South Sound Gold

[AlwaysBusyJ]

So I was at work last week and a coworker was on google maps showing someone a new house he was thinking about buying, out of the corner of my eye I noticed a small river on the edge of the map, I ask him to zoom in on it and see some promising looking gravel bars on a few bends. They told me the area was easy to access, so when I went home I did some research and found several interesting looking spots, only problem was the area isn't known to be a gold bearing location, at least I had never heard of anyone getting gold from around there. But it was only 30 minutes from where I live so I figured I'd give it a shot anyway. I only took a few pans, shovel, and one bucket with me, I really didn't expect to find anything. Once I got on site I found some bigger rocks on the front edge of the bend and took a test pan.... 2 small pieces! I was surprised at finding anything at all, so I took a harder look at my location and spy the biggest rocks at the very front edge of the bend near a large fallen tree. I worked my way to it taking test pans every foot or so along the way. Sure enough as soon as I started panning that spot my pan was filled with tiny garnets, so I knew if there was good gold it should be here. I panned it down and found about 20 colors! Now I was wishing I had brought more equipment. I only worked for little more than an hour and got drenched the whole time by a constant rain. My poor wife stayed out there with me the whole time! I might have stayed longer but she didn't look like she was having much fun, so I took off a little early. Keeping my wife happy is more important to me than finding gold, and better for my health! Anyway heres what I ended up with:




Out here in Washington I've found gold in the mountains and on the coast, had no idea there was much inbetween the two. I'll be doing a lot more research now! Nice to able to find some in the south sound thats closer to where I live.

 

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[killian110]

Nice! Wish I had a place like that in my backyard.

 

[Prospecting P.]

nice find! gold is where you find it, sure have learned that living around here

 

[wa-au-nut]

Plenty of spots around the sound had mining in the past. Pick up a copy of Ghost Towns of Washington and it will give you an idea of where minig was done. I was told by a old timer you can find color in just about any stream in Wa. Think he was right, some Glasail some not. But it's here. Congrats on your find. Nice to find something close to home! You near Oly?

 

[AlwaysBusyJ]

Thanks for the replies. I live in Tacoma but was down near Olympia when I was panning. I saw a copy of that book at the gold show last weekend, should've picked it up! I've already got me eye on a few other places I want to check out.

 

[Prospecting P.]

was some cool stuff at the gold show, my girlfriend and got the last 2 vials of gold on sunday! was worth the drive and fingers crossed that i win the high banker, dredge or gpx 5000 lol

 

[AlwaysBusyJ]

I never win anything! I have terrible luck with raffels. I did pick up a few pieces of equipment I needed though.

 

[2screwed]

Looks like a great day on the river! Congratulations! The better half and I went to the gold show on Saturday. She won a Gold Buddy recirculating sluice in the drawing. Cant wait to try it out.

 

[Prospecting P.]

ive been trying to hike to my new spot but it keeps snowing where im gonna camp

 

[Dirk Pitt]

There is a little in Capitol forest on Waddell creek as well. Bob

 

[AlwaysBusyJ]

Went down again for just a little bit, only had time to run about one 5gal bucket of material screened to an 1/8. The water levels going down so it opened up a little more area to check and it held a little better stuff than last time. And the best news is it didn't rain a drop the whole time I was out there! Apparently after our previous trip down there my wife somehow ended up in a patch of poison ivy and she got a pretty bad rash all over her hand, looked pretty terrible. Funny thing is she barely touched any plants at all and I was going in and out of the woods all day and didn't get a speck of it on me. So this last trip before we headed out she bundled up head to toe and had a huge bottle of calamine at the ready. Thankfully for her no new poison ivy on this trip! Anyway here's the pictures from my take this weekend, love the gold had a great color to it, but man this stuff is a real pain in the butt to pan out. The gold is even flatter than the pics make it look, so it moves easier than it should in the pan, if I start swirling too hard it'll just fly away with the blacksand, took a lot of patience!

 

[Weldin It]

That looks so nice. Wish my neighborhood would have color like that. Keep it up

 

[KevinInColorado]

Looks great, nice work...keep improving those panning skills. Try using a magnet to pull out the iron sands before panning. Then separate the stuff that fits thru a 50 mesh screen separately...it will make it easier to pan both the +50 and the -50. Then learn the tapping method for true panning domination!

 

[DizzyDigger]

<snip> Anyway here's the pictures from my take this weekend, love the gold had a great color to it, but man this stuff is a real pain in the butt to pan out. The gold is even flatter than the pics make it look, so it moves easier than it should in the pan, if I start swirling too hard it'll just fly away with the blacksand, took a lot of patience!

Looks like you've found a good producer of flood/float gold......sweet!

Heading to a local spot of mine tomorrow, and hope to find much of the same kind
of gold. Seems we get a lot of that here on the West side of the Cascades, as
I've also found it in the rivers between us (I'm in the upper Skagit Valley).

This kind of gold bearing bar seems to get "refilled" every time there is a good flood
or extended high water, and the gold is typically found in the top 6"-12" of material.

That looks like a real sweet spot you've found, and hope you get to work it over
well at first opportunity.

Keep posting the updates as seeing that color is a great motivator!..

 

[vpnavy]

Nice find AlwaysBusyJ!

 

[AlwaysBusyJ]

Looks great, nice work...keep improving those panning skills. Try using a magnet to pull out the iron sands before panning. Then separate the stuff that fits thru a 50 mesh screen separately...it will make it easier to pan both the +50 and the -50. Then learn the tapping method for true panning domination!

I did pick up a magnet recently, guess I should finally get around to trying it out, I've been a little hesitant since I've read that if you're not careful you can get gold trapped in with the sand, but I guess I can always repan the sand real quick to make sure I'm not losing anything until I get the hang of it. And yes Dizzy, sounds like we're digging the same kinda gold, I usually find mine in the top few inches which is excellent, cuts down on the work a bunch, and hopefully it will continue to produce in the years to come. And my wife is going off to visit family in a few weeks so I plan on using that time to hit the area extra hard, and hopefully I'll be able to pull a good bit more out of that area. I've been searching around a lot of other creeks and rivers in various areas near me hoping to find the best spot to concentrate my efforts on, but so far this spot has been the best producing and the easiest to access for me. Now I just gotta catch up on all my extra work at my real job so I can head back out there and do what I really enjoy!

 

[63bkpkr]

ABJ, checkout batpan.com for magnet placement on the outside of the pan. I purchased one of them and I love it as the magnetic sands are pulled right out of the wet material as the pan is moved back and forth..............63bkpkr

 

[Doug Watson]

AlwaysBusyJ, look up nettles. No poison Ivy here that I've ever heard of. Some places have a little posion oak, but there are lots and lots of nettles around here.