summer around the farm at 102.00, for what thats worth. For a proposal 125 should be in range.

Ryan, you can call me if you'd like and I can help you get the mix that will best suit you, but you're on the right track.

You're on the right track. $110-120/cu. yd is about right with air-entrainment which I recommend if you're building dams because of the freeze/thaw they'll potentially face.

IIRC, Brettaman got the stuff for like 9 cents a yard when he did his driveway. (not really but it was close to that) Obviously, the more you order, the less it will be. If you order a small load say 1-5 yards, you'll get charged more. If you're ordering 100 yards in a day, you may get a deal of sorts. Figure anywhere from 9-11/truck on a full load. If you have sketchy areas, you may want to get the front wheel assist (4wd) trucks. The front discharge trucks are great and MN seems to be the only place that doesn't use them now. I don't understand why, it's ssssoooooo much easier for the driver and the labors on the front discharge.

This may be one of the cases where you should call around and get some prices too, it's a competitive business and they'll fight for a dollar to get your order.

CFT,

any chance you're feet are sweating and you're getting cold from that? That was my issue. I've been wearing a light wool sock, nearly every day in the winter. They wick sweat and keep your feet warm anyway. In cold or hunting situation, I throw a medium or a heavy wool over the light wool/smart-wool blend that is on my skin.

It works great. I've been a much happier hunter the last few years since I've found the right combo of socks/boots.

Thanks Tom!
each dam will contain 2.5 yards and we have 6 of them to make. going to do it in stages, pour a footer for each one, then come in a day or two later and pour the walls. it's going to be an open system with a dirt core. 4' high, span is 13' with a 3' spillway, so pretty small.

+1 on the sweaty feet. I used to think I had cold feet, I wore several socks big thick boots you name it. found out my feet got warm easily, then wet and cold. so now I wear either a thick homemade wool sock in a thin boot, or a thin wool dress sock in a good boot. made a huge difference.

If you're not real experienced at pouring concrete, I'd try to pour one at a time per truck. It NEVER goes as easy as you think it will.

Get your steel for the walls up and tied before and have them tied into the dam. Keep them off the edge of the forms 2" so you can get the mud down past them with the stone in it.

Make a "key way" for the walls to sit on the dam. You can do it easily enough with a 2x4 placed on the top, center, of the dam when you pour it. Pull it out later in the day or even the next day. That will help lock the wall into the dam.

Wow I just finished reading the whole thing. Seems to me to be the finest book I ever read, and it ain't done yet. It is a perfect mirror to lives well lived, ups, downs, great sorrows, great joys, kids growing up to be well adjusted soon to be adults. New generations being born that will one day take their rightful place by the fire at camp. My hat is off to all of you. This is how things are supposed to be. I only hope to bew able to tag along and continue tracking the lives of some very special people. Gotta go for now, the shingles have about run their course and I gotta go back to work tonight.
Bill

thanks Tom, I like the keyway Idea for walls, I was going to pour the footer with just rebar through it, but I'll do both I think.

here's a rough sketch of what I have planned. I might make the wingwalls straight instead of angled out. with a 3' width it should be more than stout enough.


drawing doesn't show it, but I want to do a 6" x12" footer under the wing walls that will be exposed on the bottom center where the flow goes through. stoplogs will be used to back the water up so it can go out the 12" outlet pipe into the fields to irrigate through gated pipe.

You're probably on to something with the sweaty feet Tom. I have nearly a 1/2 hike to my deer stand and my feet do get sweaty on the hike to it.

Not even winter yet and I'm already tired of it. Our high today was plus 1* with a strong North wind. IF hit minus 32* this morning.

I'm with ya Bill. I'm sick of this cold crap already.

Here I sit in my living room watching football and goofin around on the computer and I've seen more deer in my yard in 2 hours than I have in 6-7 days in the deer woods. That's the way it works eh?

Ryan,

Are you going to put some fill behind those walls? You might want to consider just filling them with concrete and making it a bit block. At least get some fill back there or you'll be building those walls every year. That water has a lot of power.

yes Tom, we have a ditch that is 13' to the crown on both sides and is 4' deep on the middle, so the wing walls will be half buried in both sides of the ditch and the core filled/packed, the volume of water flowing through it will be a max of 2700 Cubic feet per minute, so when the stop logs are absent the flow will be roughly 10" x 3'. we will likely have some rip rap incorporated on the edges as well.

here's a pic of part of the ditch (only pic I have on photobucket), I texted you a pic of the old system


Thanks Tom for the return text so quick! I might send you a final plan to look at if that's ok. I highly value your input!

That's a lot of reading Bill! Welcome to the loony bin! Lol

No problem dude.

Ryan, Are you sure bubble gum wont work? Lot less work than concrete.

A bit cheaper too.

already tried it, big league chew bought me a new pool table I used so much of it, I found the wildlife eats it more than they would concrete though. great minds think alike!

I went ice fishing on Saturday. Caught a lot of walleyes & saugers. One decent burbot and a 43.5" sturgeon.

That was a fight to pull a 30# fish through an 8" hole with 6 or 8# test & a 24" pole.

I couldn't get photobucket to work but when I do I'll post some pics.

Sturgeon are sweet cool fish. That thing was awesome. How much ice was out there WB?

12" with a tape measure.

I'll try this.

Nice!