Boyfriend's too busy fishing. Please I need advice how to clean the pool!

Heck, we all wanna be fishing on a beautiful day, but this pool is a basically a breeding ground for mosquitos right now.
The pool is above ground 18 foot round. We have a Hayward sand filter. We had a problem last year with it not filtering the fine particles in the pool. The boys idea is always just to shock the crap out of it, and somehow I don't think thats gunna solve our problems.
We just uncovered the other day and the water looks crystal clear!…except for the layer of leaves, dirt and miscellaneous debris on the bottom. Last year he just shocked it and all the leaves crumbled to white dust pretty much and the pool was cloudy the rest of the year.
I would love some advice on how to actually get it clean this year. Do I try and scoop out as much stuff as possible first, or chemicals first. And I've read about using the sand filter in waste mode to get the stuff on the bottom? And if thats where I should start, whats the best vacuum to use. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
-Stephanie