MA/VT/NH Panning

[dvdtharaldson]

Hi ,

This is the first time I have posted on this website. I live in Western MA and am planning a trip during the last few days of September to Vermont to try my luck panning. I was going to try Buffalo Brook and Five Corners in the Bridgewater area. Does anybody know how far down you ordinarily have to dig to hit black sands in those areas? Any comments on whether you have to dig deep or just stay on the surface? I was thinking Irene probably deposited alot of flood gold on the surface. Does anybody know if some of the small brooks high up in the mts. north of Bridgewater contain gold? All I ever hear is Buffalo Brook and Five Corners. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. As you probably could tell I am new to panning for gold.

Thanks,

David

 

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[E.MassAuMan]

Headed out to the Log Flume for the chance to get some of that Massachusetts Chunky and Super Chunky gold[emoji23]

When I got there early in the morning I was glad to see that I had it to myself but it was pretty evident that the area had been hit really hard, including some serious dredging, I can only assume by a recent arrival to the area who is a Gold Rush wannabe. Found that the spot I had been working before had been spared and began working the clay layer. What I found that was interesting was a trickle of water that was flowing into the hole that had been made by previous digs became much heavier the more I excavated towards the flow which was not coming from the main stream channel but the bank and I hit a nice little pay streak.

Some of the Chunky Stuff

I will be back to find the flow source

 

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[Mass Hole No.59]

I happen to have a few hours off this morning, so I got together with WMG and headed up to backyard brook. E.MassAuMan turned me on to a nice spot at the side of the road which had been performing very well lately. Unfortunately the word got out and the spot has been heavily dredged in the past two weeks or so. It didn't produce well for us at all today.

We then decided to head up to the stone wall which usually is a quiet place in which to set up a sluice. When I got there I set up my AM Recon and started to sluice. To my surprise and delight a brook trout swam right up my sluice and continued upstream. I felt privileged. Unfortunately the feeling didn't get to last long. Soon after, an abutter of the property owner threatened us with legal action if we didn't leave at once.

This is a place that I have been prospecting for about 2.5 years. There aren't any no trespassing signs anywhere on the property. I have never had an issue while prospecting there before today. In fact I have spoken with several of the abutters who often carry on conversations with me and are always very friendly with me.

It seems that one of the abutters let a person on their property to dredge the brook. This particular person caused many headaches for the majority of the land owners. Now, from what I am told they no longer want anybody on their properties. This is an example of one wingnut ruining a good thing for everybody. There weren't any problems until this idiot decided to campout there and run a dredge for hours at a time. From what I have heard he even invited his unsavory friends to dredge the area. These people don't care about posted signs and or land owners rights. In fact there are now a lot of break ins in the area. So now 99 % of the brook is posted. What a shame!

Happy trails and best pans,
MH#59

 

[Golden_Crab]

I happen to have a few hours off this morning, so I got together with WMG and headed up to backyard brook. E.MassAuMan turned me on to a nice spot at the side of the road which had been performing very well lately. Unfortunately the word got out and the spot has been heavily dredged in the past two weeks or so. It didn't produce well for us at all today.

We then decided to head up to the stone wall which usually is a quiet place in which to set up a sluice. When I got there I set up my AM Recon and started to sluice. To my surprise and delight a brook trout swam right up my sluice and continued upstream. I felt privileged. Unfortunately the feeling didn't get to last long. Soon after, an abutter of the property owner threatened us with legal action if we didn't leave at once.

This is a place that I have been prospecting for about 2.5 years. There aren't any no trespassing signs anywhere on the property. I have never had an issue while prospecting there before today. In fact I have spoken with several of the abutters who often carry on conversations with me and are always very friendly with me.

It seems that one of the abutters let a person on their property to dredge the brook. This particular person caused many headaches for the majority of the land owners. Now, from what I am told they no longer want anybody on their properties. This is an example of one wingnut ruining a good thing for everybody. There weren't any problems until this idiot decided to campout there and run a dredge for hours at a time. From what I have heard he even invited his unsavory friends to dredge the area. These people don't care about posted signs and or land owners rights. In fact there are now a lot of break ins in the area. So now 99 % of the brook is posted. What a shame!

Happy trails and best pans,
MH#59

So I'm not saying do anything illegal by any means... but best find that fool. He clearly doesn't need his dredge. Ever.

 

[brianc053]

I happen to have a few hours off this morning, so I got together with WMG and headed up to backyard brook. E.MassAuMan turned me on to a nice spot at the side of the road which had been performing very well lately. Unfortunately the word got out and the spot has been heavily dredged in the past two weeks or so. It didn't produce well for us at all today.

We then decided to head up to the stone wall which usually is a quiet place in which to set up a sluice. When I got there I set up my AM Recon and started to sluice. To my surprise and delight a brook trout swam right up my sluice and continued upstream. I felt privileged. Unfortunately the feeling didn't get to last long. Soon after, an abutter of the property owner threatened us with legal action if we didn't leave at once.

This is a place that I have been prospecting for about 2.5 years. There aren't any no trespassing signs anywhere on the property. I have never had an issue while prospecting there before today. In fact I have spoken with several of the abutters who often carry on conversations with me and are always very friendly with me.

It seems that one of the abutters let a person on their property to dredge the brook. This particular person caused many headaches for the majority of the land owners. Now, from what I am told they no longer want anybody on their properties. This is an example of one wingnut ruining a good thing for everybody. There weren't any problems until this idiot decided to campout there and run a dredge for hours at a time. From what I have heard he even invited his unsavory friends to dredge the area. These people don't care about posted signs and or land owners rights. In fact there are now a lot of break ins in the area. So now 99 % of the brook is posted. What a shame!

Happy trails and best pans,
MH#59

I'm sad to hear this MH#59. A few years ago I loved coming up to Western Mass and doing some panning and maybe a little sluicing. I haven't been up there in a year or so, but it sounds like I don't need to come back...even when I was up there last I noticed that the classic Couch Brook location had been significantly worked with a dredge, and maybe right then and there I knew the writing was on the wall.

I guess this is the other side of the dredge restriction argument. Everyone knows that in California they don't allow dredging, and there's uproar about it. But, there's gold for recreational prospectors like me to find. In Mass there's no restriction...and the gold is quickly going away (and there's no "flood gold replenishment" like in California or New Hampshire, and no loads that are eroding new gold into streams).
Maybe NH and VT have it right, with restrictions or permits required (though I've never seen the permit requirement enforced in NH).

 

[E.MassAuMan]

MrMH59 and myself got together and met up at the Log Flume. It had been 2 weeks since I had been out there and it was evident that it was still being worked over pretty good.
View attachment 1510611

David Working a spot up stream from The Flume



The Dynamic Duo taking a well deserved break/selfie!

The flow that I mentioned in a prior post was now no longer evident as the spot had been prospected and heavy rains a few days before had significantly increased the flow in the Brook. My cons from the Recon sluice did not contain a lot of the fines that I had been getting in prior trips probably due to the fact the sluice was running a bit too ‘hot’ .

We packed up and headed over to ‘Townline Creek’
Which had a minimal flow going in it. We did some prospecting, I with a trowel and a pan did some digging and was pleased to find 4 pc in about twice as many pans, in what David commented were Kevin in Colorado’ tailings from a trip to the spot 2 years earlier [emoji3]

David surveying the landscape for that one good spot!


My take for the day

Happy Halloween!

 

[KevinInColorado]

Nice gold!

I was running a Bazooka supermini that day. It did seem to lose some smaller gold but the pickers I found by moving volumes of dirt made up for the losses I guess!

 

[bpete]

Great thread and nice gold, you cannot beat the fall colors both the trees and the gold.

 

[GrizzlyGoldTrap]

Nice color! Gotta love it when you are panning out those cons and get a glimpse of a flake the size of some that you are finding. Gets the heart pumping...

 

[arizau]

MrMH59 and myself got together and met up at the Log Flume. It had been 2 weeks since I had been out there and it was evident that it was still being worked over pretty good.
View attachment 1510611

David Working a spot up stream from The Flume

View attachment 1510612

The Dynamic Duo taking a well deserved break/selfie!

The flow that I mentioned in a prior post was now no longer evident as the spot had been prospected and heavy rains a few days before had significantly increased the flow in the Brook. My cons from the Recon sluice did not contain a lot of the fines that I had been getting in prior trips probably due to the fact the sluice was running a bit too ‘hot’ .

We packed up and headed over to ‘Townline Creek’
Which had a minimal flow going in it. We did some prospecting, I with a trowel and a pan did some digging and was pleased to find 4 pc in about twice as many pans, in what David commented were Kevin in Colorado’ tailings from a trip to the spot 2 years earlier [emoji3]

David surveying the landscape for that one good spot!
View attachment 1510615

My take for the day
View attachment 1510616
Happy Halloween!

Pretty, pretty pretty!

Even the smallest piece of gold shown appears to me to be around the plus 30 mesh range. Are you not finding anything smaller? Point being; are you screen classifying and panning the smaller mesh sized concentrates separately with no positive results? Virtually everything I am currently finding is of various sizes below 30 mesh.

Good luck.

 

[E.MassAuMan]

Hi
At this particular spot that I/ We have been working for about 3 months now the amount of smaller gold we find has been going down and this past trip in particular I think because my MacKirk Recon Sluice setup was not ideal in the faster water that was present due to heavy rain a few days earlier. I classify to either a 1/2 inch or 1/8 inch before panning and or sluicing. This day was 1/8 inch. I generally bring home some classified material as well, below is what I got out of a Large Planters Peanut sized container, and it is small


The Recon is catching small gold as seen in earlier posts about this spot. Above was just panned

I will now take what I have at home and classify down to 30 mesh and re-pan it , I have in the past found a few pieces that snuck by the first iteration of processing.

But out of new dirt so I guess I’ll have to get back out to Leyden Ma area again soon.

 

[Mass Hole No.59]

Nice gold!

I was running a Bazooka supermini that day. It did seem to lose some smaller gold but the pickers I found by moving volumes of dirt made up for the losses I guess!

Could it have been the operator rather than the sluice that lost those colors?

 

[KevinInColorado]

Could it have been the operator rather than the sluice that lost those colors?

Haha, ouch!

Seriously, that’s not likely. The Supermini is known for not holding onto small gold very well.

 

[Mass Hole No.59]

Anybody have any comments on the "bazooka-ish" gold traps, and how they compare to the original. I would really be interested in hearing about them from the smallest right up to the largest. I have only seen one in action, but unfortunately I wasn't around for the clean out. I did see a couple of colors on the ribbing before the trap though.

 

[KevinInColorado]

Anybody have any comments on the "bazooka-ish" gold traps, and how they compare to the original. I would really be interested in hearing about them from the smallest right up to the largest. I have only seen one in action, but unfortunately I wasn't around for the clean out. I did see a couple of colors on the ribbing before the trap though.

Well sure...I have the new Grizzly Goldtrap Explorer (full disclosure: it was a gift from the manufacturer as thanks for technical advising I did on sluice design changes) and I can definitely say it does everything the Bazookas did and more. It holds the smallest gold better for example. Here’s a cleanout from my 2nd or 3rd time running it where you can see the -100 mesh gold it’s catching.


Also, the Explorer is a replacement for the Bazooka Sniper but I find I can feed it faster which I like a lot. I have yet to try the bigger sluice from Grizzly but hope to soon btw.

 

[Mass Hole No.59]

Well sure...I have the new Grizzly Goldtrap Explorer (full disclosure: it was a gift from the manufacturer as thanks for technical advising I did on sluice design changes) and I can definitely say it does everything the Bazookas did and more. It holds the smallest gold better for example. Here’s a cleanout from my 2nd or 3rd time running it where you can see the -100 mesh gold it’s catching.
View attachment 1514032

Also, the Explorer is a replacement for the Bazooka Sniper but I find I can feed it faster which I like a lot. I have yet to try the bigger sluice from Grizzly but hope to soon btw.

Hey Kevin,

What's worth more in your picture the silver or the gold?

 

[KevinInColorado]

About $2 of gold and a buck for the dime lol!

 

[Ben Cartwright SASS]

About $2 of gold and a buck for the dime lol!

Kevin
I have been concentrating on Coin Roll Hunting and buying junk silver rather than looking for gold, easier on my knees. Of course I also picked up another hobby, Astronomy, I am big into SOLAR IMAGING
Check out my website http://www.solarhead.net

 

[E.MassAuMan]

What better way to end the Thanksgiving Holiday weekend than to go out Prospecting on a clear crisp late Autumn Day in Massachusetts. A phone call to Mr MH59 and we met up for “ one more last time “ out at the Log Flume, in the Couch Brook area.

This particular day I brought my MacKirk Adventurer Sluice and David had his Bazooka.

David hard at work


My take for the day, I was quite pleased with the small gold the Adventurer caught


The spot continues to produce despite being worked almost daily.

 

[Todogz]

Hi David,

I live in Western Mass also. I've hit Couch Brook in Bernardston and had decent luck with flower gold.

 

[Ben Cartwright SASS]

David
Good cleanup. I miss getting in the streams unfortunately they don't make them handicap accessible. I am keeping all my gear so if and when they give me new knees I can get back in streams. Right now even doing one or two stairs is painful.
I know that most paydirt you buy on the bay is salted but it allows me to find gold and keep in practice. As I mentioned to Kevin I am doing some coin roll hunting, when I get the boxes of half dollars my wife or my son brings them into the house. So far since T-Day I have found 70 silver halves both 90% and 40% worth about $350.

My favorite places were/are in the White Mountains.