10x, there are no stupid questions on Pond Boss that are sincere.
[I post questions all of the time that deliberately reveal my ignorance. Assuming to know the correct answer, when I am in fact wrong, is much worse than just not knowing the answer on a topic new to the questioner.]
One of the problems that can occur due to overfeeding with pellets is that you are adding highly nutrient-rich material to your pond. If you feed the fish the same amount of food through the winter, and they let 90% of the feed sink into the muck at the bottom of the pond, then you have essentially fertilized your pond plants over the next growing season - including the filamentous algae and the invasive/undesirable plants.
I have read several threads on Pond Boss, where people at similar latitudes have significantly different winter feeding patterns for roughly the same fish distributions. That means it is very difficult to give "universal" advice.
I do not have a pellet program in any of my ponds, but IMO, the experts that do pellet feed their fish going into winter say observing the behavior of the fish is one of the most important data points to evaluate your proper feeding levels.
