Well, living north of you a bit, here is what I do: In late fall, I bring my goldfish in to a stock tank, and the little ones in an aquarium, turn off all of the pumps, leaving them in the bottom of the pond. I cut off all of the growth on my pond plantsand put them in the deepest part of the pond,
then, I GO ICE FISHING
In the spring, I start all over.
Steve
Doing it that way Steve at least you don't have to worry about what your fish are doing all winter
. Our pond is deep enough for over wintering, but really could be deeper. As Steve said, trim back all lilies.....depending on how deep they are you may be able to leave them. I leave all my marginals alone, my water freezes solid there, but they do fine. I do not trim back my Iris and cattails till later when the ice is about there, and the only above the water line, trimming them below the waterline can sometimes kill them. I leave all my hardy lilies where they are also, they are deep enough that they will not freeze. All the tropical plants, lilies and marginals, I take in the basement and place in a preform pond, and rubbermaid containers under grow lights for the winter. I use only a small 250gph pump placed up off the bottom in a basket, just so the water wiggles, you do not want it to be bubbling way up. This keeps a hole in the ice for gas exchange......you do not want this hole to close, it may get smaller but always keep it open. If you have it bubbling to high it will form a dome of ice over the bubbler. Some people here also use a "tote box" heater, and all say they work great, I have all the stuff, I just need to build one. You will probably get lots of answers.....see what works best for you and stick with it.