Mytimetoshine

arizau · Jan 5, 2018

mytimetoshine said:
No, im just plain frustrated with my detector. I bought a Nokta Fors Gold + 2 years ago but i feel like it barely sounds off on gold and not at all in mineralization. I bring a 1/4 gram picker with me for tuning in the field and it will barely give u a signal on the river bank if at all

Are you using headphones? They may help if you are not.

Good luck.

mytimetoshine · Jan 14, 2018

Squeezed in one last day of mining/prospecting for 2017. New Years Eve Day I got out and worked the same general area I have been, water is crazy low. Moved a little further down stream and worked a nice little cove area. Cracks, troughs and mossing. Got a nice little picker but other than that not the best take for 4 hr work, but not the worst either!

63bkpkr · Jan 15, 2018

Hi MTTS,
Once again great photo's and sharing! The take may have been lower however I feel your odds will improve the more you are out there as long as you are thinking about what would be the most logical locations for gold to drop other than on the very bottom of the river. That nice picker is an example of what I'm suggesting as for that location it might just be the largest sized gold that the stream could Carry during the time the picker was dropped. I will assume that it was dropped sometime in early 2017 during one or both of the early year High Water Events, 50,000 and then 40,000 cfs. Both of those events were the highest water levels I've seen since I became aware of the USGS water flow tables, previous high that I am aware of was 30,000 cfs.

So, assuming (be careful here) there is some validity to my thinking take some time to examine/look at your current location to see what clues are there as to why would the gold drop where it did. Of course part of the reason is likely Under The Water just upriver from your location so you will only be able to see the above water clues but those may be helpful.

And of course your hard earned take was more than you would have had if you'd not gone out and yes your enjoyment of the trip may have been less due to the cold but you did get out into that beautiful country, had an adventure, found some gold and along the way got some exercise that is certainly needed to keep in shape to be able to do what you like to do. I think you were a winner on this trip......63bkpkr :hello2:

Johnnybravo300 · Jan 15, 2018

Looks like nice gold to me. It never gets old seeing that!

Asmbandits · Jan 16, 2018

Nice gold there Eric! Thats a nice chunike piece looks good.

mytimetoshine · Jan 17, 2018

Thanks guys!

So this year i hit a pocket of mercury, mercury coated flakes and almagam. I used my friends retort to recover and it came out pretty well. I had about 1.5g of amalgam and about 4.5g of coated flakes. I put them together and added some more mercury to bring it all together and ended up with a nice sponge of 5.2g

Asmbandits · Jan 17, 2018

Good job man, very professional and smart way to do it. Came out with a nice haul and cleaned the environment at the same time! I wonder how much $ it costs sierra fund to produce that much merc... :icon_scratch:

Sample Pan Dan · Jan 17, 2018

Asmbandits said:
Good job man, very professional and smart way to do it. Came out with a nice haul and cleaned the environment at the same time! I wonder how much $ it costs sierra fund to produce that much merc...

About 35 million/year

Asmbandits · Jan 18, 2018

John Hoser posted in the dredging section that they spent 2.35 mill on removind 2 1/2 GRAMS!! So ridiculous..

mytimetoshine · Jan 18, 2018

Not only did i recover over a gram. I did it for free. Wait no I PAID the state to let me remove it for them, through gas tax, sales tax and parking fees.

mytimetoshine · Jan 20, 2018

Its that time of year again. I actually look forward to this step beacuse the Gold Cube never ceases to amaze me in its ability to pull small amounts of gold out of huge amounts of heavy black sand.

So i do this every year. When I mine i dont even bring a snuffer with me. When im panning i just bring it down far enough to fan back and see if im on the gold then i dump into a secondary pan. When that pan starts to get about 1/3 full i pan it again carefully to remove as much blondes as possible then dump that into a plastic ziplock food storage bag to clean at home.

When I sluice i will pan those cons down carefully and also bring home. Most trips im able to just cleanup in my kitchen sink
Screen to 20 or 30 mesh and then pan,tap snuffer. But instead of throwing it out i empty into a bucket. A very small amount each time. At the end of the year i had a 2g bucket about half full but it weighs almost 30lbs!!! Now that is thick, very fine black, heavy sand. I consider myself to be very good with the pan and very little gold gets by me. If not for the Gold Cube it wouldnt be recoverable IMO. Or at least not worth the time it would take.

The fact that I can run that material in about 5 minutes makes it worthwhile for me. I know of no other machine that will proccess that quickly, and catch tiny float gold like this.

Anyways, added another .98g to the vial for the season total.

Final cleanup and weigh will be in the next journal entry. Stay tuned.

KevinInColorado · Jan 21, 2018

Cool story. If you initially also screened with a 50 mesh, you’d get more of that fine gold that is currently hiding from you until you pull out the Gold Cube.

RookmanGold · Jan 21, 2018

Recovery time is always great... brings back all the pleasurable memories spent finding it in the first place.

Aufisher · Jan 21, 2018

Good stuff!

mytimetoshine · Jan 25, 2018

Well, there it is, 2017. Didnt reach my goal of 20g but all things considered with the big water we had and some health issues. I might be able to get there so ill leave the same goal for 2018, 20 grams.

Asmbandits · Jan 26, 2018

Hell yeah man you rocked it! All gotten by hand!

Aufisher · Jan 27, 2018

Thats some hard earned gold. Respect to you!

RookmanGold · Jan 27, 2018

Lovely, a real pleasure to see.

mikep691 · Jan 27, 2018

Good job Erik!! I don't think we topped out above five or six grams for the season, but we were locked out of the forest for over a month because of the fire. Then the truck was stolen, then mechanical issues ended the season earlier that I had hoped. This year will be different though. You should try to come up one weekend. I'll put you on the business end of the creek powered rock and gravel washer..

mytimetoshine · Feb 3, 2018

3 weeks ago Saturday I headed back out to the same stretch of river, but was feeling like my take had been decreasing so I hit the other side directly across from where I had been. Much easier ground to move about and I felt like I was getting good gold but the cleanup was a little dissapointing. Still, not bad for January! First gold of 2018!