Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations excavating an existing pond

New here and had a general question.
Can an existing pond with about 4 feet of water be excavated an additional 3 or 4 feet without pumping out the water ? We live 200 miles from our pond and excavators are very difficult to come by. We finally found one that can give us a days work and it would be very difficult to get the pond drained down prior to the day he can come out.
The soil is sand, the pond is about 75 feet wide and 200 feet long and due to very hot weather and no rain to speak of the depth is down from about 8 feet to now maybe 4 or 5 feet. I am afraid the water temp might be approaching boiling hot.

Thank you very much for this wonderful site and all the experianced people that give their time and energy to making it work.
Any reply by anyone that has had excavation work done would be very appreciated but especially if the work was done while water was in the pond. While talking to the excavator the subject of water was not brought up and with him being so busy didnt was actually afraid to ask LOL

Yoli, I'm no expert but from what I've seen this can ceretainly be done with a large track hoe or drag line. Pumped out or not you are going to have one hell of a mess to clean up after he digs it out. Lots of muck and mud to deal with. It will have to be hauled off when it drys or smoothed around with a dozer or other type machine. Good luck my friend. Any fish you have are probably goners� they will get very sick with the water being mudded.

Thanks for reply Rocky, you may not be an expert but sounds like you either have had this done or know someone that has
Like I said the soil is sand so may not be as messy and near as i can tell there are no fish...if there were I think they would have been cooked by now, man its been hot and dry...whatever spoil there is will be baked out pronto.
There is a big long ditch runs about 150 feet maybe 6 feet deep and 10 foot wide its adjacent to the pond and easy enough just to dump the spoil in there...the ditch collected rain water and it was always stagnent and smelly, a stinky mess.

I have hope, thanks

A few years ago I had someone with a longarm trackhoe dig part of one of my ponds. I had him take the mud and dump it in a field above the pond and fill in some holes and the guy later showed me pictures where he went to a housing development in the winter with the pond drained and used his trackloader to dig the pond out. I would recommend you look for someone with a trackhoe since it can reach out a good bit and dig further out.

I would think you need to be careful. What is under the pond.....is it all clay. You probably don't want to drain the pond unintentionally.