sounds like you've added way to much water to the peat and letting it dry a bit then shoveling it out to "fiddle" with the liner sounds like a reasonable idea.

Then again if your bog is wet because of ground water then perhaps your idea isn't so bad after all.

I added peat to a 'pond' of water but I had to get the water in first because of the recently high water table. 4 or 5 days ago it was 14" above the bottom of the bog and I needed to get up above the water table quickly with something heavy to keep things in place.

Well it was dryish yesterday so I did it, put the bag over the as yet used settlement tank for the adjacent pond.
I got the bag half full and then, I think, the bottom went,
chuffing huffing uffing thing.
So I guess I have a tank full of peat now. I am not re-peating the bog until I am sure I am happy with the liner.