Hangtowndiggins
Sr. Member
- Oct 1, 2013
- 327
- 1,088
- Detector(s) used
- GBpro. BGT 48" miner, 36" prospector and super mini
- Primary Interest:
- All Treasure Hunting
Was offered a great opportunity to prospect and mine my mothers friends private property on the cosumnes river near Placerville a few weeks back.. Made it out for a few hours yesterday, met up with the land owner (my moms friend) and talked with him for a couple minutes before he had to run off on some business (was in a hurry).. What a super cool guy! He gave me a quick rundown on the property and said Im free to explore, dig and do whatever the hell I want lol
and also said he will make me a copy of the gate lock key to come and go as I please
Was about 95 degrees in the sun and was limited on digging time so found a nice shady spot along the river bank perfect to drop the 36" bazooka prospector in and run first sample. Dug straight from river bed Into sluice, ran about 5 buckets before pulling the zooka for clean out. Sample didnt look too hot only had about 4 small colors In my pan but was also just digging in lose gravels off the top.. Had about another hour and half to work so figured I should take a look on the opposite side of the river. Crossed over and to my surprise a BIG dry flood channel with endless piled gravels to dig and the whole inside bank full of all the exposed dirty cracky slate bedrock i could ever dream of and just happened to be on the same side of the river as the old lode mine on the property is on! At this point I was pretty darn exited and thought to myself if there's good gold here I'm about to get into some! Was running short on time so hauled a$$ to go grab my gear and move to the other side of river. Got my bgt set up in record time (about 3 minutes) lol then grabbed my pick, shovel, buckets and spotted a couple good looking cracks in slate to break the heck out of. Ended up with three unclassified 5gal buckets full of about 75% chunks of slate and the other 25% dirt n gravels. Carried the buckets about 100' to the river next to sluice and gave em a good soaking before hand feeding it all through the bgt. If there's one type of material the bazooka isn't fond of it's gonna be those sharp flat angular pieces of slate but the zook actually did real well with it. Most pieces would land flat on the plate and ramp right over the grizzlies, I kept checking the trap and was looking great! Finished running my buckets, cleaned out the zooka and wouldn't ya know it!.. A good amount of color, a few nice lil pieces and lots of fines along with a LOT of black sand! (Still need to clean up will post pic later) didn't even break out the spoon and brush (was in a hurry) so probably left about the same amount of color just sitting on bedrock as I got in my pan (will clean it up next time, hopefully tomorrow)
All in all.. Few hours well spent and feel very grateful to have to have this new prospectors paradise to work. The owner (Charles) already said bring my friends! So would like go back out a few more times and offer to help him with projects and stuff around the property before I let him know I would like to set up a date to have a good group of Tnet buddies over for a day full of gold and good times (goal is for many more tnet days at this spot to come)
Until then ill keep you all posted on the progress and finds...
Ps.. Charles property hasn't been touched in a LONG time and his neighbor down stream recently found a 3/4oz nugget on his property...
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and also said he will make me a copy of the gate lock key to come and go as I pleaseWas about 95 degrees in the sun and was limited on digging time so found a nice shady spot along the river bank perfect to drop the 36" bazooka prospector in and run first sample. Dug straight from river bed Into sluice, ran about 5 buckets before pulling the zooka for clean out. Sample didnt look too hot only had about 4 small colors In my pan but was also just digging in lose gravels off the top.. Had about another hour and half to work so figured I should take a look on the opposite side of the river. Crossed over and to my surprise a BIG dry flood channel with endless piled gravels to dig and the whole inside bank full of all the exposed dirty cracky slate bedrock i could ever dream of and just happened to be on the same side of the river as the old lode mine on the property is on! At this point I was pretty darn exited and thought to myself if there's good gold here I'm about to get into some! Was running short on time so hauled a$$ to go grab my gear and move to the other side of river. Got my bgt set up in record time (about 3 minutes) lol then grabbed my pick, shovel, buckets and spotted a couple good looking cracks in slate to break the heck out of. Ended up with three unclassified 5gal buckets full of about 75% chunks of slate and the other 25% dirt n gravels. Carried the buckets about 100' to the river next to sluice and gave em a good soaking before hand feeding it all through the bgt. If there's one type of material the bazooka isn't fond of it's gonna be those sharp flat angular pieces of slate but the zook actually did real well with it. Most pieces would land flat on the plate and ramp right over the grizzlies, I kept checking the trap and was looking great! Finished running my buckets, cleaned out the zooka and wouldn't ya know it!.. A good amount of color, a few nice lil pieces and lots of fines along with a LOT of black sand! (Still need to clean up will post pic later) didn't even break out the spoon and brush (was in a hurry) so probably left about the same amount of color just sitting on bedrock as I got in my pan (will clean it up next time, hopefully tomorrow)
All in all.. Few hours well spent and feel very grateful to have to have this new prospectors paradise to work. The owner (Charles) already said bring my friends! So would like go back out a few more times and offer to help him with projects and stuff around the property before I let him know I would like to set up a date to have a good group of Tnet buddies over for a day full of gold and good times (goal is for many more tnet days at this spot to come)
Until then ill keep you all posted on the progress and finds...
Ps.. Charles property hasn't been touched in a LONG time and his neighbor down stream recently found a 3/4oz nugget on his property...
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Definitely gonna need your help to zero in on the pay...
Will do my best to have you over asap!.. Oh and another sweet part about the whole deal is, Charles is happy to let us keep whatever gold we find!
Thanks for the comp on the sample gold. I've poked around the area enough to think it's a good result for the small amount of work and time spent.. cant wait to see how the gold will go..
