Bedrock and Gold: The mysteries . . .

[Lanny in AB]

Do you love to chase the gold? Please join me--lots of gold hunting tips, stories of finds (successful and not), and prospecting poetry.

Nugget in the bedrock tip:

I had a visit with a mining buddy this past weekend, and he told me of an epic battle to get a nugget out of the bedrock, and of what he learned from the experience. I thought some of you might like to learn from his mistake.

While out detecting one day, he came across a large sheet of bare bedrock. The bedrock was exposed because the area had been blasted off with a water cannon (a monitor), by the old-timers! It was not fractured bedrock, in fact it was totally smooth.

He was not optimistic at all of the prospects of a nugget. But, for some reason (we've all been there) he decided to swing his detector over that bedrock. After a long time, just as he was about to give up on his crazy hunch, he got a signal, right out of that smooth bedrock.

There was no crevice, no sign of a crevice, nada! So, he had to go all the way back to camp to get a small sledge and a chisel. The signal in the rock intrigued him, but he still wasn't overly optimistic. For those of you that have chased signals in a similar situation, sometimes there's a patch of hot mineralization in the bedrock that sounds off, but this spot, according to him, was sharp and clear right in the middle of the signal, not just a general increase of the threshold like you get when you pass over a hot spot in the bedrock.

Anyway, he made it back to the spot and started to chisel his way into the bedrock. If any of you have tried this, it's an awful job, and you usually wind up with cut knuckles--at the least! Regardless, he kept fighting his way down, busting out chunks of bedrock. He kept checking the hole, and the signal remained very strong.

This only puzzled him all the more as he could clearly see that it was solid bedrock with no sign of any crevice. He finally quit at the end of the day, at a depth of about a foot, but still, nothing in the hole.

An experienced nugget shooting friend dropped by the next morning to see him, and asked him how the hunt was going. My buddy related his tale of the mysterious hole in the bedrock, and told the friend to go over and check it out, and see if he could solve the riddle.

Later in the day, the other nugget hunter returned. In his hand was a fine, fat, sassy nugget. It weighed in at about an ounce and a quarter! After my friend returned his eyeballs to their sockets and zapped his heart to start it again, he asked where the nugget had come from.

Imagine his surprise when he heard it came from the mystery hole!! He asked how deep the other guy had gone into the bedrock to get it. "Well, no deeper" was his reply.

So, here's the rest of the story as to what happened. When the successful nugget hunter got to the bedrock, he scanned the surface got the same strong signal as my buddy. He widened out the hole and scanned again. Still a solid tone. He widened the hole some more so he could get his coil in, and here's the key and the lesson in this story, he got a strong signal off the side of the hole, about six inches down, but set back another inch into the side of the bedrock!!

My unlucky friend, the true discoverer of the gorgeous nugget's resting place had gone deep past the signal while digging his hole!!

Now, of course, a good pinpointer would easily solve this problem. The problem was, my buddy didn't have one, so why would he widen the hole, right? Well, the other guy was the one with more experience, and that's why he did. It was a lot more work, but what a payoff!

So, my buddy's butt is still black and blue from where he kicked himself for the next week or so for having lost such an incredible prize.

Some nugget hunting lessons are harder than others to learn. . . .

All the best,

Lanny


P.S. When in gold country--check the bedrock, regardless of whether it looks likely or not! Mother Nature likes to play games sometimes.

 

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[Lanny in AB]

There's a lot to be said about focus. I'm pretty sure your detecting activities will teach you how to better your placer recovery. I know if I head to the shop for a tool to finish my task at hand I'm sure to pass a task or three waiting to distract me.

Lanny- you comment about gold falling out where fish congregate really is a stroke of genius. That's clarity- makes all the sense in the world.

I know there's a story on here somewhere about the first nice coarse gold I ever found panning was because I took my fishing rod and headed upstream one day. I started to notice all of the places the cutthroat trout were hanging out, and I figured if the water was calm enough for them to ambush from, it was a likely spot for the gold too.

So, the next day I went back with my pan and hit beautiful coarse gold. In fact, the gold ran so well, that I went back and got my sluice and hit nuggets!

I went down to the next spot I'd noticed while fishing and hit a fantastic run of small nuggets where a rock ledge protruded just enough to create a whopper of a suction eddy when the river was running high.

I've followed my fishing sense since that time, and it pays off. Moreover, when I'm underwater, I see quiet places and obstacles I miss while looking at the surface, and that's led me to good gold while dredging.

All the best,

Lanny

 

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[Lanny in AB]

REPOST Of "Nugget Hump" continued: "How'd I forget to finish this story? I've been so busy lately, I just about have to make an appointment to see myself!"

With the target in the scoop, I poured a little water in and worked the lump with my fingers. Almost instantly, the lump gave off a golden flash! By quickly rubbing and washing the rest of the clay away, I soon had the solid gold nugget ready for a closer look. And what a look it was. The piece was not hammered and flat like so much of the gold I'd already found in the surrounding area. Instead, this nugget had lots of bumpy character, and in the sunshine it produced a nice buttery yellow glow.

Now, it doesn't seem to matter how many nuggets I find, for there's still a thrill when there's one that's different, and this one fit the bill to a T. Moreover, remember that my wife wasn't far off, reading her book in the truck. So not to appear too excited, I slowly wandered over her way. Well, the air was a bit cooler than when I'd left her, and she had the window closed. So, I tapped on the window. She rolled it down. I told her to hold out her hand, and since I don't drop worms or bugs into her hand when she does this, she held it out to me.

I dropped the nugget into her cupped palm, and immediately she started to lightly bounce her hand up and down, to sense the weight of it. She pulled her hand into the truck and looked at the nugget. Well, her eyes sure lit up, and she smiled one of those beautiful smiles of hers."Where'd you get that?" she asked. I pointed to the hump. She handed the little beauty back so I could put it in my plastic nugget bottle. She told me how nice she thought the nugget was and asked me if I thought there were any more. Of course, I had no clue, but I left pronto, eager to get back to sweep some more of the area.

I'll provide a bit of background on sweeping the area: the spot was littered with cobbles varying in size from golf balls to watermelons. So, I drug, and rolled the larger rocks off, then raked the area down. I do this so I can get every mm of depth advantage for the coil, and especially with the X-Terra, as it doesn't have the punch of my 5000. Furthermore, the closer I can get the coil to the ground, or indeed to "scrub" the ground with the coil will get me a tiny advantage to hear faint signals or tiny interruptions in the threshold that I'd miss by simply swinging the coil above the ground.

Is this process extra work? Absolutely. Do I enjoy it? On hot days I hate it, and on cooler days, it's still a zero on the fun scale, but I've found it's the best way to get the best shot at another nugget when you've found one in the area that might have company. What I'm talking about here is clearing the area carefully to see it there's a patch of nuggets hanging out with the first one, and this is a great method to help avoid missing gold when you've already found gold in a spot.

But, back to my story.

About six inches away from the nugget hole, I got another soft signal. I went through the same check-recheck-sort process described earlier, and soon had another nice nugget. This one was smaller, but very respectable. However, it was hammered flat, and the little sweetheart was a darker color of gold than the first find. So, I knew I was hitting other gold moved by the glaciers, the other color produced by the two gold-bearing runs. Things were getting very interesting.

I strolled over to the truck, tapped on the window, my wife stopped reading again, rolled down the window, and she went through the same routine as before, with her once again complimenting me on a nice find. However, I could tell I'd grabbed more of her attention this time as two nuggets in such a short time is a rare thing, a rare thing that could lead to something more interesting.

I put the nugget into the bottle, rattled the gold around in the bottle close to my ear to hear the nuggets growl as they spun around inside (this is a little ritual I always do for multiple finds), and off I went to hit the hump again.

If I'd have known what the output of that spot would eventually be, I'm sure I'd have run back, but I was still in the early stages of shooting for nuggets in that place, so I strolled back to the hump happy and satisfied that I'd captured two nuggets. Nonetheless, I was hopeful there'd be more too because the memories of others finding nuggets for years at "Nugget Hump" was running a full-color loop in the video images of my brain.

More to follow as I find the time.

I now have a bit of time:

All the best,

Lanny

 

[Lanny in AB]

My apologies for taking so long to finish this story, so I'll get right to it.

Well, after dropping those two nuggets in my wife's palm, the fever was sure warming up my nugget shooting brain!

I went back to the hump to see what else Mother Nature had left in that location.

The daylight was fading, so I had to work quickly. A couple of large ravens were wheeling around above me, uttering their strange croaking cries. There was no wind, and gladly, no bugs! The setting sun had lit the opposite bank on fire with the golden glow of its rays. The sound of the river's run was a comforting song.

Life was good.

After scanning a bit more, I took out two smaller nuggets deposited among some larger cobbles, thus making four for the day. I'd found myself a genuine patch, and I was happily excited, but the sun had long since fled, and my wife could no longer read her book in the twilight, so I packed it in and headed back to camp.

The downside was that we had to leave early the next morning to drive back home. No more nugget shooting time.

I didn't get back until the next week. Moreover, in the interim, my buddy had tried his luck on the spot and found a nice flat nugget with his Minelab. He was quite happy as it had been a while since he'd found a nugget with his detector. He's retired, and he's had some health issues, so he can't detect for very long, but he was happy with his find. Moreover, he let me know that someone else had seen where I'd been working, and well, that's often the way it is. So, when I got back to the diggings the following weekend, I happened to meet the nugget shooter that had "shot" Nugget Hump in my absence. He'd found three nice nuggets, but his largest was still smaller than my biggest, so I still felt pretty good.

However, he had something else to show me. He'd been walking along an old haul road on his way back to camp, and he'd decided he might as well swing his detector on the way back. Of course he found the usual selection of nuts, bolts, nails, chunks of welding rod, etc., things that you'll find along any old mining road. As well, he'd found quite a few bits of lead to boot, and any nugget shooter knows how frustrating that can be. But, just off the side of the road he got a nice mellow tone. He said he almost didn't dig as he'd convinced himself it was most-likely that annoying lead again, for he was tired after a long day of detecting. However, something in the back of his brain told him to dig the target anyway, so he did.

What a great piece of luck that he did! It was a beautiful gold and quartz specimen piece, nice and round, like a medium sized gum-ball!! It sure was pretty, and he was justifiably excited to show it to me. I congratulated him on his beautiful find.

He assured me he thought that Nugget Hump was hunted out, but I told him I'd give it another try anyway.

I went back and spent several hours covering the area carefully, but no luck. I tried some other spots close by as well, but the gold had seemed to desert me. I went back to camp that night very tired and somewhat disappointed.

The next day, I took my quad and a little trailer and hauled out some buckets of dirt to see if I'd missed any gold. The results were very disappointing, and it was a lot of hard work for nothing, but at least I knew I'd run a decent test. Not testing the surrounding dirt has caused me to miss gold in the past, so I do it now to reassure myself I'm not leaving any gold behind, especially when I find nuggets in a virgin spot.

It rained the next day, and then my time was up. I had to break camp and head home.

It was two weeks before I made the return trip. The weather had changed to beautiful once again. The green of the pines and spruce was an emerald gown of majesty. The sun was warm; the pines were filling the air with their incredible scent, the smell that defines mountain air for me.

All was well.

I hopped on the quad and headed back to the hump to see if things had changed in my absence. Well, they sure had. A group of unknowns had really gone to work hard on that place. They'd hauled out lots of dirt, and they'd left cobbles everywhere! Nevertheless, I was hopeful that perhaps with all of the ground they'd disturbed that perhaps they'd uncovered some areas left undetected. And, as luck would have it, they had! You see, they were only screening the dirt to haul it off to the river to work it down, and obviously they done all of that work without using detectors to check up after, as you'll soon see.

After cleaning up all of the cobbles, and after carefully raking the area again, I got back to work scanning for gold. It wasn't long until I had a couple of soft sounds to investigate. They both produced little nuggets. One was chunky with a bright yellow tone, and the other was flat and dull. Once again, I was hitting that local double run of glacial gold common to the diggings in that area.

I kept at it, and soon I'd liberated two more small, flat nuggets. That little Minelab X-Terra was sure shooting hot at the hump! I was now up to eight nuggets freed from the patch. My little gold bottle was making a serious growl now when I spun its contents next to my ear!

The next day, I worked the rest of the hump. It was sunny and hot, but I knew the gold was there, so I kept swinging the coil. I drank a ton of water, and stripped down to work with my shirt sleeves rolled up. The sweat was building up on the cups of my headphones, but I dared not detect without being able to hear the slightest variation in the threshold.

I slowed down and listened very carefully. I heard the faintest of whispers, got my pick, scraped some dirt, and the tone grew louder. I was in an area about half the size of a bathtub, and the rocks were looking very old as there were bigger chunks of magnetite popping up, and the dirt had that telltale rusted orange look of old channel material. I moved off more over-burden and kept at it. Signal after signal whispered to me as I slowly scrubbed the coil across the virgin dirt. By the time I was finished, Nugget Hump had rewarded me with sixteen nuggets! What a great little patch. I hadn't been in one that productive in years.

When I got back home, I rattled the bottle for my wife, and she instantly knew by the sound that there was a new crowd of sassy gold keeping company with the four originals already in the bottle!

What a fun patch Nugget Hump produced.

All the best,

Lanny

 

[gold nuggets]

Lanny.....you have NO IDEA how long I had to hold my breath, waiting for the finish to your story!
Thanks.....GN

 

[meMiner]

Another satisfying story Lanny. What is surprising is how much activity happened over a short period of time at your nugget hump. Most areas I go in BC do not get hit that hard, although I have noticed that an active disturbance does attract other diggers. I guess people are like squirrels: I planted tulips one year (3-4 Costco bags) and had those pests over the next week investigated every hole, pulled most of the bulbs and replanted them somewhere else on me. Even my neighbors now have tulips. I was trying to surprise my Dutch wife with a "Holland spring" and was the one to get surprised. LOL

 

[huntsman53]

Lanny.....you have NO IDEA how long I had to hold my breath, waiting for the finish to your story!
Thanks.....GN

I was going to say the same thing and almost blacked out a couple of times, LOL!!! Thanks Lanny for a great story and read!


Frank

 

[Lanny in AB]

Lanny.....you have NO IDEA how long I had to hold my breath, waiting for the finish to your story!
Thanks.....GN

I got a good chuckle out of your response.

Thanks for dropping in to read it. I'll have to find the pictures to go with it sometime.

All the best,

Lanny

 

[Lanny in AB]

Another satisfying story Lanny. What is surprising is how much activity happened over a short period of time at your nugget hump. Most areas I go in BC do not get hit that hard, although I have noticed that an active disturbance does attract other diggers. I guess people are like squirrels: I planted tulips one year (3-4 Costco bags) and had those pests over the next week investigated every hole, pulled most of the bulbs and replanted them somewhere else on me. Even my neighbors now have tulips. I was trying to surprise my Dutch wife with a "Holland spring" and was the one to get surprised. LOL

It's amazing how fast word travels when you hit the good stuff!

Suffice it to say that it wasn't me that let the cat out of the bag.

Say, perhaps you could train your tulip planting squirrels to look for nuggets instead? Or, maybe you could train them to plant pickers that would one day raise up to be nuggets, but then you'd sure have to be on your toes to tag every new hole!

All the best, and thanks for dropping in,

Lanny

 

[Lanny in AB]

I was going to say the same thing and almost blacked out a couple of times, LOL!!! Thanks Lanny for a great story and read!


Frank

Frank, I really have been very short on time lately, and I realized yesterday that I hadn't finished my last installment! I sure felt stupid.

I'm glad you enjoyed the read.

All the best,

Lanny

 

[Lanny in AB]

Bedrock Tips:

How many of you have had the chance to work virgin bedrock?

By virgin, I mean that the bedrock has been exposed by modern mining. In other words, the bedrock has not seen the light of day since the gold was originally deposited on it or in it eons ago. Moreover, a chance like this is a rather rare opportunity because it requires prior connections with the miners in order to have access to this bedrock. After all, it's very expensive to remove the stubborn overburden to expose the mother rock. Furthermore, some miners are very sensitive about allowing anyone access to their virgin bedrock for any reason at all, if ever. It's a bit of a loaded request, even if you already have a personal relationship with the miners.

So, if there's no prior relationship, the chances are slim to none for access, and even if you do have a relationship, the answer could still be no. You have to be ready for any eventuality.

However, if and when you do get the opportunity to work such bedrock, there's a few things that will help your chances in finding any residual gold left behind from the mining activity.

First and foremost, ask questions.

Find out where the heaviest run of gold was in the pit. For example, find out it the deposit was heavier in a dip in the bedrock, on the start of a rise, on a shelf, at the bottom of a long drop, etc., and find out if there were certain colors in the dirt that indicated better pay: oranges, reds, grays, purples, blacks, etc.

With the answers to a few questions like these, you can improve your odds of checking the most-likely places in a large excavation. For instance, you'll find areas that were barren by asking like questions (areas of loose wash, etc.), and you'll locate areas that were hot spots by doing the same.

When it comes to detecting, you'll need to pay careful attention to the answers to your questions plus you'll need to pay close attention to what the detector is telling you about the temperature of the rock you're hunting. For example, if race into the pit and start swinging like a madman to cover as much ground as possible in the shortest time, you'll be doing a disservice to yourself. Why? Virgin bedrock demands respect, and it demands a slow approach while listening to the ground minerals and scrubbing the surface to obtain every cm of advantage while listening carefully to the tiniest alterations in the threshold. As well, by paying close attention to the mineralization, you will learn which coils will be most beneficial, including which size of coil to utilize. (A variety of sizes may be necessary to do a proper job, and in extreme ground, the wrong coil type will be an extreme waste of time.)

As to the bedrock itself, you may wish to employ a tiny detector like the Falcon to find streaks and runs of fine gold that will elude your bigger detector's coils. It's surprising how much fine gold can be left on bedrock or caught in cracks. I had my eyes opened wide several summers ago to just how much gold gets left behind and just how much fun it is to use a tiny detector to chase pockets of fine gold!

As for non-electronic sniping, it's very important to study the rock carefully. Often when working virgin bedrock, clay is a common occurrence. And, that clay is a great hider and or robber of gold. Moreover, look at what's riding within the clay. Are there little stones of various sorts? Is it just slick clay (no inclusions)?As well, be meticulous about examining the surface of the bedrock. Sometimes what looks like perfectly level bedrock with a solid surface may have cracks and crevices perfectly camouflaged by the minerals that are running within the clay, minerals that match perfectly in color the host bedrock. Use a variety of tools to scrape and scratch at the surface. I've been stunned while sniping non-electronically more than once by uncovering small cracks and crevices in this manner, ones that held a surprising amount of good gold.

As well, if the bedrock is dry, get a good sledge hammer and hit the bedrock to see if any puffs of dust arise like little fountains of fine particles. This signals a crack or crevice. One of the wonders of bedrock is that a crack or crevice may be snapped shut tightly, but widen below its mouth significantly. I remember the first time I found one of these: it had a pocket of small nuggets in it, and the nuggets were far too big to have found their way into the crevice opening. There are lots of theories as to how this happens, but the important thing to remember is that it does happen. I've also found larger nuggets this way as well when sniping without electronic backup.

What tools help with this process? For inexpensive alternatives, a blade screwdriver bent at a 90 degree angle; a wire brush; a stiff bristle brush; an awl; a pocket knife; a small metal gardening shovel; a variety of household spoons (teaspoon size to tablespoon--be sure to have sturdy ones that won't bend easily); a small sledge and a couple of cold chisels for widening cracks and crevices; if water is present, a suction gun of some kind; etc.

With virgin bedrock, you will have the chance of a lifetime to find gold in a place that no one else has ever looked, so take the time to do a thorough job, and the reward can be great. On a connected note, I've come behind others that have worked such places in a hurry and found some beautiful nuggets (larger than anything they found) because they tore across the bedrock in a mad rush to cover the entire area. The sad truth is that if they'd have slowed down and paid that virgin bedrock the respect it deserved, they would have found the bigger gold instead of me.

All the best,

Lanny

 

[meMiner]

Bedrock Tips:


As well, if the bedrock is dry, get a good sledge hammer and hit the bedrock to see if any puffs of dust arise like little fountains of fine particles. This signals a crack or crevice. One of the wonders of bedrock is that a crack or crevice may be snapped shut tightly, but widen below its mouth significantly. I remember the first time I found one of these: it had a pocket of small nuggets in it, and the nuggets were far too big to have found their way into the crevice opening. There are lots of theories as to how this happens, but the important thing to remember is that it does happen. I've also found larger nuggets this way as well when sniping without electronic backup.

Lanny

Great article Lanny! I especially like the advise of hitting dry bedrock with a hammer. I have found some crevices by the hollow sound, but never noticed a puff of dust. Too bad it wasn't like hunting clams, where you can stomp with your feet and look for a fountain of water.

 

[The Gilded Lens]

My little gold bottle was making a serious growl now when I spun its contents next to my ear!

My favorite line! Also, the part about your wife trusting you due to your lack of handing her spiders. Great story Lanny!

 

[Lanny in AB]

Great article Lanny! I especially like the advise of hitting dry bedrock with a hammer. I have found some crevices by the hollow sound, but never noticed a puff of dust. Too bad it wasn't like hunting clams, where you can stomp with your feet and look for a fountain of water.

I've never had the chance to hunt clams along a beach, only in our rivers, but the "clam" response would be a great way to locate the gold.

All the best,

Lanny

 

[Lanny in AB]

My favorite line! Also, the part about your wife trusting you due to your lack of handing her spiders. Great story Lanny!

Thanks for reading the story and leaving a comment. I really appreciate it.

All the best,

Lanny

 

[old digger]

Hi Lanny,
It makes you wonder about these gold shows where they dig down to bedrock with the excavators, but how much gold is left sitting on the top of the bedrock in a couple inches of dirt.

 

[Lanny in AB]

Hi Lanny,
It makes you wonder about these gold shows where they dig down to bedrock with the excavators, but how much gold is left sitting on the top of the bedrock in a couple inches of dirt.

I'm with you on that one. And, when they're getting coarse gold, it makes you wonder what's left when they hit some of that iron hard bedrock they can't dig down into with their buckets. (I love detecting spots like that!)

All the best,

Lanny

 

[meMiner]

Too bad they have to fill those spots back in before they abandon the hole. I understand the reason for reclamation, but it limits the opportunity to people that have permission to the site and for such a short period of time. Anyway, a very good reason to get to know the machine miners in your area.

 

[Lanny in AB]

Too bad they have to fill those spots back in before they abandon the hole. I understand the reason for reclamation, but it limits the opportunity to people that have permission to the site and for such a short period of time. Anyway, a very good reason to get to know the machine miners in your area.

Yes, it is too bad, and I've left a lot of gold behind for that very reason--not getting back to detect more gold before they had to reclaim the hole. Sometimes it happens in a day or two as they cover up the exposed bedrock as they work their way forward.

All the best,

Lanny

 

[Jim Hemmingway]

My apologies for taking so long to finish this story, so I'll get right to it.

Well, after dropping those two nuggets in my wife's palm, the fever was sure warming up my nugget shooting brain!

I went back to the hump to see what else Mother Nature had left in that location.

The daylight was fading, so I had to work quickly. A couple of large ravens were wheeling around above me, uttering their strange croaking cries. There was no wind, and gladly, no bugs! The setting sun had lit the opposite bank on fire with the golden glow of its rays. The sound of the river's run was a comforting song.

Life was good.

After scanning a bit more, I took out two smaller nuggets deposited among some larger cobbles, thus making four for the day. I'd found myself a genuine patch, and I was happily excited, but the sun had long since fled, and my wife could no longer read her book in the twilight, so I packed it in and headed back to camp.

The downside was that we had to leave early the next morning to drive back home. No more nugget shooting time.

I didn't get back until the next week. Moreover, in the interim, my buddy had tried his luck on the spot and found a nice flat nugget with his Minelab. He was quite happy as it had been a while since he'd found a nugget with his detector. He's retired, and he's had some health issues, so he can't detect for very long, but he was happy with his find. Moreover, he let me know that someone else had seen where I'd been working, and well, that's often the way it is. So, when I got back to the diggings the following weekend, I happened to meet the nugget shooter that had "shot" Nugget Hump in my absence. He'd found three nice nuggets, but his largest was still smaller than my biggest, so I still felt pretty good.

However, he had something else to show me. He'd been walking along an old haul road on his way back to camp, and he'd decided he might as well swing his detector on the way back. Of course he found the usual selection of nuts, bolts, nails, chunks of welding rod, etc., things that you'll find along any old mining road. As well, he'd found quite a few bits of lead to boot, and any nugget shooter knows how frustrating that can be. But, just off the side of the road he got a nice mellow tone. He said he almost didn't dig as he'd convinced himself it was most-likely that annoying lead again, for he was tired after a long day of detecting. However, something in the back of his brain told him to dig the target anyway, so he did.

What a great piece of luck that he did! It was a beautiful gold and quartz specimen piece, nice and round, like a medium sized gum-ball!! It sure was pretty, and he was justifiably excited to show it to me. I congratulated him on his beautiful find.

He assured me he thought that Nugget Hump was hunted out, but I told him I'd give it another try anyway.

I went back and spent several hours covering the area carefully, but no luck. I tried some other spots close by as well, but the gold had seemed to desert me. I went back to camp that night very tired and somewhat disappointed.

The next day, I took my quad and a little trailer and hauled out some buckets of dirt to see if I'd missed any gold. The results were very disappointing, and it was a lot of hard work for nothing, but at least I knew I'd run a decent test. Not testing the surrounding dirt has caused me to miss gold in the past, so I do it now to reassure myself I'm not leaving any gold behind, especially when I find nuggets in a virgin spot.

It rained the next day, and then my time was up. I had to break camp and head home.

It was two weeks before I made the return trip. The weather had changed to beautiful once again. The green of the pines and spruce was an emerald gown of majesty. The sun was warm; the pines were filling the air with their incredible scent, the smell that defines mountain air for me.

All was well.

I hopped on the quad and headed back to the hump to see if things had changed in my absence. Well, they sure had. A group of unknowns had really gone to work hard on that place. They'd hauled out lots of dirt, and they'd left cobbles everywhere! Nevertheless, I was hopeful that perhaps with all of the ground they'd disturbed that perhaps they'd uncovered some areas left undetected. And, as luck would have it, they had! You see, they were only screening the dirt to haul it off to the river to work it down, and obviously they done all of that work without using detectors to check up after, as you'll soon see.

After cleaning up all of the cobbles, and after carefully raking the area again, I got back to work scanning for gold. It wasn't long until I had a couple of soft sounds to investigate. They both produced little nuggets. One was chunky with a bright yellow tone, and the other was flat and dull. Once again, I was hitting that local double run of glacial gold common to the diggings in that area.

I kept at it, and soon I'd liberated two more small, flat nuggets. That little Minelab X-Terra was sure shooting hot at the hump! I was now up to eight nuggets freed from the patch. My little gold bottle was making a serious growl now when I spun its contents next to my ear!

The next day, I worked the rest of the hump. It was sunny and hot, but I knew the gold was there, so I kept swinging the coil. I drank a ton of water, and stripped down to work with my shirt sleeves rolled up. The sweat was building up on the cups of my headphones, but I dared not detect without being able to hear the slightest variation in the threshold.

I slowed down and listened very carefully. I heard the faintest of whispers, got my pick, scraped some dirt, and the tone grew louder. I was in an area about half the size of a bathtub, and the rocks were looking very old as there were bigger chunks of magnetite popping up, and the dirt had that telltale rusted orange look of old channel material. I moved off more over-burden and kept at it. Signal after signal whispered to me as I slowly scrubbed the coil across the virgin dirt. By the time I was finished, Nugget Hump had rewarded me with sixteen nuggets! What a great little patch. I hadn't been in one that productive in years.

When I got back home, I rattled the bottle for my wife, and she instantly knew by the sound that there was a new crowd of sassy gold keeping company with the four originals already in the bottle!

What a fun patch Nugget Hump produced.

All the best,

Lanny

Great stuff Lanny, just caught-up on everyone's posts... it's all good!! But it is not so easy to highlight the selections that appealed most to me, because I enjoyed all of it! Thankyou... glad to see you're back and into the swing of things again.

Jim.

 

[Lanny in AB]

Great stuff Lanny, just caught-up on everyone's posts... it's all good!! But it is not so easy to highlight the selections that appealed most to me, because I enjoyed all of it! Thankyou... glad to see you're back and into the swing of things again.

Jim.

Many thanks Jim, and it's good to have you back as well.

Thanks for your appreciation and generosity in dropping in to read the stories.

All the best, and I hope many more readers drop in to read your excellent thread on chasing the silver, http://www.treasurenet.com/forums/metal-detecting-gold/443495-abandoned-trails-silver-country.html

Lanny