Surprise! We're still here!

We've enhanced this image to bring out the contrast, but they were easy to see with the naked eye today.

When we bought dozens of tiny goldfish last June, the big ones were about the size of your pinky finger, but most were fingernail size. We slid them into the pond and almost never saw them again. Until today.
There's mist over the pond these mornings, the water is giving up its heat and becoming very clear. We think that is what it took to get the goldfish to rise from the deep and for us to be able to notice. And rise they did. We could see the school from the house and were delighted to get a closeup view of the entire group. We counted more than 40, mostly gold, some a nice white and gold mix.

We have no idea what the total is, but we noticed
two distinct schools of about 20 each.

Gary the Green Heron apparently didn't get them, just the ordinary bait fish.
We were stunned by their magnificent size. Looked to be about six inches long now and nice and chubby. They eat algae, perhaps some of the tiny fry as well. It's good they're fat because it won't be long and they will be hibernating during a long Minnesota winter. They'll head to the bottom of the pond where the warmer water will be. Right now the warm water stays on the top and they were certainly enjoying it today, as we snapped pictures and excitedly pointed our fingers at them.
We're reading up on the biology of koi and goldfish right now. Seasonal changes are taking place. They will be going into a state of "torpor" very soon, sluggishly drifting about, not eating, not moving much, on the bottom of the pond. Quiet time.
As long as there is enough oxygen and the water doesn't get below 34 degrees, we should have plenty of survivors next spring. We've been running the waterfall day and night to aerate and have been raking rotting debris, pulling weeds and releasing the methane and sulpher gases off the bottom. Will our oxygenation efforts pay off? Time will tell.