kilnmaint
Jr. Member
Found a local farmer in Buchannan who asked me to prospect his creek. He had some one do this in 1998 and supposedly found a good showing. Then the drought hit , the creek dried up and the prospector passed away! So I was a bit excited to get into a "virgin" area. Arrived at the farm, went past the chicken houses and down to the creek. It is actually only a ditch cut into rock with a rock bottom and a lot of shallow areas. There were some deep holes , they was no path to get my dredge down. We went upstream until the flow was too little to dredge and there stood his 20 or so calves in the water crapping and pissing to beat the band!! Remember this is up stream of the deeper water!! No mask , snorkle or air today!! So, I carried my dredge down to a crossing area , set up and proceeded to "long arm" the bottom. First hour produced a few small flakes then I pulled my dredge over the rocks to a spot where large rock had deposited in the last flood. I had to shovel out a hole for the footvalve, and the dredge was sitting on the bottom. I was sucking almost pure quartz rocks and throwing out large quartz rock by hand . I notice the sides were rock 3 feet up then a layer of round river gravel and sand!! Suggested the owner sample pan that material while I dredged. He was getting 3 to 10 colors per pan. During my last wash out he mentioned that he was looking to buy a small dredge and work the creek. I thanked him profusely for allowing me to drege , loaded up and headed home. He didn't offer for me to come back "any time" as I hoped so I guess this was "one and done". Got a fair result with a lot of very fines pieces. ( Invisable to the naked eye).[