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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[Terry Soloman]

Happy New Year, and may it be Healthy and Golden!

 

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[Lanny in AB]

Happy New Year, and may it be Healthy and Golden!

Same to you Terry, all the best,

Lanny

 

[Jim Hemmingway]

Warning, annual prospecting poetry!

The Ballad of Shifty Eye and Curly Sue:

A handsome thing, named Shifty Eye,
Just never worked, nor would he try.
Yet he was always flush with dough.
Well, this set folks to wonder so

Just where that Shifty got his cash.
Was Shifty doin’ something brash?
Like robbin’ sluices in the dark?
At night the dogs would often bark . . .

Some clean-ups seemed a little thin.
Was this ol' Shifty’s sure-fire win?
So, guards was set at every claim
To see if this were Shifty’s aim.

In spite of this, they never found
If Shifty had been sniffin’ ‘round
That sluiced up gold of Montanny,
Fer Shifty, he was right canny.

All dressed in black on darkest night,
He’d rob a sluice and do it right.
He never took the total take,
As that would be a huge mistake.

A bit from here, a pinch from there,
He’d do his shopping everywhere!
Yes, equal opportunity
Described his actions perfectly.

He wasn’t dumb, nor was he thick
His brain was rather quick and slick
It helped him tune his robber’s game,
That is, till trouble one night came.

T’was New Year’s Eve, when he got caught,
Plumb lucky that he wasn’t shot.
A doe-eyed gal named Curly Sue
Drew down on Shifty, froze him true.

But Sue was lookin’ for some fun,
‘Cause shootin’ someone with a gun
Creates a sort of end to things,
And Sue was thinkin’ wedding rings!

She’d loved that Shifty from the start;
The love got rooted in her heart
When first she’d spied him on the street.
Since then, Sue’d thought him mighty sweet.

She yelled fer Pa up in their shack
A ten-gauge shotgun he did pack!
“Now look-ee here” her pa declared,
“A sluice box robber, mighty scared.”

A miner’s court was called right quick
With Shifty lookin’ mighty sick.
They had that Shifty dead to rights
Fer robbin’ sluices all those nights.

A necktie party soon would be
The thing to stop his robbery.
But Sue declared, she loved the sot
The miner’s court devised a plot . . .

A shotgun wedding was the plan,
They all agreed, down to a man,
To hold a spree that New Year’s Eve.
(They had no will fer Sue to grieve.)

A priest was brung–some duds was found.
The miners gathered all around
While Shifty married up with Sue,
On New Year’s Eve of ’62.

A handsome thing named Shifty Eye
Learned how to work and even try.
And Curly Sue was plumb happy
She’d found a way to wed Shifty.

Happy New Year, and all the best,

Lanny

Thanks Lanny... hoped you would post another holiday poem this year... we enjoyed it very much indeed.

I see you've acquired an Equinox 800. How do you like it so far?

Jim.

 

[Lanny in AB]

Thanks Lanny... hoped you would post another holiday poem this year... we enjoyed it very much indeed.

I see you've acquired an Equinox 800. How do you like it so far? Jim.

Hi Jim, I did buy one, but our ground is frozen solid, so I haven't had a chance to chase any coins or gold with it yet, but I've been working on the learning curve as there's a lot to learn about the abilities of the machine.

Thanks for dropping in Jim, you've been a loyal friend for many years, and I don't think I know a more knowledgable person when it comes to metal detecting than you.

All the best, and a Happy New Year to you,

Lanny

 

[Lanny in AB]

Warning! Annual Prospecting Poetry.

The New Year’s Shift

Now Blackjack Bill rode the outlaw trail
But he somehow dodged the marshal’s jail.

He’d rustle cows when his poke was slim,
Then rob a stage if the mood hit him.

He tried his hand at the minin’ game
Then dreamt up ways to improve his claim!

He’d salt it hard, and he’d salt it good.
Just to fleece big shots because he could.

But Blackjack Bill wasn’t rotten through
Deep down inside were his good points too.

With lines right clear in his brain defined,
They formed a gulf from his outlaw mind.

Now women folks was a point in case,
He’d see no harm nor cause disgrace.

Well, killin’ folks was a big no, no.
Would he rob the poor? That weren’t a go.

The rotten rich and the proud were game,
And anyone else of haughty fame.

***********************************

In the minin’ camp one winter’s day,
A gang of scum cast their lot to stay.

Some deeds were done in the dark of night
And the camp soon knew an awful plight.

A widowed gal who had lost her man
Got her nest egg stole from her coffee can!

A peg-legged man with a humble store
Had the windows smashed on his new front door.

The camp’s new church, with its copper spire
Was set ablaze by an arson’s fire.

Two guards was shot, at the mine payroll,
That gang of trash took a fearsome toll.

They roughshod rode every night and day;
The marshal shot when he made his play.

So, Blackjack Bill of the outlaw breed
Renounced his past with a brand-new deed.

The shiny star which the marshal’d wore,
Was pinned on Bill ‘cause he was sore!

With Bill as Boss, he could choose his crew,
At the mines he’d find the right type too.

His posse new was the perfect thing
To rout that gang, and to make them swing.

On New Year’s Eve, with his worthy men
He cleaned them out at their bandit den.

Well, Blackjack’s shift was a thing to stay.
It stuck with him to his dyin’ day.

All the best,

Lanny

 

[Lanny in AB]

Discouraged at not finding a nugget?

I've been doing some reflecting lately on the topic of finding that first nugget.

I've read many posts on this forum over the years of people that buy a nugget machine, but then they're quickly discouraged after a few trips to the gold fields, and then they get discouraged and either sell their machines or let them die a slow death in a dark, claustrophobic space somewhere.

I keenly remember how many targets I dug before I ever found my first nugget.

I started off chasing gold nuggets with a Garret Scorpion Gold Stinger way back when, and I actually got some good signals on a river bank way up north one day, but all I recovered were square nails. Now, the reason I bring this up is that the next year, I went back to the same spot, but Mother Nature had torn up that bank and exposed nuggets and square nails a plenty!

If I'd have stuck with the Stinger, I'd have likely found the nuggets among the square nails from the 1800's, but I simply got discouraged with digging so many square nails. However, now that I reflect back on that river bank, many things make a lot of sense today that made no sense then.

For instance, the square nails were there because they were heavies that were being drawn out of the current by a big suction eddy, the bedrock on that bank being shallow underneath the river run. The abundance of nails should have been my first clue that I should have slowed down and investigated throughly, but I didn't do so as I was a green rookie. Nevertheless, the next year when I returned, I was running a sluice and running the bank material through it, and that's when I hit the nuggets (along with lots of square nails). In fact, that bedrock was such a good trap, I actually found nuggets by eyeballing them as I cleared off the overburden!

However, I've wandered from my original topic, and I'll now address it by telling about all of the junk I dug before I ever found a nugget with my detector. That second year, as mentioned above, I went back to the gold country with a shiny new Minelab SD 2100. (The previous year, my prospecting buddy had found nuggets with his Minelab 1700 while all I found was trash. I actually put the trash I found in 4-litre ice cream pails, so I had a record of what I was recovering.)

In the pails I've mentioned, I had bits of copper wire, spent rifle and pistol cartridges (which always sound sweet), musket balls of various calibers (which also sound sweet), pistol rounds of various calibers (lead sure makes a sweet sound!), bits of blasting caps, many ends of square nails, lots of intact square nails of various sizes, lead sealing portions from tinned food, lead keys from meat tins, bits of rusted tin cans, steel wire of various gauges, lids from small tinned goods, bottle caps going back to the birth of bottled goods, bits of harmonica reeds, gears and parts of old watches, shotgun bb's and cartridge ends of various calibers and sizes, wire mesh bits, boot tacks (steel and non-ferrous), bits of aluminum, chunks of copper sheeting, as well as other junk I can't recall right now. The point is, I kept on digging and collecting because there was no discrimination on the SD 2100, so I dug everything, but with detectors that had discrimination (my buddy had the Gold Bug, the Minelab 1700, a friend had a Whites with discrimination), they would not handle the extreme mineralization where the best gold was. Therefore, I had to slug it out with the 2100 day after day.

The buckets kept filling up, but no nuggets . . . .

That is, until one day, when I'd been detecting a spot with lots of hand-mining test holes from the 1930's, my fortunes changed. As the spot was littered with round nails, I'd been digging a lot of them that day, plus I was recovering lots of bits of rusted tin from cans as well as bits of wire and screen. Nevertheless, on the rim of a test pit, I hit signals all the way around the top and sides of the excavation. I recovered round nail, round nail, round nail, round nail, but then something heavy hit my palm that was just under the moss. It didn't feel like a nail at all. It was my first nugget and a multi-pennyweight/multi-gram beauty. I still have it and will likely always have it for sentimental reasons as it represented when the dam broke, so to speak.

For after that find, on the same trip, I recovered a slew of multi-pennyweight/multi-gram nuggets. It was like there was some kind of invisible barrier that I'd finally breached, and the nuggets have kept on coming ever since.

So, to those of you that are discouraged, that are thinking of hanging up or banishing your detector after a few outings, you have the right to do so, but there seems to be an up-front price to pay for nugget hunting, one that can't be substituted with any other option.

On a related note, my son has found many nuggets, but right now he's been tuning his brain for finding coins and rings, and he's doing very well. I gave him a detector and told him to put in at least 200 hours to learn his detector, and he's done so, and is now finding silver and gold rings. For any of you that hunt rings, you know how challenging that can be, but the reason he really knows his detector is because he's invested the time, along with good techniques, to go find the kind of targets he wants to keep. Does he still find trash? Yes, lots. Do I still find trash, of course, all kinds.

The message I'm broadcasting is to go put in the time, to use proper techniques, to go to the places where gold has been found, and eventually you'll get your coil over a nugget.

Point in case, I have a nephew that's chased the gold for a few years with a detector I gave him. He's found a lot of trash, but he'd never found a nugget, that is, until last winter down in Arizona. He finally got his coil over a beauty. He's off to Arizona again to try his luck this winter, and I'm betting he'll get his coil over some gold again . . . .

All the best,

Lanny

 

[delnorter]

Thanks for the wisdom of perseverance and can-do mindset Lanny. It is difficult at times to keep on the hunt.

Mike

 

[oneguy]

Good last post Lanny.... it's all about patience, persistence, and tenacity.

 

[Lanny in AB]

Thanks for the wisdom of perseverance and can-do mindset Lanny. It is difficult at times to keep on the hunt.

Mike

Hi Mike, great to hear from you again.

I agree that sometimes it truly is difficult to keep on the hunt, and I'm sure that's what stops a lot of people, the fact that it is difficult.

For instance, it's nasty when it's hot or when it's cold, when the sweat is running down the face or the fingers are numb from the chill, when the bugs are bad, when the body says it's had enough like when the muscles are sore from all of that bending and digging . . . all factors that would make anyone want to stop, which has indeed made me stop sometimes or made me so uncomfortable that I haven't dug all of the target signals I was getting (my brain went into the old "I've heard that tone before, and I know it's junk" mode, and that's really when anyone out detecting needs to stop, take a break, hydrate or get warm or whatever the issue is so they can logically check each signal response thoroughly).

Thanks for your response, and all the best,

Lanny

 

[Lanny in AB]

Good last post Lanny.... it's all about patience, persistence, and tenacity.

Truer words were never penned!

I've chased the gold in Montana, and I know how challenging some of your conditions can be, so I know you speak from a place of wisdom.

All the best,

Lanny

 

[Lanny in AB]

Checking old hand-stacks of rock and old bedrock workings

I ran into a guy from the Yukon a few years ago while I was up in north-central British Columbia, and he was running a big placer operation in the Yukon. He told me that they always pushed off the piles of hand stacked rocks from the old-timers and then they carefully checked the bedrock underneath with detectors for gold. Not only were there nuggets the old-timers had missed, there were sometimes virgin strips of ground that he said were incredibly rich. He explained it this way: in the rush to mine the bedrock, the old-timers had stacked their rock piles over virgin ground, and then got too busy, or rushed on to new diggings, etc., and they never got back to the virgin dirt they'd buried in the first place.

I know of a nugget shooter that found an incredibly rich patch under such a pile of rocks. He took out hundreds of small nuggets, and some nice fat ones too, and the strip was only about three feet wide at its widest point!

This makes me think of tales some old-timers up north told me of how mining companies were in a hurry to get to the bedrock, and to quickly get the chunky gold, kind of like skimming thick cream off of milk and not really caring about the milk underneath, and that some of those companies were very sloppy in their recovery. As well, there were always other rushes going on that lured them away to "better" ground.

There are countless piles of hand-stacked rocks where I'm working, and I've winched rocks off before and found good gold. In fact, in the area I'm referring to, for years nugget shooters have been winching the boulders off the bedrock, and they've recovered a lot of nice nuggets as the detectors can see what the old-timers could not possibly visualize in that bedrock.


All the best,


Lanny

 

[Lanny in AB]

Another tip, High up bedrock.

I was out one day digging a whole bunch of old boot tacks from long since disintegrated miner's boots! The little nails were all over the place, including down in crevices, well rusted or (for the non-ferrous) green with patina. I was also finding the little tips from old square nails, so I knew there were still targets to be found.

I found a few pieces of lead, from spent bullets, a steel button from an 1800's miner's shirt, a couple of pieces of wire, and many, many square nails, as well as a few more modern nails from the 1930's.

After digging a palm full of nails, I went down to a spot on the river that has always intrigued me, but one I've been handcuffed from detecting. The old-timers washed lots of gravel over this notch in the cliff: it's an area of high slate cliffs, where the slate has been sluffing off eons. I've always looked up at those cliffs and thought, that with all the jagged protruding edges, some gold must have been trapped, especially with all the sluice runs sent over the edge, including the virgin material that had eroded over the cliff before the miners started their workings.

Anyway, I've never been able to find anything but small flakes trapped in that jagged bedrock, and these discoveries were made by panning. However, I decided to walk along the base of that cliff to detect it.

Well, I hit all kinds of square nails, and spent bullets (I found a nice old 44 caliber slug too, and a big bore rifle slug with grease grooves), as well as bits of copper and brass wire. Being somewhat frustrated, I decided to cut some footholds up the slump at the base of the cliff, enabling me to reach higher up the cliff with my detector.

Almost instantly, I got a signal. I pinpointed it easily, cut some more steps with my pick so I could get up to the signal, and then I trapped it in the scoop. The target was the rusted tip of a square nail.

I rested the coil as I stepped back down and the coil swept through an arc over a new spot and gave a crisp signal. I stayed put on the cliffside and scanned the spot again. Of course, my brain was saying, "It's another piece of trash."

I reached up gingerly with my super-magnet to see if a nail would jump out, but none did. I say I reached up gingerly because the whole area of dirt holding the signal would have gone scurrying down the cliff, and you know what a nightmare it is to try to find a target after that happens.

No metal jumped to the super magnet, but the target could easily be copper, or a sliver of lead, or another non-ferrous boot tack!

I carefully inserted the tip of my scoop where the coil had pinpointed the signal. I saw a golden flash as the dirt poured into the scoop!


I worked my way back down the slump to a level spot, scanned the scoop, and there was a nice crisp, mellow growl. I sifted the material onto the coil and heard a whap!, then a scream from the coil. I gently moved the particles around and there grinning up at me was a sassy nugget.

I now have lots of new area to search, difficult though it will be.

All the best,
Lanny

 

[Terry Soloman]

Love the way you weave a story my friend!

 

[Lanny in AB]

Love the way you weave a story my friend!

Many thanks Terry. I appreciate your support.

All the best,

Lanny

 

[Rail Dawg]

Just a little while longer this thread will be at a half-million views!

I’m impressed!

Chuck

 

[Rail Dawg]

Well Lanny you busted through a half-million like nobody's bidness!

Chuck

 

[Lanny in AB]

Well Lanny you busted through a half-million like nobody's bidness!

Chuck

Chuck, thanks for the notification, hard to believe actually, but it's good to know the thread has had so many visitors.

Thanks, and all the best,

Lanny

 

[old digger]

I'll bet you are earnestly looking forward to Spring and the opportunity to get back to doing some nugget hunting?

 

[Lanny in AB]

I'll bet you are earnestly looking forward to Spring and the opportunity to get back to doing some nugget hunting?

Yes, as you well know, winter gets old in a hurry . . . .

All the best my friend,

Lanny

 

[Lanny in AB]

Lost Drift-Mine Cache

Quite a few summers back, I heard a fascinating story, one set in a mountainous, heavily wooded area with pines, firs, balsams, birches, and aspens. The forest floor is covered in undergrowth, dark canyons abound in the wilderness area, but somehow a tiny human population clings to civilization.

The only way to get to the goldfields is by logging road, always dangerous, often terrifying. Wildlife abound in the cool climate: deer, moose, elk, wolverine, fisher or martin, cougar, grizzly and black bear. And for humans, the far northern latitude ensures ice on the fire bucket in the outfitters tent even on summer mornings.

In that vast northland, rushing streams of icy water race from the mountains into deep glacial lakes, while slower streams are choked with alders. Dark, alpine peaks loom in every direction, their lower reaches covered in deep deposits of boulder clay (thick masses of clay and rock dropped by glaciers), ones that cover ancient streambeds rich in coarse placer.

These thick deposits of boulder clay roof the dark world of the solitary drift miner, for to follow the gold, the miner must find a bedrock outcrop, then tunnel beneath the clay by hand while drifting along the bedrock contours. Constant shoring of the mine is essential (with hand-cut timbers and lagging) to prevent cave-ins.

It is brutal, backbreaking work, as the tunnel height is kept as low to save on materials and labour. As well, boulders are a battle, with the drift-miner detouring over, around, or under the blockages. In addition, when rich ground is hit the miner “rooms out” a large area with parallel tunnels, backfilling as the work progresses. The work is lonely, with long, tedious days, but as the work is done underground, a constant temperature above freezing allows winter-long work, during the long, dark winters. In the spring, when the freshets (spring runoff) start, the pay pile is sluiced with the coarse gold placed in either a poke, or a tobacco can, or in coffee cans when the take is heavy.

Thus some setting and the context for the tale that follows:

Late one chilly evening, as we sat around a warm campfire, the local placer miners told of how several years previous, a reclusive member of their tiny community failed to appear at the log-built community store and post office for his weekly visit.

In the tiny community settlement, every resident rendezvous on the same day, mail day. The miners, loggers, and trappers take time to socialize and to catch up on the news. Clearly, in such a remote area, anytime someone breaks a routine, the locals head out to see what’s wrong.

Sadly, the searchers found the miner dead in his cold cabin. On his table was a nice tub of rich gold concentrates. Coarse it was too. Everything in the cabin was peaceful and in order. No foul play, the miner had passed quietly away in his sleep, off to the big nugget mine in the sky.

The mystery is that as a dedicated drift-miner, he had been mining full-time for decades in a great spot. Yes, decades. His diggings were located on great gold-producing ground. Everyone knew it was so as he always paid for his supplies at the community store in nuggety gold. (They still take gold as payment even today; there’s a set of scales on the store counter.)

However, as is the case in that tiny community, many live alone, just as the dead miner did. So, the local recluses exist without the companionship of spouse or family. They seem to thrive in the solitude.

On a side note, some of the more colorful, mysterious characters there won't allow you to take their photograph (under any circumstances!), which hints of being on the run. In fact, certain ones are. Some have been hiding out since the Vietnam war, unaware that a pardon has been granted.

On a different note, there is no local bank for gold deposits. The nearest bank is four to six hours away, the time depending on the uncertain road conditions. Moreover, heading to the city suits only those that WANT to get out; some never take the opportunity, preferring solitude and isolation.

To return to the story, the deceased miner was working a rich, ancient tertiary channel that resided with stubborn determination under a steep cliff of boulder clay. He had spent endless summers and winters of unimaginable effort tunneling along the bedrock, doggedly staying with the ever-fickle gold. It is understood that the miner's golden challenge is a riddle that forever taunts to be solved, a quest to find the solution to a mystery left eons ago by a coy Mother Nature. Regardless of Mother Nature’s efforts, the miner had solved the riddle; he was one of the masters.

For those of you that have seen old placer drift mines, you are familiar with how the tunnel's low height forces the miner to work in a perpetual, stooped condition. Thus, the reason why so many of the Old-timer's walked permanently hunched over. Clearly, the drift miner's work was backbreaking, formidable, and uncertain, but in the miner’s mind, there was always hope.

On a related note, I have gazed into those still dripping, cold, damp tunnels while trying to imagine only a pick and shovel to excavate the stubborn ancient river channel, filled with endless cobbles, stubborn cemented material, and mammoth, defiant boulders. Moreover, the constant fear of cave-ins must have been an endless strain.

I must confess that I was too dumb to realize that people still mined using such old methods. I assumed they had vanished decades earlier. Nonetheless, other determined miners still use this method of hand-mining, just as the dead miner from the small community did.

As the deceased miner had no family that anyone in the community was aware of, the locals declared a treasure hunt to try to locate the cache.

They found nothing.

As I pass through this long winter, somewhere deep in that primeval northern forest there resides a rich treasure, one once claimed from Mother Nature, yet now silently reclaimed, trusted to her timeless care yet again.

All the best,

Lanny