I have a hard time seeing how pumping a pond out will allow it to dry. It's still going to hold water and try to fill up even a little with every rain keeping your muck wet. My biggest fear while renovating my 1/4 acre pond was that we would get half the muck out and a good rain would come and cover the remaining muck with water leaving my pond unfinished and filling back up.
We cut the dam below the muck line with a mini excavator to drain and then widened the cut with the track loader as the muck was hauled/pushed through the wide cut. Dam was cut in May and muck removal started mid September. When we got down to the last few feet of muck we stopped cutting the dam deeper as the weather forecast did not call for any rain for what was left to dig out (a day or two). Once the muck was removed, we dug good clay from the far side and refilled the wide cut in the dam compacting the best we could as we went. It looks great, BUT it's not filled back up yet due to the lack of rain. My guy is a "dirt man" with many ponds under his belt. So hopefully his 30 plus hours and my $3000 don't end up as an expensive leak. Keep in mind that my little pond has many times the amount of watershed than it needs and will fill up with a few 3 inch rains.
