One other biggie - what is your water temperature? Here in the Mpls/St/Paul area I just barely hit 60 for a day, and now it's dropped a few degrees with the prolonged rain/cold front. I don't trust many of my readings when the water is cold.
Take your water sample, and bring it inside and allow it to warm to room temp. (or even put the closed sample bottle in some warmish water). Small amounts can just be tucked inside your shirt for a little while....
You may find with a not cold sample, your CYA tests lower.
I was a puck user for decades, but with lowering/refilling each winter, it never got near as high as you are showing. By the end of summer, it would be a bit too high, but not extreme. Then with the refill, it would be at the low end of recommendations. So a bit less likely your issue is due to carry over from the old owner - unless they deliberately added lots of CYA at the start of their season, and then never paid attention to how much more the pucks raised it.
What was bad with the pucks - I did not know about the increased CL needed as the CYA increased, so I was always fighting algae from July 4th on, even though I thought my CL was good.....