Jeffro
Silver Member
My first gold nugget pocket came from a trip to Galice Creek, a tributary of the Rogue River here in Oregon. A soon-to-be friend was holding an outing on his claim that was sponsored by a local gold mining club. The weather was beautiful- a pleasant 70 degree weekend and sunny, as I recall.
Dad, Mom, and I loaded up the camp trailer with just about every tool we had in our arsenal which at that time was pretty slim pickins, as we had just recently been bit by "the gold bug". But we did have a 2 1/2 inch Keene dredge/highbanker combo which was fairly new, and worked like a champ.
So we spent the three day weekend working our tails off, poking holes in the tiny creek here and there, hoping to at least get a lead on a streak. Nobody was finding much of anything, all weekend. Pretty slim pickins for one of the best producers in Southern Oregon! On Sunday, pretty late, most of the other folks who had camped out with us had already loaded up and were looking forward to the last meal of the trip. The plan was to have a raffle and other prizes and have a great last evening together.
About an hour before sunset, I saw my first little nugget laying there on a bird's eye swirl of quartz in the bedrock! We had been testing just downstream from an old Chinese ground sluice, hoping for some smaller pickers that made it through in the tailings. The water was just deep enough that I had to get my head completely submerged to reach the bedrock, "long arming" it. Well, that quartz LOOKED pretty broken up.... maybe I could poke at it and find some little flakes that had worked their way on down a bit? I was sure hoping that would be the case!
As I started poking at it with the nozzle of the 2 1/2 inch, I could see that now familiar flash as a nice flake jumped the gap between its resting place and my nozzle. Then another, and another! Man, I started hammering and poking away at that quartz so hard it was crumbling to dust, making the surrounding water milky white. I soon learned to keep the nozzle near the dust cloud to remove the silt.
One after another the flakes and little nuggets kept coming, and we kept at it until sundown. The whole time Dad was standing over my shoulder, listening to me shouting underwater! LOL! I gave him a shot, and we took turns poking and prying away at that quartz until we had a fairly small hole dug in the bedrock, about 5 inches round and 6 inches deep.
All in all, there were 50 plus pieces of gold in that last hour, and half wouldn't go up in our snuffer bottle.... heheheheh man we were rich! We were so ecstatic we had a pretty hard time getting back to camp with our poke and equipment.
All good things come to an end, and we were definately wore out after moving tons of rocks all weekend. The supper was a potluck and I had no clue what good cooks the mining community had! After filling our bellies up with all that good grub, we loaded up and made the trip back to Eugene, some 100 miles north.
It was a very memorable weekend, and the start of an obsession with finding gold. All from less than a quarter ounce, heheheheh!
Of course, the real gold was found in my family, friends, and being away from the stress of the city for at least a little while.
Dad, Mom, and I loaded up the camp trailer with just about every tool we had in our arsenal which at that time was pretty slim pickins, as we had just recently been bit by "the gold bug". But we did have a 2 1/2 inch Keene dredge/highbanker combo which was fairly new, and worked like a champ.
So we spent the three day weekend working our tails off, poking holes in the tiny creek here and there, hoping to at least get a lead on a streak. Nobody was finding much of anything, all weekend. Pretty slim pickins for one of the best producers in Southern Oregon! On Sunday, pretty late, most of the other folks who had camped out with us had already loaded up and were looking forward to the last meal of the trip. The plan was to have a raffle and other prizes and have a great last evening together.
About an hour before sunset, I saw my first little nugget laying there on a bird's eye swirl of quartz in the bedrock! We had been testing just downstream from an old Chinese ground sluice, hoping for some smaller pickers that made it through in the tailings. The water was just deep enough that I had to get my head completely submerged to reach the bedrock, "long arming" it. Well, that quartz LOOKED pretty broken up.... maybe I could poke at it and find some little flakes that had worked their way on down a bit? I was sure hoping that would be the case!
As I started poking at it with the nozzle of the 2 1/2 inch, I could see that now familiar flash as a nice flake jumped the gap between its resting place and my nozzle. Then another, and another! Man, I started hammering and poking away at that quartz so hard it was crumbling to dust, making the surrounding water milky white. I soon learned to keep the nozzle near the dust cloud to remove the silt.
One after another the flakes and little nuggets kept coming, and we kept at it until sundown. The whole time Dad was standing over my shoulder, listening to me shouting underwater! LOL! I gave him a shot, and we took turns poking and prying away at that quartz until we had a fairly small hole dug in the bedrock, about 5 inches round and 6 inches deep.
All in all, there were 50 plus pieces of gold in that last hour, and half wouldn't go up in our snuffer bottle.... heheheheh man we were rich! We were so ecstatic we had a pretty hard time getting back to camp with our poke and equipment.
All good things come to an end, and we were definately wore out after moving tons of rocks all weekend. The supper was a potluck and I had no clue what good cooks the mining community had! After filling our bellies up with all that good grub, we loaded up and made the trip back to Eugene, some 100 miles north.
It was a very memorable weekend, and the start of an obsession with finding gold. All from less than a quarter ounce, heheheheh!
Of course, the real gold was found in my family, friends, and being away from the stress of the city for at least a little while.
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