It may be different for different species. For me it has always been kind of counter-culture with my perch. They seem to go to the S or SE corner of the pond, but the west side of my pond is shaded by dense trees so sun has a harder time hitting the SW side later in the day in the winter and early spring.

The YP also don't seem to prefer using sticks or branches. There are SOME ribbons on branches but it seems just as likely that they drape it around a rock, or drape it through the uprights of some dead sedges/reeds. They also have preferred to use the cavity and the opening of a dome style minnow trap to catch the ribbon and help extract it. Simply by counting the locations the average is that they will lay them on a bed of oak leaves with no structure at all more than any other option.

The other odd thing is that traditional wisdom is that they will use branches in about 2 feet of water and you said you see yours in about 5 ft of water. My egg strands are always in 1 foot of water and sometimes even close enough to shore to be in 8" of water. I do see a random strand in 2 feet of water but that is the exception. I wouldn't know about strands in 5 ft of water as my clarity in the spring is about 24-30" only.

I have (hopefully) no bluegill and a few pumpkinseeds but have not seen a panfish nest in the past 3 summers.

It would be tremendous if you could produce conditions for walleye spawning in your pond. I imagine you have a plan for adding water if needed to keep the spawning flats at the correct temp and depth during the spring spawn? And I guess you need to create some current of water too?