Can you throw some cedars in the new pond?
Placing them in shallow water with the cut trunk on the bank would still provide some excellent and easily removable cover for your GSH and their offspring.
No, don't want any wood or brush that could/would eventually break down. All the structure in the new pond is concrete/plastic/rock. And the shallow stuff is a no go with swimming taking priority over fishing in this pond. We do have a very large beach area covered in a couple inches of pea gravel right now that will start out at 2' descending to 5'-6' then a two-foot-tall rock ledge to help contain sand sliding...then it drops off real fast into 15' then gradually to 20'ish by the far side of pond. Water is about 1/3 up the beach area now and we will shoot sand over all of it this summer.
Do have a good-sized ledge covered with almost a foot of pea gravel and some stone structures in one back corner that will be around 6' with larger football size rip/rap stone on edge dropping to 20'. We should get some type of plant growth at some point when the water hits full level, but will keep a close eye on that.
Our other two ponds are wildlife ponds, one around 3' 1/3 of an acre the other a little over 5' that is an acre. Those are both very weedy with all kinds of plant life, small one just minnows/frogs/turtles the bigger has LMB, minnows, green sunfish, mosquito minnows, a few channel cats and now shiners.
