At the back (and highest) point of my Appalachian property there is slight depression about 20 feet in diameter on a gentle slope. When it rains, quite a bit of water slowly flows over the grass in this area. It eventually flows over a mowed-grass area toward a creek a hundred yards east. It's gentle, there's no erosion problem. When I dug a post holes for a few fenceposts in this area, the holes filled to the brim with crystal clear water if it has rained recently, but drain quickly afterwards. So there is a lot of rainwater moving through the soil too.
I would love to harvest some this water for a wildlife pond (and/or to water a garden downhill and 30 yards or so to the southwest of this shallow basin) and am wondering if a drain (kind of french drain style?) could capture some of this to be piped to a lined pond, or similar. (Soil drains very quickly, so would need to be lined somehow).
Could anyone recommend resources (especially images/pics) on how to build a catch system for this type of runoff, which is partially surface runoff, but mostly is water moving downhill through the surface layers of soil?
