I ended up using a net the past month or so as soon as the leaves started coming down--I got a cheap 14'x14' one from one of the online pond supply websites and overall it worked very well to keep almost all the leaves out of the pond. I just took the net off last weekend as the risk of more leaves getting in the water is pretty much over. Some of the needles from the shrubs still got through, but those float, so they were easy to scoop out.