fishnfacts
Full Member
- Mar 26, 2014
- 183
- 220
- Detector(s) used
- BH Disc 2200
- Primary Interest:
- All Treasure Hunting
I am sorry for taking so long to finally post my 2nd adventure to the Llano uplift but with work and trying to clean my cons it has been a very busy couple of weeks. So here it is with all the little innuendos I left you with in my previous post.
I left Arlington around 8AM Thursday packed and ready to clean out all those crevices I had left from my trip 2 weeks prior.
I arrive at the ranch and while I am speaking with the ranch hands and loading up on wood they inform me that there is a big bad storm on its way and expected around 5:30PM. I get to my base camp area around 1:30 so I figure I had better wait before setting up my camp. At the time the weather is great but in Texas the storms can come up fast and furious. While sitting in the Cruiser and listening to some old country music I doze of to be awakened to a thunderous boom. It is now 8:PM and I had slept for 4 hours. I sit my sit up and look to the sky to see dark clouds moving in. I think to myself I am glad I dozed off or I would have set up camp already. Soon the rains start and they are heavy accompanied by lightning. As I watch mother nature unload her fury lightning strikes in front of me about 25 yards away. Sparks fly and the hair on my neck perks up. This was to close for comfort and though the Cruiser is low I am one of the highest points on this flat. I decided to head to town to wait the storm out at a local refreshment establishment. Now on my way to town you can't go no faster than 40 MPH because of the pounding rains. I am in the right lane when an older car and all I remember is seeing the steal bumpers one of which clips me on the drivers side rear and puts me in the ditch. The other one is seen fading in the rains as he kept going. No major damage and I am able to back out of the ditch and make my way to town. After the storm passes I head back to the ranch to my base area and settle in for the night in the car to await daylight.
I awake around 6:30Am to a clearing sky and the sun just starting to peek through. With all my wood now soaked I fire up the Weber to make some coffee. With my cup in hand I make my way down to the river which the day before had been flowing beautifully but now was a muddy torrent of water rushing down river. I resign myself to a relaxing day and plenty of time to tweak my home made sluice.
As I am sitting enjoy the beauty around me one of the ranch hands come down to check on me and while talking I find out that after I had posted pictures of my last adventure the dredgers had returned. Not thinking anything of it I continue on with my tasks at hand which included restacking all my wood into a drying column so I would have a fire later. As I am fiddling around camp I notice a vehicle with 2 gentlemen atop the hill with binoculars that appear to be scoping out the river, after all this is a awesome section of the river with all kinds of wildlife that visits. After seeing them looking then leaving and returning several times throughout out the morning I start to get an uneasy feeling. Around 1PM I head up to the ranch office to get some more ice and the ranch hand I had spoken with earlier asked me if I knew these guys as they were the dredgers that had been there the week before. Now I figure something is fishy and they are watching me to see where I had gotten my gold earlier. What made me paranoid was that I was heading to an area very few had permission to go to as you had to secure permission from the rancher who had leased the land from the rancher I was staying at.
Right at dusk I load my gear and head to the end of the ranch to the fence where I would be crossing onto the leased land. I walk in about 200 yards and what do I see but the truck that had been watching me. Not having permission themselves they stooped and brought out the binoculars so I acted as if I was going to work that area of the river until darkness fell and I saw their lights fade into the darkness. I put on my headlight and begin the final leg of this trip into the darkness of night. After reaching the creek area I was told about I light the big lights and begin my task of classify the dirt to the lightest possible size so I could pack it out without falling over from a heart attack. I dug to bedrock and worked a massive oak trees root system that was exposed by the creek.
The next morning, Saturday, the river has cleared up but the water is still moving pretty quick so I grab a bucket and my $.99 kids super soaker tube and head for the crevices only to find they are void of any paydirt. I move around and find just a few small areas that have not be sucked of their treasures. The rest of the day would be spent cleaning up all the cons I had found.
The creek had provided me with a few small but chunky flakes and a little speck here and there. Not the payout I was hoping for but a great clean up as far as I was concerned.
As I had said in my previous post I had dug a prickly pear to take home and had found a perfect specimen down the rad about a mile from camp. When I got home and was planting it I saw something shiny in the dirt. I am almost half way through cleaning the flatland dirt and so far have recovered 1 picker a few flecks and some flour that is so fine I can't really separate it from the black and blonde fine sands that are in the dirt.
This brings me to a couple of questions.
How do you guys clean up some good? I always still have BS and other material left in with the fines. The dirt from the flat land has some flour in it that is so fine I can only separate like a quarter teaspoon at a time and then it is still contaminated with other material I don't have a miller table only pans to do my final clean ups.
Second question. I processed about 50 gallons of dirt at the creek to get the little I got and only 3 shovel fulls of the flat land dirt. The creek provided bigger gold but I think the FL dirt will produce as much of this super fine flour in just 3 shovels however it is extremely hard to separate. Which would you go for?
I will post pictures at a later date as I want to ensure that none give clues to locations that I worked.
Thanks for reading and I look forward to learning more from all your adventures and yes I do plan on making a trip somewhere in your area, Ca, Co, Ok or anywhere else that offers the chance to find one of those heavy pans that I see so often on TN.
I left Arlington around 8AM Thursday packed and ready to clean out all those crevices I had left from my trip 2 weeks prior.
I arrive at the ranch and while I am speaking with the ranch hands and loading up on wood they inform me that there is a big bad storm on its way and expected around 5:30PM. I get to my base camp area around 1:30 so I figure I had better wait before setting up my camp. At the time the weather is great but in Texas the storms can come up fast and furious. While sitting in the Cruiser and listening to some old country music I doze of to be awakened to a thunderous boom. It is now 8:PM and I had slept for 4 hours. I sit my sit up and look to the sky to see dark clouds moving in. I think to myself I am glad I dozed off or I would have set up camp already. Soon the rains start and they are heavy accompanied by lightning. As I watch mother nature unload her fury lightning strikes in front of me about 25 yards away. Sparks fly and the hair on my neck perks up. This was to close for comfort and though the Cruiser is low I am one of the highest points on this flat. I decided to head to town to wait the storm out at a local refreshment establishment. Now on my way to town you can't go no faster than 40 MPH because of the pounding rains. I am in the right lane when an older car and all I remember is seeing the steal bumpers one of which clips me on the drivers side rear and puts me in the ditch. The other one is seen fading in the rains as he kept going. No major damage and I am able to back out of the ditch and make my way to town. After the storm passes I head back to the ranch to my base area and settle in for the night in the car to await daylight.
I awake around 6:30Am to a clearing sky and the sun just starting to peek through. With all my wood now soaked I fire up the Weber to make some coffee. With my cup in hand I make my way down to the river which the day before had been flowing beautifully but now was a muddy torrent of water rushing down river. I resign myself to a relaxing day and plenty of time to tweak my home made sluice.
As I am sitting enjoy the beauty around me one of the ranch hands come down to check on me and while talking I find out that after I had posted pictures of my last adventure the dredgers had returned. Not thinking anything of it I continue on with my tasks at hand which included restacking all my wood into a drying column so I would have a fire later. As I am fiddling around camp I notice a vehicle with 2 gentlemen atop the hill with binoculars that appear to be scoping out the river, after all this is a awesome section of the river with all kinds of wildlife that visits. After seeing them looking then leaving and returning several times throughout out the morning I start to get an uneasy feeling. Around 1PM I head up to the ranch office to get some more ice and the ranch hand I had spoken with earlier asked me if I knew these guys as they were the dredgers that had been there the week before. Now I figure something is fishy and they are watching me to see where I had gotten my gold earlier. What made me paranoid was that I was heading to an area very few had permission to go to as you had to secure permission from the rancher who had leased the land from the rancher I was staying at.
Right at dusk I load my gear and head to the end of the ranch to the fence where I would be crossing onto the leased land. I walk in about 200 yards and what do I see but the truck that had been watching me. Not having permission themselves they stooped and brought out the binoculars so I acted as if I was going to work that area of the river until darkness fell and I saw their lights fade into the darkness. I put on my headlight and begin the final leg of this trip into the darkness of night. After reaching the creek area I was told about I light the big lights and begin my task of classify the dirt to the lightest possible size so I could pack it out without falling over from a heart attack. I dug to bedrock and worked a massive oak trees root system that was exposed by the creek.
The next morning, Saturday, the river has cleared up but the water is still moving pretty quick so I grab a bucket and my $.99 kids super soaker tube and head for the crevices only to find they are void of any paydirt. I move around and find just a few small areas that have not be sucked of their treasures. The rest of the day would be spent cleaning up all the cons I had found.
The creek had provided me with a few small but chunky flakes and a little speck here and there. Not the payout I was hoping for but a great clean up as far as I was concerned.
As I had said in my previous post I had dug a prickly pear to take home and had found a perfect specimen down the rad about a mile from camp. When I got home and was planting it I saw something shiny in the dirt. I am almost half way through cleaning the flatland dirt and so far have recovered 1 picker a few flecks and some flour that is so fine I can't really separate it from the black and blonde fine sands that are in the dirt.
This brings me to a couple of questions.
How do you guys clean up some good? I always still have BS and other material left in with the fines. The dirt from the flat land has some flour in it that is so fine I can only separate like a quarter teaspoon at a time and then it is still contaminated with other material I don't have a miller table only pans to do my final clean ups.
Second question. I processed about 50 gallons of dirt at the creek to get the little I got and only 3 shovel fulls of the flat land dirt. The creek provided bigger gold but I think the FL dirt will produce as much of this super fine flour in just 3 shovels however it is extremely hard to separate. Which would you go for?
I will post pictures at a later date as I want to ensure that none give clues to locations that I worked.
Thanks for reading and I look forward to learning more from all your adventures and yes I do plan on making a trip somewhere in your area, Ca, Co, Ok or anywhere else that offers the chance to find one of those heavy pans that I see so often on TN.
Upvote
0
