A portion of my pond drops off pretty quickly to 10' deep when it's at full pool. I have my diffuser for the winter suspended 5' up off the bottom in that area, and it's close enough to shore so the open water is within a foot or so of the shoreline. I did that because I almost lost my 2 dogs in the pond one year - they went in after some geese and couldn't climb back up on top of the ice. I moved the winter diffuser after that. Yesterday I saw a trout swimming within a couple feet of the shoreline, about 18" below the water surface.
24" RBT that died because of the warm water.
I stocked golden trout this year