Pond Boss Forums INTRO New Forum Member Introduction Pond/Water Garden Rehab

Hello Pond Boss Community.
New member here, my name is Britt and I became the proud owner of our small pond when my wife and I bought our current house nearly 3 years ago. We're located in SW AL near the gulf coast in Theodore, just outside of Mobile, AL. Our property is surrounded by wetlands and some small canals that feed into a large river that empties into Mobile Bay. I know absolutely nothing about managing a pond or especially correcting some of the problems we're having with our pond.
I'm assuming it is about 20 years old since the house was built in 1999. It is full of life, turtles, frogs, minnows a few BG and what I assume are SMB and 2 giant grass carp. We also get the occasional Wood Duck visitors, Blue Herons and of course snakes... mostly Water Snakes and the occasional Black Snake but haven't seen anything venomous yet. The water area is difficult to estimate because it has an irregular shape with 2 small islands inside. An educated guess would be about 1/2 acre of water area. It is also very shallow. When full the deepest parts are probably 4-5 feet.
Eventually we would like to have a pond that we can enjoy catching and eating fish but at the same time be an attractive water garden that is incorporated into the landscape. It is surrounded by many azaleas, camellias and other ornamental species of small trees and shrubs. The appearance of the pond is probably the main issue since it sits right at the back of our house no more than 15 feet from our back porch.

Some of the problems:

-Excessive vegetation. Yellow Iris lines a significant part of the shoreline and is expanding more every year. Also lots of lily pads.
-There are 45-50 trees some of them very large within 20 feet of the bank. This has clogged the pond with a couple of feet or more of muck, decaying leaves and straw from the trees.
-Main problem is a leak that requires us to run well water on a timer every night to keep it deep enough for the fish to have room to navigate.

I'm sure I'm looking at a multi-year project here but not sure where to start. I would prefer not to drain the pond but I realize that may be inevitable to eliminate the muck and repair the leak.
Thanks for indulging me. I hope to learn from the experts on this forum and I'm looking forward to sharing whatever I learn along the way. Thanks in advance for any advice and/or suggestions.

Welcome Britt. Any idea where it is leaking?

Nope! No idea. I'm going to fill it over the next few days and once it hits the overflow pipe I'm going to cut the water flowing in to measure how quickly it drops. Any idea what to expect just from evaporation?

Looks like your average will be in the 1/4"/day ballpark.