Better safe than sorry... Once you goof up, there is no return!
Been there done that! Accidentally dropped one male perch in female only yellow perch pond before the last drain down. I ended up with several hundred 6 to 7 inch perch later in the year. Stupid me I was checking to see if the mesh size was right on a cage to keep him in, and he jumped out of my hand!
Fortunately there was silver lining, as I had to drain the pond down anyway (due to dyke damage by five star moles, which wasn't as bad as I thought.) I recovered many of them, put them in a cage with feed trained perch of similar size. Most of them are now veracious pellet feeders.
