Jerry the Prospectors Adventures of Color County

Asmbandits · Mar 27, 2016

Its been a while since ive had anything to post being the time of year, working around the house with spring cleaning and projects.. Also had been searching for a new job mostly during the past month, and finally accepted an offer for considerably more money and weekend time off so I really excited for this summer as it will allow me to get out prospecting much more.

I was able to make it out to the river for the first time this year yesterday and had quite the experience. It seemed at first that I was going to be headed out alone and most all of my know river locations are not very accessible this time of year due to higher flow. I asked Mytimetoshine if he could point me in the direction of some workable ground nearby since hes been able to get out quite a bit so far, he suggested the Bear river and I was excited to get out there being that I had never been to the Bear and heard a lot of good things and seen some good gold come from there. At the last minute Erik the prospector called and wanted to know if I was able to get out, once I told him my plan he was excited to go back to a spot on the Bear he had done well at last year. We met in Alta as I was coming from home and he was up in Truckee on Friday night. We both hopped in his vehicle and made our way down. We had to hike in about a mile to get to the location which was very beautiful and the flow was just perfect. It felt like a summers day out there, good sun light and temp and the water was warm enough to work in without waders once the sun came out. We worked a spot where Erik had gotten over a gram of pickers in one pan his first time there, and it looked very promising. We only brought pans and crevice tools because of the hike and not knowing what to expect as far as flow and access, but I wish I would have brought the zooka as it would have been perfect to work this area. I worked the higher bedrock as I do in most locations when Im only panning and I found a huge crevice about 2 feet wide full of broken bedrock and clay. I ended up working that same spot the entire day as I was consistently seeing about 3-4 flakes in each pan and it was by far the most consistent paying spot ive ever dug, every pan looked almost identical as rest. Erik worked all over and was not getting the color he had hoped for but was finding decent gold here and there. I dubbed my diggins the "honey hole mine" as I soon had dug a mini shaft about three feet down, three feet wide and it just kept going. It was not easy panning though being all clay and jagged bedrock shards but I had on some good gloves and took my time at the water breaking it up by hand in the 1/2" classifier and in the pan after that. I spent the whole day at this one hole, Erik was working a bit higher up on some similar looking bedrock getting good gold here and there. Panning was a bit of a pain as there was really only one good location to pan in this very small area below where we worked. We basically had to take turns panning while the other was collecting material. I wish I would have taken some photos I really need to start making this a priority but I had left my phone in my pack on the other side of the river. We worked hard late into the day, hardly stopped to eat or take a break even. It was almost time to leave when we decided to do one more bucket full each. I gathered my material from the honey hole and went to pan while Erik was above me working on a crack when I heard him shout with joy has he had just freed a huge chunk of bedrock about the size of a two mailboxes side by side. It looked like it was going to be some good material and I was happy for him. He then warned me that he was going to let the rock come down so I took a few steps away and judging by the lay of the land it should miss me as it traveled down about 10 feet to the water. He let it go and it slowly slid down until about half way it caught and flipped then headed right for me! I tried to move but the rock sandwiched itself up against my shin and another rock.. When It happened It looked bad! Erik started frantically making his way towards me and he was sure my leg was broken as at first I was as well, but thank God it was a miracle it wasn't. I remember pushing off the rock and seeing this hole in my leg and I could see the bone! I stayed calm and Erik was so concerned he started to panic a little and I calmly told him that im ok and not to panic so that I dont start to panic. I took inventory, funny thing is when it happened and after it never hurt at all, possibly the adrenaline and that I was standing in freezing cold water while it happened? The sight of the bone was all I was concerned with, strangely enough it never started bleeding at all. I cleaned it in the clear water as good as I could and Erik busted out the gauze and tape and we bandaged it up the best we could. We had a good mile hike up hill and I was worried it was going to start gushing blood then but strangely enough it never bleed, was really weird but heck ill take it! The kicker is that I still had a pans worth of material to work after this happened and I couldn't leave not knowing what was in it.. I sucked it up and panned it out, and it turned out to be the best pan of the day! When we made it back to the truck we cleaned out the wound again with iodine and bandaged it up and headed to urgent care in Auburn and made it just in the nick of time before they closed. Erik stayed with me the whole time and was a huge help in making sure I was ok and taken care of, that meant a lot to me for sure. 6 stitches later Im good to go! ended up getting a little PO on my arm though :censored:

I hate that stuff! Im bruised and scared and have PO but it was still one heck of a trip and Im just thankful that it didn't end up any worse. I will be thinking more cautiously and taking extra care next time im out, im lucky that in all my times out this was the first time Ive been injured.

The gold was good, almost all the same size mini picker flakes. weighed out too
.58 grams so not to shabby for panning! Cant wait to get back up there with the sluice and put in some work, it could pay well im thinking. :icon_thumleft:

mytimetoshine · Mar 28, 2016

Glad your alright Jerry. Very nice gold and I guess it's high alert this year on poison oak being that we Both got it already. I was lucky last year.

Congratulations on the new job!

Asmbandits · Mar 28, 2016

mytimetoshine said:
Glad your alright Jerry. Very nice gold and I guess it's high alert this year on poison oak being that we Both got it already. I was lucky last year.

Congratulations on the new job!

Thanks Erick! Yeah the Po really bugs me as Im really not sure how I got it. I dont remeber being near anything even questionable and I had a long sleeve thermal and long sleeve shirt on over that the whole day and got it on my arm :icon_scratch:

I hate that stuff it is bugging me way more than my leg..

goldenmojo · Mar 28, 2016

Old mining legend is you rub the days take into the wound and it heals quicker.......

Asmbandits · Mar 28, 2016

goldenmojo said:
Old mining legend is you rub the days take into the wound and it heals quicker.......

Haha if it were only that easy.. I wonder how the day would have turned out if I left a sacramental sandwich in the truck lol :-:what:

Asmbandits · Apr 17, 2016

Time for an update!

Im now home from my two week stay in Iowa for work, it was a long time but I enjoyed it and I think Iowa would be nice place to live and raise children. The people are very down to earth and nice and work hard and respect each other, but I couldn't get over the flatness of the land funny enough.

Before I left and after my last trip prospecting I spent a few days up at our ranch in the Mendocino national forest. I went up with my brother and my dad met us up there the day after we arrived, I hadn't been up there since last October and it turned out to be a really nice visit. The reason for this trip was to check out some springs on the property that are heavy with quartz that Ive never sampled for gold, and we have a old homestead up high on the mountain that we wanted to detect. The springs run year long and only trickle in the summer but I noticed that not only are they heavy with quartz, there is lots of other minerals as well . I noticed this last couple times up there and it really got me excited to sample to see if I could come up with anything, did about 10 pans but no gold or black sand, only very light material. At least I can stop wondering I guess!

So, the next day when my dad showed up we loaded our packs and headed out on the dirtbikes and quad up to the other section of property which is much higher than the ranch lot. The ranch sits on 40 acres while the lot above is 160 acres of mostly steep mountain side at about 3800 ft elevation. We refer to this area as "Sharps" as my grandfather had told us that there once was a family that lived up there near a spring and had homesteaded there. Our family acquired the land in 1940 and there was no sign of the sharps homestead at that time other than a leveled off spot where the cabin was believed to be. Its believed that the Sharps family lived there around the turn of the century, and it seems to be right seeing there was no sign of the homestead in the 40's. We were eager to detect there because of its age, my dad had found some old bottles near there when he was a kid and the remains of a hex barrel from a rifle.

As soon as we started detecting we were getting many signals, mostly iron links and cast shards but we did find a few neat things such as a corner to a cast iron stove, a horse shoe and some iron tackle. It was amazing as the areas where the targets were was very concentrated in the flat area and as soon as you went further there was nothing in every direction. Both my dad and myself were looking hard for a coin just to get a date. Its always been very mysterious to me as I cant see why anyone would homestead such an area, its nothing but rock and pine trees and very steep and hard to get to. There is no land to be able to farm there for sure, and I dont see it being a good area to raise livestock either so Ive always wondered why and how they survived up there. Honesty I always though possibly they were mining something as its the only thing that seems possible.

I did find one thing of interest and to me is a really cool find, I dug this frame of an old gold pocket watch! Im hoping to post some pictures on a pocket watch forum to try to get an ID and date if possible, so neat to know Mr. Sharps once held onto this and it was probably dear to him at one time. I love finds like this even if they arnt worth anything.

mytimetoshine · Apr 17, 2016

Asmbandits said:
Time for an update!

Im now home from my two week stay in Iowa for work, it was a long time but I enjoyed it and I think Iowa would be nice place to live and raise children. The people are very down to earth and nice and work hard and respect each other, but I couldn't get over the flatness of the land funny enough.

Before I left and after my last trip prospecting I spent a few days up at our ranch in the Mendocino national forest. I went up with my brother and my dad met us up there the day after we arrived, I hadn't been up there since last October and it turned out to be a really nice visit. The reason for this trip was to check out some springs on the property that are heavy with quartz that Ive never sampled for gold, and we have a old homestead up high on the mountain that we wanted to detect. The springs run year long and only trickle in the summer but I noticed that not only are they heavy with quartz, there is lots of other minerals as well . I noticed this last couple times up there and it really got me excited to sample to see if I could come up with anything, did about 10 pans but no gold or black sand, only very light material. At least I can stop wondering I guess!

So, the next day when my dad showed up we loaded our packs and headed out on the dirtbikes and quad up to the other section of property which is much higher than the ranch lot. The ranch sits on 40 acres while the lot above is 160 acres of mostly steep mountain side at about 3800 ft elevation. We refer to this area as "Sharps" as my grandfather had told us that there once was a family that lived up there near a spring and had homesteaded there. Our family acquired the land in 1940 and there was no sign of the sharps homestead at that time other than a leveled off spot where the cabin was believed to be. Its believed that the Sharps family lived there around the turn of the century, and it seems to be right seeing there was no sign of the homestead in the 40's. We were eager to detect there because of its age, my dad had found some old bottles near there when he was a kid and the remains of a hex barrel from a rifle.

As soon as we started detecting we were getting many signals, mostly iron links and cast shards but we did find a few neat things such as a corner to a cast iron stove, a horse shoe and some iron tackle. It was amazing as the areas where the targets were was very concentrated in the flat area and as soon as you went further there was nothing in every direction. Both my dad and myself were looking hard for a coin just to get a date. Its always been very mysterious to me as I cant see why anyone would homestead such an area, its nothing but rock and pine trees and very steep and hard to get to. There is no land to be able to farm there for sure, and I dont see it being a good area to raise livestock either so Ive always wondered why and how they survived up there. Honesty I always though possibly they were mining something as its the only thing that seems possible.

I did find one thing of interest and to me is a really cool find, I dug this frame of an old gold pocket watch! Im hoping to post some pictures on a pocket watch forum to try to get an ID and date if possible, so neat to know Mr. Sharps once held onto this and it was probably dear to him at one time. I love finds like this even if they arnt worth anything.

View attachment 1300901

Wait you said gold pocket watch. So is it gold? You just kind slid that in there at the end lol.

Asmbandits · Apr 17, 2016

mytimetoshine said:
Wait you said gold pocket watch. So is it gold? You just kind slid that in there at the end lol.

Its plated gold, it still has some of the gold plate on it in areas but not solid gold. Most if not all of the "gold" pocket watches were plated. Some are plated more than others, they went by guaranteed years for different thickness of plating. the watch below was given to me by my grandmother and it belonged to her father, its plating is is guaranteed for 25 years. Not sure what the one I found was but some of the plating survived for over 100 years.

mytimetoshine · Apr 17, 2016

That's very cool man. Great job!

Asmbandits · Apr 24, 2016

Made it out to the Bear on Saturday with my daughter and boy was it beautiful! Perfect temp to work in and right after the rain so everything was green and not dry and dusty. I wanted to get back to where I did decent and run the zooka but it turned out that the clay was just to much work to do that successfully. I couldnt get the right flow with where I wanted to setup and so I switched to just panning with Savannahs help collecting material from the bedrock. She is such a trooper, she hiked a good half mile with a backpack full of pans/tools and told me she enjoyed it! As we were digging the cracks of the bedrock we spied a nice picker and she was able to stick her little fingers in and pull it from the clay. Soon after that we found another small flake and she did the same. Its funny because other than that gold we did pretty crappy. Lots of pans with little to no gold, and we worked there for about 4 hours! I couldn't find anywhere else that showed gold and there was nowhere near to setup the zooka to run gravel so we just called it a day and hiked out. I think she enjoyed the hiking more than anything that day as it was such a beautiful trail. I had a blast though and some good memories now to cherish. I didn't weigh the gold cuz its so small but the big picker came in at .12 grams.

mytimetoshine · Apr 24, 2016

Good father daughter time. Looks like a nice spot and a picker!

KevinInColorado · Apr 25, 2016

Love seeing a muddy kid at the river!

Asmbandits · May 15, 2016

Had a fun weekend up at the Bear river at a GPAA claim, Really pretty land, sweet campsite, gold, adventure and good friends made for some great memories!

It all started about last Wednesday when my wife gave me the green light to pull an overnighter, and of course I was excited as can be since its rare shes okay with me being gone more than a day. I jumped on the chance and made a few calls, and turns out a couple of my good friends who had been wanting to do another overnighter were available and also my brother wanted to join so I was really excited at that point as its even rarer that we can all get out at the same time anymore. I already had this spot in mind, Ive been up there before, recently with my daughter and on that trip we found the campsite which is really a neat place to setup camp and I couldn't wait to one day camp there.

We left early Saturday morning and made the hour and a half drive up, we parked where we couldn't drive any further and hiked the last 1/2 mile to the claim. I hate leaving my vehicle this far way in such a spot but luckily nothing happened thank god!

What made me even more un easy was this road just gets smaller and rougher until it turns into a overgrown trail (it was once a very old road and the claim is at the level area that once was where a bridge crossed the river) and towards the end of the trail we walked up on a 4x4 chevy suburban that was not going anywhere as it was hanging over the edge of the trail stuck and just about ready to go down the canyon wall. It was in pretty ruff condition and it didn't look like someone struggled to get it into its resting position given the tire tracks on the trail, it looked like someone dumped it there in that position to me and it wasn't a good site knowing my truck wasn't far up the trail and I didn't know if some no goods were coming back to strip the thing or what. We carefully made our way further down the trail and when we were almost to the end and there was another vehicle, a Jeep in the exact position looking exactly the same about to roll down the hillside. Now we were very concerned, at the time my immediate though was that someone was dumping vehicles here for who knows what, and my truck is near and were camping close by.. We almost left at that point but hey, we dint come all this way to turn around and both of my friends have there concealed carry permits and were carrying at the time so we decided to stick it out and get to setting up camp.

We made our shanty fairly quickly, gathered some wood and ate some food. One of my buddies built a lil trip wire alarm for wild animals at night, he decided to set it up then in case someone decided to show up and go into the camp we would be able to hear them at the water. The thing worked well, too well... We were setting that thing off all day long it worked so well lol.. We started sampling here and there, I knew of a decently consist paying area already but wanted to look around more since I had plenty of time. W all went our own ways, sampling and keeping in touch on the radio. I didn't find even a spec in so many good looking spots it was very strange, especially for the bear. No one else had any luck either, so I decide to head back to where I knew there was decent gold and still some material to run. I had done about 4-5 pans and I look up and saw a person near the Jeep on the hill, I hollered at him then the other guys made there way to him. I did another pan then headed up to see whats going on, it was the owner of the jeep, a really nice guy who had returned with some ratchet straps and come along to try and retrieve it. He had been there at the claim prospecting a few days before and got stuck on the way out. Honestly I didnt have much faith in getting it out at the time, you could have pushed the jeep down the hill with one hand as it was so far over the edge as is, and with no trees and only rock face to pull from it seemed like it wasn't going to happen. We loaned him a bar which he used to wedge into the bedrock to pull from and used one he brought to do the same and he began slowly pulling the jeep back over the edge little by little. A woman showed up from no where who was an interesting person to say the least, she lived nearby and was with the guy who owned the suburban up the trail. They tried backing that thing down and got it stuck the same way a few day before. She seemed like she was a questionable individual is all i'll say, but once in a while she was nice. I jumped in and helped with one of the which points and the both of us slowly pulled and pulled and about a couple hours later the jeep was back on the trail! Supposedly the woman's partner who was the owner of the suburban was at home watching nascar and was suppose to help the guy but never showed up. At that point she asked us if were were going to volunteer with helping them get the other vehicle out, but given her weirdness and overall un pleasantness towards us, and most importantly the fact the guy that owned the thing wasn't even there and we had just help this guy get his jeep out, and spent a good chunk of the day doing it we said they could come back down and grab us if they couldn't get it themselves. Im all for helping people but she wasn't polite about it at all or the entire time damn near so we felt given the circumstances they could figure it out. There was no way I was getting my dually down to that point so other than doing what they could do for them they really didn't need us.

I went back to digging but my spot started not paying out well and the other guys were at this point having a few beers and jumping in the river before we cooked supper so I threw in the towel and headed to camp to start cooking. My brother did some fishing but surprisingly didn't get even a nibble which was really strange and he said he didn't even see any fish and there is a killer big deep hole that would have to have fish in it if they were there. We stayed up for a while, passed around a bottle of jack and enjoyed each others company and talked about this and that until we were all ready for some rest. The next day we woke up and fixed breakfast and some coffee, then I was back at it sampling here and there while I think the rest of the group was ready to head home. I worked a spot right by camp literately about 30 feet and was right next to were I'd been panning at and where we were getting water and washing up, I reached down to move a small bolder and noticed a baby rattler warming himself there on the bedrock. Im really lucky, I almost put my hand right over him in the process.. Now im not one to kill things for no reason, if I ran into him somewhere of the beaten path I would have simply left him be, I sat there for a good 10 min watching him, trying to make up my mind if I should let him be or kill him. I ended up pinching him against the rock with a stick and cut of his head quickly, he was way to close to a very well established and frequented camp and also 4 feet from the best panning/water access spot near the camp and on a gpaa claim. I felt like it was the responsible thing to do, I felt really bad for the little guy and still do. I hate killing innocent animals but Ive had my daughter there playing in that exact spot, and being a gpaa claim and near camp I felt it wasn't a good idea to leave him for the next guy who possibly might not be so lucky. I took the cut off head and buried it away from any potential dig areas.

We took down camp and cleaned up all signs of our stay and made the hike out and I cant tell you how relived I was to find my truck just the way I left it. The area just has that feeling of being iffy to leave anything un attended and im thankful that nothing was messed with. I didn't do good at all with the gold, everything I did get was from the backup spot and Im still blown away at the lack of gold in all the really good spots I dug. I don't fell like its been picked over its really like its just not a rich section of river. The gold that I was finding is at the bottom of a little feeder creek and Im starting to think thats where the gold was coming from and not as much the river itself. I know the bear is rich but this spot isn't as much as you would think it should be. In all it was a awesome trip and I came home with a little gold, my health and my truck and helped a guy get his Jeep back.

Asmbandits · Jun 1, 2016

Backpack gold!!

Was going through my prospecting pack and noticed it was pretty dirty inside. I flipped it over and dumped about a palms full of dirt into a pan just to see if there would be gold in it and there was! Not much at all but a some color for sure! Saw Tom Massie do this in an episode of Gold Fever back in the days.. :hello2:

mytimetoshine · Jun 1, 2016

I've done it. It works lol. That gold gets everywhere

63bkpkr · Jun 6, 2016

Howdy Asmbandits,
I just quickly went through your posts and found them quite enjoyable. I'd have to say that you being out with your daughter brought a smile to my face as I've also enjoyed the daughter/father trips with my two girls into the NF American River country for several years, when of course they were younger up till ~ 14 yrs of age. Those are fun trips and make for some great memories!

So you've been on the NF of the NF and I assume that is the NF/NF American. If that is correct then did you go up it from off of the Euchre bar trail or way up Hwy. 80, just curious. I've been to it from both places but the Hwy. 80 point it is a tiny creek mixed in with some dense forest! I've always wanted to go back in there to do some cross country hiking but have never made it back there. From Euchre bar and way up there is or was the frame and running gear of a large old truck so there must be a road above it. Lots of suction dredges in there when I was there in the 70's.

The upper reaches of the Middle Fork get rather purple as the sun sets and its some rugged country in there though I've never spent much time up there and down lower it is one Big River and miles of it is claimed/owned but still has some very good gold. But, if one did not have permission to be in there I'd think they'd be risking their 'well being' by even walking the river banks. Oh, sections of it are or had been leased to a fishing club as the trout are large and plentiful!

Down on the NFAR and 'up' river from the Beacroft Trail there is/was a buick engine with three speed tranny with a capstan winch on the output shaft, have you ever seen it? A little further up river, on the side away from Foresthill, there is one huge sand bar with trees and three or more metal wheeled wheel barrows there, great spot to camp and swim. Of course that area was involved in the 2008 fire so the weeds are likely 6-8' tall, I know they are really bad at Mumford Bar! There is a whole lot of exploring to do there with lots of mountain streams high up and pools of trout for the person solid enough to make it in and back out. Wonderful country!............63bkpkr

Asmbandits · Jun 6, 2016

63bkpkr said:
Howdy Asmbandits,
I just quickly went through your posts and found them quite enjoyable. I'd have to say that you being out with your daughter brought a smile to my face as I've also enjoyed the daughter/father trips with my two girls into the NF American River country for several years, when of course they were younger up till ~ 14 yrs of age. Those are fun trips and make for some great memories!

So you've been on the NF of the NF and I assume that is the NF/NF American. If that is correct then did you go up it from off of the Euchre bar trail or way up Hwy. 80, just curious. I've been to it from both places but the Hwy. 80 point it is a tiny creek mixed in with some dense forest! I've always wanted to go back in there to do some cross country hiking but have never made it back there. From Euchre bar and way up there is or was the frame and running gear of a large old truck so there must be a road above it. Lots of suction dredges in there when I was there in the 70's.

The upper reaches of the Middle Fork get rather purple as the sun sets and its some rugged country in there though I've never spent much time up there and down lower it is one Big River and miles of it is claimed/owned but still has some very good gold. But, if one did not have permission to be in there I'd think they'd be risking their 'well being' by even walking the river banks. Oh, sections of it are or had been leased to a fishing club as the trout are large and plentiful!

Down on the NFAR and 'up' river from the Beacroft Trail there is/was a buick engine with three speed tranny with a capstan winch on the output shaft, have you ever seen it? A little further up river, on the side away from Foresthill, there is one huge sand bar with trees and three or more metal wheeled wheel barrows there, great spot to camp and swim. Of course that area was involved in the 2008 fire so the weeds are likely 6-8' tall, I know they are really bad at Mumford Bar! There is a whole lot of exploring to do there with lots of mountain streams high up and pools of trout for the person solid enough to make it in and back out. Wonderful country!............63bkpkr

Thanks for the kinda words and I'm glad you enjoyed my journal, from what Ive read of your posts I know you spend a lot of time in the area and have a wealth of knowledge to go along so coming form you it makes my day! The timing is ironic as well as just today my family and I came back from a trip on the NF/NF American, we camped with a big group of family and friends at the North fork Falls campground near Emigrant Gap. Everyone had a blast, it was a good outing for sure! I'll be posting some photos here hopefully tonight, I'm still un packing and getting situated at home atm.

I spend time all over the place in gold country, I love exploring thats for sure but id say most of my time is spent near Georgetown in the creeks near there and also the MF American and North for/MF American. I have also been spending a lot of time on the NF near mineral bar and on the Bear river near Alta. I hear what your saying about the middle fork, its really hard to get to the water compared to other areas and almost every area near any access is claimed or private property, but I do know of some areas that are open and accessible if you have the right equipment and arnt afraid of some sketchy adventures. I love the north fork area near mineral bar, and Yankee Jims as well, its just been hit hard where there is easy access. I love getting to the hard to reach areas its always better diggings for me. I have not been up the Bearcroft or Euchre bar trail, when Im on the NF/NR its down river from north fork falls campground. Most of the areas I have been to are either unclaimed forest or GPAA claims, Ive yet to pick a trail and just hike it im usually just headed somewhere ive researched before hand. I sure wouldn't mind hiking on some of those trails though, there is so much beautiful land in that area and im sure it must be a nice hike. I did a good share of hiking with the scouts when I was younger including a few 50 milers, but now I find a couple of miles and im feeling it good lol. Ive lazied out and rid to where I can on my trials most of the time then hike in from where I cant go any further. Good times for sure, thanks again for taking the time to check out my thread and I hope I'll have some good gold and adventures to post again soon so stop by and give it a look and maybe you will recognize a place or two!

Asmbandits · Jun 7, 2016

Well yesterday the family and I came home from a nice 4 day stay up on the north fork of the north fork American river near Emigrant Gap, North fork falls campground to be exact. Not too far from the campground is a gpaa claim where I did quite a bit of panning, detecting and underwater sniping and all but completely struck out

If there is gold there which im sure there must be, it is few and far between. I wish I had some gold to post but at least It was a great trip otherwise and the family and friends that came had a great time.

We had 4 travel trailers and a few tents up there, the sites are very nice but almost don't fit our rigs but we made due. This is a great campground to stay at imo, has a lot to offer yet you still feel like your in the middle of the woods. Its small but the sites are well spaced out and the river runs right next to the campground so water access is easy, there is a natural running spring in the middle of camp with running drinking water that tastes great! Best part for me is you can reserve the sites online which is a must when dealing with my truck and trailer as it will only fit in some spaces. We did a big pot luck dinner one night that turned out great, tons of great food and even watched a movie around the fire afterward! My new projector and screen setup worked great I was very happy with it. We brought like a 1/4 cord of wood up so we had nice fires each night and good company and passed around some moonshine for though who dared!

Durring the day we let the kids play in the river while a couple of my buddies dammed off a nice swinging hole. My wife recently got a new Yorkshire pup who we brought and she was very busy watching over most of the time, but he seemed to enjoy it though. I took my oldest daughter Savannah stream fishing and she managed to catch here first brook trout and a couple more as well (we threw back a couple really tiny ones). I brought back a couple and cooked them over the fire and me and my youngest ate them up! It was an all around great trip other than not coming home with any gold, I think the gold is more concentrated and closer to the source this high up so chances of running into it are less, I dug some really amazing looking bedrock and cracks underwater and was blown away that there was nothing in them.. I found one small flat tiny flake in my very first pan then not a speck of color in anything after that. Good times and memories and since my wife was there I managed to get quite a few photos at least :icon_thumleft:

Asmbandits · Jun 19, 2016

Fathers Day Gold

Happy Fathers Day to all! I just got back from a nice overnight fathers day trip with my dad and my brother, We had a great time and got some decent gold!

I wanted to take my dad out for an overnight-er on the water, it had been a long time since hes done anything like that and I thought with fathers day coming up it would be a nice way to spend some time with him. I talked to my brother and after some research and planning we decided to do some exploring on the bikes in a new area while to see about assess to an area of the north fork American and if we couldn't make it down to the water we would head to the Bear river spot. After we spent about half the day exploring on the bikes with no luck accessing roads that I hoped we could we ended up heading to the bear and setting up there. We had a great trip, everyone had a good time and enjoyed the bear and campsite. My dad and brother brought some fishing stuff and my dad managed to catch 3 or 4 trout, one was about a foot which was a nice size fish for such a small hole it came from. We all sampled around hear and there with little to no luck. That area is very hit and miss ive found so we ended up back at the one consistent honey hole Ive worked in the past and did decent there panning clay muck the rest of the day. It was the most gold my dad and brother have found yet so they were happy and the gold is pretty consistent giving up about a picker or two in every other pan. I found the biggest picker, spied it laying in the clay while my dad had the best pan with about three pickers and some small stuff. My brother found another larger piece that was the largest until I found the larger one. We built our shanty tent and collected wood and built a lil bench to sit. We had plenty to eat as I was the only one who packed light, they packed all kinds of stuff so we had some sausage and peppers for dinner and even a 12 pack between us. It rained on us pretty good in the night but we stayed nice and dry. The next morning we panned again for a couple hours then packed up and headed back to the truck and made our way home, all super sore and exhausted from the digging. It was a good trip and for sure a great fathers day for all of us! The two of them had me beat with the gold they got but I did ok, I think we probably did about 1.25 grams total, not too bad for just panning for about 6 hours total.