Bone up

[Sick4gold]

I read a lot of posts and I've found a common theme that I'm not sure I fully understand.
Whenever someone asks about getting the most gold or how to make their dredge catch more gold someone usually mentions that it comes down to skill of the person dredging.

I trust my box to do what it was designed for but what skills exactly is everyone talking about?
I realize you should know what your box looks like when properly running but what else is there?
It doesn't appear to be rocket science, avoid rock jams as much as possible and vacuum up Mother Earth...
Is there a book or video I should watch? Sort of a "dredging 101"

 

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[Goodyguy]

I read a lot of posts and I've found a common theme that I'm not sure I fully understand.
Whenever someone asks about getting the most gold or how to make their dredge catch more gold someone usually mentions that it comes down to skill of the person dredging.

I trust my box to do what it was designed for but what skills exactly is everyone talking about?
I realize you should know what your box looks like when properly running but what else is there?
It doesn't appear to be rocket science, avoid rock jams as much as possible and vacuum up Mother Earth...
Is there a book or video I should watch? Sort of a "dredging 101"

Click Here for DREDGING 101

 

[63bkpkr]

Goodyguy, you are a wealth of information, as usual. Oh My, the nuggets they show there are enough to cause one's blood to boil with excitement, thank you for posting that!.................................63bkpkr

 

[russau]

yep ole Goodguy is really getting into this! hope he has a long healthy prosperous life and dont get banged up like me!

 

[Fullpan]

Dave McCraken's videos are the bible for new dredgers. It took me two seasons to learn by trial and error the basics of proper dredging cause I was too cheap
and too cocky to buy them at the time. I've forgotten some of what he covers now, but unless you have an experienced dredger beside you on site or memorize
what you see in the videos, your gold recovery will be 50% less til you become experienced.

Its a whole bunch of little things, mainly. You don't expect a teenager to be a good driver right away - same with dredging.

 

[Fullpan]

Just a few things to learn in order to be a better, more efficient dredger (there are many variables including size of waterway, speed of water, depth to br, etc.)

1. - A slower, steady feed rate is much better than "mad-dogging it"

2. - No matter what the size is, plan the hole. New dredgers always take shortcuts attempting to reach br. They end up standing on their heads with
oversize rocks sliding down near suction nozzle, sometimes 2 or 3 times because the dredger didn't remove them far enough - a very inefficient way of operating.

3. If working alone, check often to see buildup of large rocks in recovery box - Until you get the hang of it.

4. - Beware of flat rocks, sharp rocks, long rocks, and rocks that barely fit into nozzle - a split second spent rejecting them is better than an hour of destructive
pounding on suction hose trying to dislodge them.

5. - When you do finally reach br, take time to clear the area, say a couple feet in diameter, check the box for obstructions, and possibly throttle back the rpm's
slightly before sucking up the primo dirt that you've been searching for!

That's a few tips off the top of my head - you experienced dredgers out there - jump in with your tips.

 

[Sick4gold]

That's the kind of advise I'm talking about! Thank you Fullpan very much.
Anyone to add?

 

[Fullpan]

If you have a location in mind, Sick4gold - it will help to describe it. First, what size dredge? Second, is it a shallow, sandy, lazy meandering type stream/river,
or a rapid-filled mountain type? Are you going to be moving boulders, say of 200 lbs or more? Gonna work primarily underwater with a hooka? or mainly
long-arming? Do you know from looking at the banks how far (approx.) to reach bedrock? or just planning on moving some gravel in the overburden? (over
about 80% of total gold recovered from any location will be in or within 6"inches of br)

 

[jcazgoldchaser]

That's the kind of advise I'm talking about! Thank you Fullpan very much.
Anyone to add?

Never pee upstream.

 

[Sick4gold]

The creek is a very slow mover. The material is glacial. Flood gold on top and the deeper you go the bigger it gets.
Not using hookah in this creek, probably snorkel and goggles. The material is bedrock covered by about 6-12 inches of hard packed cobble. On top of the cobble is about 8-12 inches of rocks and silt of all sorts of sizes and shapes.
The dredge is a 3 inch. The biggest rocks are Mabe 50 lbs.
I'm not asking for a how to dredge but more of tips and tricks to improve my skill. Slowing your box down once you reach bedrock is a great tip that I didn't think of.
Now that I read it it seems simple and stupid that I didn't think of it.
Stuff like that is great info, and again I thank you Fullpan for straight forward answers and honest tips

 

[Fullpan]

Sounds like you are both lucky and unlucky, as is so often the case. Lucky in that its only three or four feet to bedrock - unlucky that you'll be bent over all
day! Lucky that no big boulders will have to be moved - unlucky you have hard pack to break into (never used a blaster myself but sounds like you will). What
is br like? Jaggedy or smooth? Tiny cracks or wide and deep? I know now that you are after the smaller glacial gold in Indiana which is out of my realm of experience, but a few things are universal.

 

[Sick4gold]

It's really only like 2-3 feet to BR,
The BR is decently smooth but has cracks and nice crevices.
The hard pack cobble is usually pretty good material and holds good gold. Occasionally there is a hard-packed blue clay about 1 inch thick like concrete that gold sits on as well.
Truthfully there's a part of the creek that the bedrock is exposed but the water never rages and its been cleaned so many times by so many people its cleaner than my kitchen floor.

On a separate note but still in the realm of tips I've been looking into illumination. I usually find myself in the shade and could use a good underwater light. I see a lot of led lights but does the gold show up in white light or is a standard yellow better? I'm looking for as bright and as small as possible as I'd like to Mabe band clamp it to the side of my nozzle.

 

[omnicron]

Here's another... I just learned my lesson this week. When you uncover the bedrock, break, crack, tear out or what ever you have to do to get the cracks open. DREDGE the cracks. I started out this year crevicing the cracks but not seeing the concentrations of gold in the cracks I just used my blaster to flush them out. Well I had a thought and went back to a spot that had a pay streak. I had to move all the cobbles then busted out the bedrock. There was no gold at the bottom of the crack but instead the gold was in the "dirt" that was stuck to the sides of the cracks. The results...an area about 3'x4' of cracked bedrock yielded 1.5 grams. No hard pack or overburden was dredged, just the crack on a fresh clean out. Lesson learned! I moved the cobbles to the left of the paystreak and creviced the bedrock that didn't have a paystreak and the same size area yielded .6 grams.

 

[okla. prospector]

I was dredging and small creek at my parents house in Oklahoma more just making sure my dredge was running good and ready for a trip to new Mexico. I wasn't thinking I would find any gold but to my surprise I found some flour gold. I was taking it to br and hit a clay layer, I didn't bother going through the clay. I'm planning on going back this sunday and see how much I can find. Now should I remove this layer of clay or will it stop the gold like bedrock?
Thanks

 

[Fullpan]

Yes and yes. Punch thru the clay in several areas to sample the gold on actual bedrock. But the clay will act as false bedrock on the gold bearing material
coming into the location after the clay layer was formed. Its up to you to then decide which will be better overall gold recovery.

I once ran into a similar situation downstream from a 1800's hydraulic mine. When I got down about 4 feet there was a dense clay layer upon which I found small gold but also mercury in small puddles. After sucking an area about the size of a boxing ring, I couldn't stand the mystery, so I punched thru the clay/silt layer and went for the actual bedrock. Unfortunately the br was another six ft down with large boulders. I finally hit smooth bedrock and decided it was too
much trouble to get to. Ended up sucking another boxing ring size area with pretty good results in gold/mercury before the clay layer kinda disappeared.