I'm very envious of you people with ponds.
When we moved to where we are now eighteen years ago the previous people had dug out a fairly large pond with an island in the middle, the works.
There was just one draw back. The land that we have is pretty good , a few feet of reasonable soil and then we are down to sand and pebbles. The pond was as dry as a bone.
Its for this reason that all our water feaures take the form of flooded boats.
The next place that we move to will have to have water on it.
From experience Calli , that pond of yours will have eels in it very quickly.
We have friends who had a new pond dug in a similar situation as yours and a couple of years after its completion I set 8 nightlines in it. I had 7 eels out og 8 the very first night and the pond was a good 40 yards away from the nearest water course.
I use to go fishing at a particular fishery and every year these Dutch people came over armed with their own smoker.
They didn't want the trout that everyone else wanted, they came strictly for the eels.
One day one of them came to me and gave me a pepperami sized portion of cold smoked eel.
It was delicious and bodger has been addicted ever since.