Heading out for first time

[RustedBucket]

Hi all, new to the forum, been lurking for a while. We have 22 acres in NC with an old, usually dry, creek bed on the back side. We are about 10 miles from Reed Gold Mine and 15 from Cotton Patch and have gold producing creeks all around us. My son wants to do some digging so we borrowed a friends sluice and are gonna dig some holes (bonding time if nothing else). Anyway, I was scoping some area yesterday evening and took a quick video of what I think might be a decent place as any to start. From the the camera the creek is on the left, has water from recent rains, and there are two trees on the right. It's hard to see but these trees are in a the bend of what I think is the old creek bed. Looking at the current stream, there's a shelf that's maybe a 6-10 inches above the water that extends to the right a few feet where these trees are growing out of the ground. As I pan around from right to left you can sort of get an idea how this lays out. As I pan backwards, roughly around the 11 sec mark, I'm thinking starting one hole right in the bend of the creek where the tree is growing out. You can distinctly tell where the water has washed out around the base of the tree. The I'm also thinking hole number 2 at the tree around 21 sec.

Just curious if there was any thoughts based on my amateur iPhone video. The creek has maybe a half inch of sand/black sand on top of gravel so might dig some of that out as well. My suspicion is this creek used to connect two known gold producing creeks on either side of us and over time they've shifted. There's lots of 'good looking spots' back there, but to an untrained eye it all looks good and we need to start somewhere. I'm actually thinking the entire shelf right here might be a decent spot, I'm fairly certain bedrock is withing a couple feet so removing the top 6 inches or so of this shelf might yield some decent soil.

Anyway, I don't expect anyone to be able to say 'dig right there' more trying to assess my thought process. Any feedback would be appreciated. Happy diggin.

 

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[Remnar]

Nice looking area! I would grab a couple pans a 1/2 classifier and a shovel and try test holes all over the existing creek. Judge where to sluice based on what you find in several test spots.

Have fun and let us know how you do!

 

[Sample Pan Dan]

Peel some of that moss off of the trees and rocks, break it all down in your pan, and pan it down. Moss likes to hold gold.

 

[Prospector70]

Right in that elbow. find the lowest spot and dig down as far as you can.
Looks like fun! Good luck!

 

[azprospector]

I am with the rest, dig down and do some test panning. Don't set up the sluice until you find a good spot, will save you time.
Even if nothing turns up at least you had fun away from the house, which for me is what it's all about anyhow. Finding the cool stuff is just a bonus.

Have fun and let us know how it turns out.

 

[RustedBucket]

Hey thanks for the feedback. We dug for a couple of hours, scouted for a while, I keep trying to find one of the property stakes and can't, even with GPS, I suspect a tree landed on it back in May during some severe weather we had. Which is another question, a 60+ year old Red Oak right next to the creek was uprooted, would it be worth digging in it's hole?

Anyway, started digging in the elbow of the dry creek bed, once we got the roots and all out of the way it was much easier, however, it didn't take long to hit water. At first I though it might be a spring head (they're all over around here) but now I'm thinking it might just be ground saturation. At any rate we dug it out back into the hill and downward as far as I could get in there. Got out lots of grey clay and quartz. At least I think it's quartz, I call it dirty quartz because it's not worth anything. It's most white and dingy, if your lucky you might find some flint inside on. People around here call it Flint Rock but from what I can figure out it's just quartz with a lot of other minerals in it. We panned a couple pans and didn't get anything so we brought home a 5 Gal bucket full from the bottom of the hole to run through the sluice, also took a few samples from various other places.

The kicker though is, we think we may have found an old tailings hole not real sure as it was in a part of the creek where it's hard to get to due to brush. But what makes me think it's a tailings hole is I took the pick axe and dug down as far as I could from above and all I got was rocks about the size of my fist. The hole itself was rounded out, as the water spilled over a natural break and fell maybe 2-3 feet, that's what got my attention. The other 'really odd thing' is there were two pieces of steel I beam each 4 feet long and 8 inches wide laid in the creek side by side. They were all but buried, my son noticed one end sticking up right at the edge of the drop into the hole. We found an identical setup about 10 feet away, also buried, but the hole didn't look as enticing (doesn't mean we won't be in it though). Anyway, I shoveled out a bucket full, for him to classify and I think we'll sluice it all tomorrow or Friday. I'm really curious about this hole, might not be anything, could be kids filling it up with rocks but it's just too enticing. What really has me bungled is the I beams. I can't think of why they'd be in the middle of the woods surrounded by farmland. It was at least the 1950's the last time the woods were cut and there are no remnants of structures back there anywhere. The only real use I could see for them is maybe a bridge for a four wheeler but then they would be perpendicular across the creek bed, then to also find a second set placed the same way is suspicious. I did some Googling but didn't come up with anything about make shifting a sluice or something out of an I beam but they are perfect, all you'd really need is some moss or something and grating. Has anybody heard of this? Any ideas what they could be for?

 

[loco oro]

you said this creek is mostly dry, perhaps some old timers set up a lock/damming system, as far as that oak, right on, thats already a test hole ,that root ball,got to be big ,go to the bottom and go as deep as you can,you will find gold man, your locale ,you are in prime location, but i would bet its been worked already, but they didnt get it all!on the left side of your vid,there is all that moss after the tree ,looks like some large cobbles under that moss, move 'm and go as deep as you can,on that inside curve.
\

 

[enamel7]

I'm not far from you. Let me know if I can help. Been doing this about 6 years and might could give some pointers.

 

[azprospector]

Quartz is also a good sign, sounds like you are in a pretty good place, keep going after it. Let us know what comes of the buckets.

 

[Dale3887]

So I got one pan in today before the bottom fell out. Haven't found anything yet but we will keep you guys apprised of what happens.

 

[Dale3887]

Ok so would this be a good place to check?

 

[enamel7]

Looks good to me!

 

[Dale3887]

So this is some of the stuff that's coming out of that hole mentioned by my dad above. The one that we believe is a tailings hole. We still haven't gotten it dug out yet mostly because it's either been to cold or it's been raining.

 

[loco oro]

def test that gravel, see what they missed!

 

[Lanny in AB]

Have at it. Then, post some pictures of what you find.

All the best,

Lanny