Thanks for the reply!
1. If your pond is fed by springs or goes up and down with the water table then it sounds like some fluctuation is normal and not a concern. You add pond from your geothermal in the winter and naturally use your overflow then.

2. If the creek and the pond connect then you face possibility of wanted and maybe unwanted fish coming in from the creek? Have you considered a barrier for that or are you OK with that?

3. Thanks for info about your aerator. I check my air filter all the time and it always stays clean, I have no idea why as it is out in the open but we do not have a local gravel road or open fields to create dust. My rebuild kit is needed because of wear parts and also some design flaw that made parts 'stick' with age and create excess wear at startup. My capacitor boot is cracked a bit so I'll keep an eye on that as well.

4. I would say your YP have plenty of options for food but it would be a bonus if they could BE pellet trained before stocking or if you could train them somehow to be pellet trained. I stocked pellet trained YP and I see the smaller ones continue to grab pellets. They rocket up from the bottom and disappear very quickly so it is hard to know for sure, but by the splash and style it is very different than the other fish. The larger YP I suspect wait for pellets to hit the bottom or, they ambush the minnows that are schooled up above them feeding at the surface.

See if you can get Stony Creek to habituate the YP (Not sure if when you say YBP you mean something different than Yellow Perch YP?) to pellets when young. Hopefully some learn from the HBG that are pellet feeders.

5. If you wanted bonus forage diversity you could add golden shiners or common shiners, whatever are in your creek, or even try to source spotfin shiners. The problem is that your LMB may keep them from reaching a self-sustaining population. To do this you would have to use a 'blocking net' across part of the pond for them to grow in and release batches at a time. Or dig a small forage pond, or sink a 500 gallon poly water tank partway in the ground and use that as a forage 'tank'.

I'm trying to get a sustaining population of spotfin shiners (SFS) in my pond and last summer they used my specialized spawning structures quite readily. I'm eager to see how many will survive the hungry mouths of the YP over the winter. My crayfish (presumably) keep the pond free of weeds, we have had zero snow, clear ice, and lots of sun shining through the ice so I'm sure the fish have had no problems seeing their prey this winter.

You might want to look into that. Otherwise put a blocking net across the creek by you and go upstream and wade and make a ruckus towards the net. See what species you find. They are native already and would be good forage options if you could put them in the pond in sufficient numbers.

6. One last thing, We had a thread going last year where YP owners from all over the US recorded what date they saw their first YP ribbon, what weather or water conditions were like, what structure the eggs were laid on, and what coordinate of the pond (SW, NW) it was seen in. It was amazing that almost to the day YP were laying eggs at the same time across the US. It seemed that they preferred the sunny side of the pond and daylight hours might have been a stronger trigger than for example pond water temperature. I also found it interesting that YP are described as egg 'drapers' looking for structure to attach or drape their eggs over.

But several noticed that when they set out branches for them to drape it over that the eggs instead went on a bed of leaves, or somewhere next to the branches but not draped in them. I noticed in my pond that they like quite shallow water (even 6") and usually go to the sunny side of the pond and pick a bed of oak leaves to lay them on. I also noted that when I left a 'cavity' or pocket they could swim in that the female WOULD swim in the cavity, and for you got stuck in the cavity. I also had a female swim into a larger opening of one of my pyramid style minnow nets that I had left out a bit too long, laid eggs in the minnow net and swam back out.

So maybe if given a choice the YP momma really does like some privacy and given a cavity would choose it over a tree branch? I think we should set out some old 5 gal buckets with 4" round hole in the side and a lid on top and some other 'cavity' options and see what YP really like best this spring!

Your spawning bed picture makes it look as if you use some pond dye to control algae as well? It looks good!

Would love to know what kind of crayfish you have in your pond too, so this spring hopefully you can post some close up top/bottom view pictures of your crayfish!