Howard, my preference for HSB as the primary predator fish in small Texas farm ponds is well known.

In our 2 acre pond, I have never seen a dead HSB in spite of three record breaking high temperature, drought ridden sumuuers.
We do have a “state of art” aeration system.

Not so lucky in our ¼ acre “grow-out” pond, but appears survival rate to be in the 50% range, with no aeration.

We may not continue to be so fortunate.
The record breaking rains that are being reported are missing us and our main pond has not “flushed” in more than three years and ¼ acre pond has never filled.

Don’t know how long fish can live in fish poop. A fish kill will be devastating, but not a surprise if we don’t get enough rain to reach spillway depth before hot summer weather.

We’ve had the worse explosion of FA ever this year, and hopefully tilapia stocked last Sunday will control.

“It all depends”