Video: My Gold Dredging Summer on the Rogue River

[Bearkat]

Hey Folks,

Great Summer Season on the Rogue River this year while I was dredging. Here is a video I did of the progress of my mining.

Check it out:

 

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[Hoser John]

Re: My Gold Dredging Summer on the Rogue River

Nuttn' beats a summer of gold dredging--EVER Great video, nice and short and right to the point. What camera are you using?? If you illuminate with another light you'll get more color differentiation as with scuba light for underwater photos. thanx much as first gold fix of the day always much appreciated-tons a au 2 u 2-John

 

[2cmorau]

Re: My Gold Dredging Summer on the Rogue River

Thanks for the fix
great video

 

[russau]

Re: My Gold Dredging Summer on the Rogue River

Man, i needed that!!!!! im going to have to goto Indiana and break some ice to get my dredge in to relive that feeling!

 

[Doug Watson]

Re: My Gold Dredging Summer on the Rogue River

Man, that really gets the blood going. Loved it. Thanks, Doug.

 

[gold nuggets]

Re: My Gold Dredging Summer on the Rogue River

Thanks for the video and the still pictures Bearkat.
Good luck next season as well. Gold is such a pretty
color especially in the display vials!! Well done.
Gold Nuggets

 

[Bearkat]

Re: My Gold Dredging Summer on the Rogue River

Nuttn' beats a summer of gold dredging--EVER Great video, nice and short and right to the point. What camera are you using?? If you illuminate with another light you'll get more color differentiation as with scuba light for underwater photos. thanx much as first gold fix of the day always much appreciated-tons a au 2 u 2-John

Hi John...I use a Canon D10 under water camera. Fantastic little camera! Got a couple more vids coming soon...

Bearkat

 

[Hoser John]

Re: My Gold Dredging Summer on the Rogue River

sorry but I gotta do itAgency seeks public input on proposed 5-year ban of mining on Chetco River

Written by Steve Kadel, Pilot staff writer

October 28, 2011 11:06 pm

Local residents strongly supported banning future mining along the Chetco River during a forum Wednesday afternoon at the Best Western Inn.

The session, hosted by the U.S. Forest Service, was intended for testimony on a proposal to prohibit mining near the river for five years ­– with the possible exception of existing claims.

Thirteen people testified in favor of the ban. No one spoke against it.

Some proponents mentioned mining’s threat to clean water because the Chetco provides drinking water for Brookings and Harbor. Others noted the presence of salmon in the wild and scenic river, a declining resource among West Coast rivers.

Many said the river not only improves the quality of life for local residents, but brings tourists who contribute to the Curry County economy.

Jim Wegener said he moved to Harbor three years ago from the San Francisco Bay area specifically to be near the river.

“The true value of the Chetco River is its pristine beauty,” he said.

Yvonne Maitland added that mining operations “will have a cumulative and negative effect on the condition of the river. Gold mining is in direct conflict with the purpose of the federal ‘Wild and Scenic’ designation.”

She urged the Forest Service to consider “the greater public good” by protecting the Chetco.

Entomologist Marius Wasvauer of the Chetco River Watershed Council said suction dredge mining such as that proposed on the Chetco River would damage aquatic life that fish depend on for food.

Tim Palmer agreed that mining would threaten food sources for fish, and added that mining would flush silt downstream to destroy salmon spawning beds. He said the river is pristine because there are no towns or dams upstream.

“This is a unique situation on the West Coast,” Palmer said.

“We are so fortunate to be so close to something so wild and beautiful,” said Stormy Lake.

Ann Vileisis, president of the Kalmiopsis Audubon Society, cited a study for the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife that estimated $4.5 million was spent for freshwater fishing trips in Curry County during 2008.

“It’s a matter of economics and qualify of life for local people,” she said.

At issue is an application the Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest submitted to the Bureau of Land Management. It requests the Secretary of the Interior to ban mining along 5,610 acres along the Chetco from where it exits the Kalmiopsis Wilderness to the Siskiyou National Forest boundary.

That 17-mile segment is in the upper portion of the river. The ban would extend inland for a quarter mile from the river’s banks.

As of Aug. 1, the Department of the Interior placed a two-year moratorium on new mining while the larger issue is processed.

Alan Vandiver, Forest Service district ranger in the Gold Beach office, said existing mining claims would not be covered under the potential ban. However, for mining activity to take place on those claims, owners would have to get Forest Service approval.

Vandiver said that approval would only be given if the Forest Service verified that the discovery of a valuable mineral deposit had been made.

Eleven people have mining claims on the Chetco, he said, although it’s unclear how many total claims are involved.

Besides Wednesday afternoon’s public testimony forum, a similar session was held that night.

Written comments supporting or opposing the potential ban may be given to the Bureau of Land Management state director at: Oregon/Washington State Director, BLM, P.O. Box 2965, Portland, OR 97208-2965.

The deadline to submit comments is Nov. 30.

http://www.currypilot.com/201110281...-year-ban-of-mining-on-Chetco-River



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some
IS THIS YOUR AREA-CAN YOU BELIEVE NO MINERS?jOHN

 

[Gramps43]

Re: My Gold Dredging Summer on the Rogue River

This is the letter I plan on sending to the Curry Coastal Pilot in answer to the hit job they published.

On banning mining on the Chetco

I (Dennis P Sheridan, Tillamook, OR) am getting damn sick and tired of all this protect this, protect that, before long you won’t be able to step out of your house, assuming you will still have one, for fear of stepping on an endangered thinga-ma-whatsit. It is time people to get a grip on reality and stop this cutting off our nose to spite our face. It is time to stop worrying about every critter on the planet.

Years ago there was the term “planned obsolescence” coined to explain why cars weren’t lasting very long, well did you ever think that God or Mother Nature, whoever you pray to, has the same thoughts as regards critterdom. Say God decides that the Dinos have had a good run and it’s time for them to exit stage left, so he cranks up a fast ball and zappo the Dinos disappear. I’ll bet we’re on that list too and when out time comes zappo and we’ll be gone.

Now back to the river and all the other rivers in the state and some of the folks who want to ban mining on the Chetco. First let me ask a question of all you folks out there, who thinks this will be the only river closed down to miners? Wow no one raised there hand and guess what you’re right, give an environmentalist an inch and they’ll demand the next ten miles.

My notes for this letter are from an article written by Steve Kadel staff writer for the Pilot.

Mr. Wegener you didn’t move up here just to be next to the Chetco River, you moved because the cost of living is cheaper, taxes are lower and we don’t have all those weirdo’s that have taken over the bay area to put up with. Let me give you a flash of insight, where you live you will never know if there is someone running a dredge on the river. You see they are going to be twenty miles up river and the tiny plume they generate will have long ago dissipated.

Ms. Maitland you are exasperatingly wrong about any negative effect on the condition of river. As maybe you are or maybe not that from a fishes perspective the dredgers are doing them a favor. When the dredger pulls all that compacted river bottom along this rocks pebbles and the insects and such that burrow in the river silt and runs it through his dredge two things happen. First all those insects and such are expelled out of the end of the sluice and are floating in the water column, a plumme de grocerie, as it were and the
fish party down on the bounty. Oh by the way the “Wild and Scenic” designation is in conflict with the mining laws of 1866 & 1872 which by the way predates the W&S by many mucho years. Oh by the wootsie this country was created for “the greater public good” it was created for the good of all and it has a constitution, that I spent twenty years of my life defending, guaranteeing that.

Entomologist Wasvauer is just about as misguided as is the Kurak Tribal biologist that couldn’t figure out that the fresh water mussels that were dead in the dry part of the Klamath River bed died because the river had receded, as it is want to do in the summer, leaving the mussel high and dry resulting in la mort. Does Mr. Wasvauer think that at the height of the dredging season an Arial view would show a carpet of dredges from the mouth to the trickle that starts the river, give me a break. Not only is that patently ridiculous, there aren’t that many dredges in the three pacific states. May I also remind him that the dredge season is approx. 3 months long and that any critters that are turned into fish food will be replaced over the ensuing 9 months.

Really Mr. Palmer do you take everyone for fools and dolts. The miners are working in the spawning grounds, if they were working above the grounds that might hold true but there isn’t enough water up that high on the river to do much dredging, so that balloon goes “POP.” As they are working in the grounds their plumes de dirt are going into the general river system which cam more than handle the puny amount silt introduced. And NO this is not a unique situation you have; I would say that all the rivers from northern CA to WA support populations of anadromous fishes. You have but one river to fawn over, while up here in Tillamook we have “five” rivers flowing into Tillamook Bay, feeling dis-uniqued yet.

Stormy Lake, I up your “wild and beautiful” by a factor of 5, feeling unfortunate yet.

Ms. Vileisis, Think of how much five rivers bring in, mind boggling ain’t it.

If you folks think this letter is mean then you really don’t have clue what mean is. Take a long look in the mirror and ask yourself and ask yourself what am I doing with my life. Am I living peacefully with my fellow man or am I being “mean” denying some of my neighbors and fellow Oregonians the pleasures of the land that God or Mother Nature gave to us all to enjoy. Are you becoming another arm of the Neo-Socialist government that is slowly but inexorably taking away our rights to recreate on public land. For as surely as you stand at that mirror this is just one installment on the grand plan to strip us of our rights and freedoms. I would hope that you forgo this stupid and potentially disastrous idea.

Gramps

 

[russau]

Re: My Gold Dredging Summer on the Rogue River

one point to remember is that whenever sending in a comment/email/or any corespondance to these ......jerks. ALWAYS have a point in law that in doing so forces them to include it into any case involveing this subject. letters with your opinion and no point of law get filed! just a fact so you know!

 

[Lanny in AB]

Your video--great fix--just what I needed as well.

All the best,

Lanny

 

[kitt]

What part of the rogue was that?

 

[KiddoTheMiner]

how many days a week did you get out?
did you get out every weekend for 2 days or was it every other week