Pond Boss Forums POND CONSTRUCTION Renovating a Pond or Lake? going deeper on small pond - what to do with silt?

I think you take out all the silt and then do a little reshaping so you have some shallow areas and/or shelves. The fish definitely spawn in shallow places, so you don't want to eliminate those of you are going with BG and LMB. Plus, your other forage species will likely need shallow areas. 1/3 acre is certainly not terribly big, but it's also plenty to work with and do the things you want to do, in my estimation.

As for using the silt in your yard, I think the issue with it not drying well is if it's left in the pond bottom and you wait for it to dry before trying to remove it. My neighbor did this very thing in his roughly 1/2 acre pond about 3 years ago and got a lot of silt out, which he used to level out his backyard. He had absolutely no issues with it drying out because it was spread around and was on the topsoil he already had in place. It's a beautiful yard now and has absolutely no moisture issues and they've been in their house for all that time and using the yard, once the grass grew up, of course.