Mytimetoshine

Back on the gold!

Solo trip this time.. I went to one of my favorite spots. Water was probably low enough to cross to the other side but decided i would wait for it to drop a little more. Been looking at it unable to safely cross for a while now. Soon lol

Energy level was kinda low for some reason so i got lazy with my GGT set up and i paid the price for it. Flow was moving material but i was in a very uncomfortbale position while feeding it and i should have known better as past experience has proven thats its worth the extra initial effort to set in a spot where you can comfortably feed material. So as excpected my production was crap and i didnt even feel like moving the sluice to cleanout so i just ran and ran. I found a huge chunk of foam hung up in vegatation and tried to use it to make things more comfortable but it was too big and awkward to be usefull. Then it got wet and weighed like 75lbs so had to leave it at the waters edge..

Before i packed up for the day i was poking around high up on the bank and found it interesting that there were these small concenrations of slate on top of sand. Little piles about evrery 10- 50 ft Some with nice quartz veins in them. Its not obvious where they came from although directly up the canyon wall is thick vegatation so u cant see anything. Also some nice concentrations of black sand. around them. My gut is telling me to look into it more..i havent seen any slate like this anywhere on this river... we will see.. I did take a sample of the black sand..

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So the sample of black sand was 2 pan loads that i worked down to say 1/3 pan. At this point its solid black and i could just barely "fan back" enough to see if its holding and there was some crazy small stuff in it worth further testing so i dumped it in a food storage bag and then took another pan, same thing and dumped that in the bag too. To give you an idea it filled the food storage bag about 1/3. When i got home it weighed 3.5 lbs and let me tell you after not feeling great to begin with then add my sluice cons of 1.5 lbs my pack was killing me going up the hill.1900ft and then an hour of walking flat ground. By the time i got home my neck and traps were WRECKED!.... but it was worth it to me.

Ran that sand throught my Gold Cube and ive never, ever seen gold this small. And a lot of it. After it was dry in the pan it was hard to get out. The kind that makes your finger turn gold and you cant get it off...

By my calculations it is running at 1/16 of a gram per pan! And there is no work to get material. Just a huge bar of beach sand no rock at all...To bad a pan isnt going to work! LOL... now to figure out how im gonna haul my CC down there..hmm..

Took a pic with my USB microscope but really couldnt do it justice even with that.
Could the odd slate deposite be connected to the fine gold?? .20180620_211358.jpeg20180620_212045.jpeg20180620_210811442.jpeg
 

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mytimetoshine said:
So the sample of black sand was 2 pan loads that i worked down to say 1/3 pan. At this point its solid black and i could just barely "fan back" enough to see if its holding and there was some crazy small stuff in it worth further testing so i dumped it in a food storage bag and then took another pan, same thing and dumped that in the bag too. To give you an idea it filled the food storage bag about 1/3. When i got home it weighed 3.5 lbs and let me tell you after not feeling great to begin with then add my sluice cons of 1.5 lbs my pack was killing me going up the hill.1900ft and then an hour of walking flat ground. By the time i got home my neck and traps were WRECKED!.... but it was worth it to me.

Ran that sand throught my Gold Cube and ive never, ever seen gold this small. And a lot of it. After it was dry in the pan it was hard to get out. The kind that makes your finger turn gold and you cant get it off...

By my calculations it is running at 1/16 of a gram per pan! And there is no work to get material. Just a huge bar of beach sand no rock at all...To bad a pan isnt going to work! LOL... now to figure out how im gonna haul my CC down there..hmm..

Took a pic with my USB microscope but really couldnt do it justice even with that.
Could the odd slate deposite be connected to the fine gold?? .View attachment 1603994View attachment 1603998View attachment 1604001
Click to expand...

Figure out a way to attack that sand. My preferred order based on the equipment I have. A dry washer to run large volumes of material. They love pure sand feed and mine easily captures gold of the size shown. I think you mentioned the following in the past...a gold cube tray cut in half and made into a half size 2 tray setup. Third preference: look at post #14 on this thread. http://www.treasurenet.com/forums/p...ld-up-under-field-conditions.html#post5847573. The area of the bottom is a little less than twice that of the garret super sluice pan. I think that translates to quicker stratification? These pans are great for production panning (making concentrates to take home) if that is what you end up doing.

Good luck.
 

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Appreciate your insights Arizau. You know last year i was thinking about a drywasher bigtime but for a diff spot with no water. Never pulled the triger on one but had my eye on a Thompson puffer model. Ive never used one so its an irrational opinion but im not a beliver yet in a drywasher lol
 

Yeah. I don't trust my homemade sluices for fine gold but my drywasher has proven itself. Then again I only get the opportunity to sluice once a year for a couple of days.
 

Out after work for some gold. Been really challanging this year to get out during the week regretably.

Got to the spot kind of late and ran into a fellow prospector, so wasted some time chatting it up. I didnt bring my waders or boots so i just prospected the edge near the trail with a pan. Got a few promising flakes but 30 minutes in my elbows and legs started icthing uncontrolably. Like the worst ever. I wasnt seeing many skeeters but realized i was getting bit bad so i high tailed it out of there and wow. the next few days i had the worst itchy bytes all over even through my shirt on my shoulders..ill be bringing the spray next time

not to bad for 30 minutes with only a pan.
gold wise20180625_200204.jpeg20180625_200256.jpeg
 

Did you run into Henry..??
 

Back out the other Satutday. Solo mission again.. I decided to hit up a section of river that i hiked but never prospected. Its only workable(i think?) in the summer low water conditions. Its an easy hike imo but once u get to the river its all granite boulder hopping unless you cross the river. I decided to hop for a way to get away from a popular swimming hole and then crossed to a nice section of bedrock. I sampled up high and was getiing good fines and running through my GGT but neglegted to wet the light dry material first, i think it cost me some AU. I was also getting tired of hauling material so i decided to work some of the bedrock closer to the sluice that had some hard pack gravels. Great sample pan but i think very little once i started running... Cleanout was poor.. not what i had in mind thats for sure. Huge block and tackle piles all over so i think there could be something here waiting to be found but havent figured it out yet..

I found a very camolfauged seasonal creek/gulch entrance up above the bedrock. You could easily walk right past this an i guarantee its not visible from the other side of the river. I decided not to hike up in it just yet. There is a shear wall 30 ft high just insidea nd it was very spooky lol.
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Went back out to the same general area but prospected this huge, elevated bar. It had 3 huge Sugar Pines growing out of it surrounded by medium to large cobble. This bar is for sure under water most if not all winter floods so i find it interesting that these large trees are here, have to be at the very least 100 years old.

So i rock hoped a little down stream but then crossed to the bar. Wasnt finding much but my best pans were near the tree so i got my GGT set up and ran about 8 pans worth and cleanout out. Not good at all so i decided to save the day and head a little farther down river to the spot i worked last time.

Where i was walking there was no bedrock just cobble and boulders and sand. So im walking in the river a little and then back up on the sand bar when i decided to jump to a medium sized smooth granite boulder. Like maybe 2ft high for refrence. Loaded pack and full commitment leap with my left leg. My guard was down and i got careless i guess. Sandy wet boots and smooth granite is a bad combo. Im not sure my foot ever even touch that sucker, slipped right away, my ankle rolled to the inside with all my weight an pack coming down from the jump. Then the foot was lodged between another smaller rock as i fell back to the right. Did a good number on my thumb, wrist and shoulder when i hit. But ankle allmost snapped and my knee too. I rolled around in pain for 20 seconds wondering if my ankle was broken. So my extraction route instantly flashes in my head and besides having to swim back across the river i knew i could crawl out or at least to help if i had too fairly easily.

Having proper boots saved my ankle for sure. After a few minutes i felt pretty good to my surprise and i was able to finish mining and hike out with very little pain. The next day and all week my ankle and knee were decently sprained and sore. I got lucky this time... all things considered the gold was decent but i need to get back on better ground. 20180705_182355.jpeg20180705_182240.jpeg20180616_083856.jpeg20180616_142030.jpeg20180616_142036.jpeg20180616_142038.jpeg20180616_142040.jpeg20180616_083851.jpeg
 

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Glad you came away with no serious injuries. Sure is a lot of ways to hurt ourselves out there.
 

Licking my wounds but isnt going to stop me. Met up with Amsbandits for a great day of gold gettin!

Met up at the correct meeting site this time so we are off to a good start. We were both super tired from a long week and a late Friday night. We grabbed some grub and applied some ancient herbal medicine and Bam, were on the gold and feeling great!

Funny the spot we went to as there was much discussion previous to the trip and in a nutshell Jerry was right and i was wrong lol. Turns out i dont know everything, hmm go figure! ha!

Had a great day. Jerry ran his Bazooka 36 prospector and i ran my GGT Nugett a few feet away. I started testing around but was coming up empty. Jerry said just dig so i did and it worked. Sometimes its hard to get a read on what sluicing will produce especially with the fluid beds. It was a hot day so we packed up around 2 or 3 and hiked out. Good spot super close overall to the parking lot. 20180707_142020.jpeg20180707_142156.jpeg20180630_101828.jpeg20180630_101831.jpeg20180630_101838.jpeg20180630_101835.jpeg20180630_101833.jpeg
 

Every time you go out, you get out!

Every time you find a little gold, it was more than you had before so save it all!

Great pictures, thank you for sharing!!....................63bkpkr
 

mytimetoshine said:
Licking my wounds but isnt going to stop me. Met up with Amsbandits for a great day of gold gettin!

Met up at the correct meeting site this time so we are off to a good start. We were both super tired from a long week and a late Friday night. We grabbed some grub and applied some ancient herbal medicine and Bam, were on the gold and feeling great!

Funny the spot we went to as there was much discussion previous to the trip and in a nutshell Jerry was right and i was wrong lol. Turns out i dont know everything, hmm go figure! ha!

Had a great day. Jerry ran his Bazooka 36 prospector and i ran my GGT Nugett a few feet away. I started testing around but was coming up empty. Jerry said just dig so i did and it worked. Sometimes its hard to get a read on what sluicing will produce especially with the fluid beds. It was a hot day so we packed up around 2 or 3 and hiked out. Good spot super close overall to the parking lot. View attachment 1611071View attachment 1611072View attachment 1611073View attachment 1611074View attachment 1611075View attachment 1611076View attachment 1611077
Click to expand...
Nice pick up MTTS ... looks like a nice spot, and it goes without saying ... think less - dig more ..lol
 

Whats a better way to celebrate the 4th of July than digging up a little gold?!

Got up early to get in a dig before meeting up with my daughter at my parents house for bbq and fireworks.

Asmbandits had seperate plans with his daughter so i met them out there. I didnt want to intrude to much on their father daughter time so we hung out but worked 2 sides of the river. It was a beautiful day like high 80's and we all found gold. What more could you ask for? Great weather, beautiful scenery, good company, gold and then celebrating with family having great food and drinks. The perfect day!!!20180718_174042.jpeg20180718_174233.jpeg
 

63bkpkr said:
Every time you go out, you get out!

Every time you find a little gold, it was more than you had before so save it all!

Great pictures, thank you for sharing!!....................63bkpkr
Click to expand...
Ive never sold any, i have every flake ive ever found still. Im hoarding lol
 

Hey shine....
Great journal ya got going here.
Nice gold too...... Keep up the good work...:thumbsup:

I haven't gotten out much this year for one reason or another... Mostly just haven't felt up to it I guess.
Been looking at my beach and even though summer sucks for beach mining I have had some ideas to try when I do get back out there.
 

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