Many thanks to Catmandoo, Dnick, Rainman, and Esshup !!!

Yall are true experts, and very much appreciate all of the advice and direction

yes, I actually do have lots of fish, but all are mosquito fish, thousands of them, plus a couple of koi I just noticed. Funny didnt see them for 6 months until I shined a flashflight at night on the water, and 2 koi popped up. All fish are very much alive and perky. Which implies maybe the leaves are not that toxic.

My goal is to raise fish for the dinner table, maybe bluegill and a predator, like LMB.

But I think there is enough reason to cut the trees down, if for nothing else than preventing the continuing of the 1 to 2 feet of muck and decayed leaves at the bottom of the pond.

I have so much muck that its probably near impossible to get out and probably not a good idea to allow it to increase by continuing falling leaves. being a novice pond owner like myself, I cant think of a way to get a 4 wheel backhoe close enough to the water edge without getting stuck to dredge all of that muck out. Even if I could get it close, I can only reach so far with the bucket.

I dont think I could fit a track hoe down to the edge, since I would need a large one to have a longer reach than the 4 wheel backhoe I can rent. plus a large track hoe is very expensive.

I can rent a 4 wheel hoe with a 15 ft reach (might even be 25 ft reach extendahoe cant remember now).

I have ~40% of the pond about 3 to 4 feet deep with 2 of it being muck. It would be nice to remove the muck and maybe get another foot or two so deeper.

But how????

The rest of the pond is 6 to 9 ft deep or so.