Working Dredging Piles

[geodesic9]

We have large dredging piles in California from river dredgers. Some of these piles are 80 feet across and 15 - 20 feet tall.

Anyone developed a technique for working these piles and keeping track of which ones you have worked?

Both Folsom and Snelling, CA have large areas of tailings.

Working my GB 2.

 

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[Goldwasher]

Best video link on tnet EVER!!!!!!!!!!!

 

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[goldentruth]

Doodlebug was a dragline system to drag gravels up or clamshell to chomp up a yard or two of gravels and a lot of the times both. I used to sell detectors and found my biggest nugget demoing a golden sabre(Coin/relic machine) on a tailing pile below the French Gulch mobile home park--Ray knows of the place I believe. Had the biggest coil-18"- and in "accept only gold mode" to eliminate the ungodly trash and came up with a nice 1 1/4 ozr back in about 92-3 and won the find of the month silver coin too. Anything from a musket to a ford axle off a model t and everything in between found in piles of tailings as everything was just chucked overboard--Lots of work but good exercise. tons a au 2 u 2-John

Good Info. I'm Checking the Gold Tailing area's past of the School and the bridge down the road.

Good luck Seaching for that big Nugget!

 

[goldentruth]

Well i's another week or so and I now have permission from another rancher to prospect on 103 acres SE of Orovile.
Workings and rockpiles from dragline derriks etc , when they cut into the hillside , making gulches while following a lead, decomposing vein etc
Too bad I will be laid up for 3 weeks..
But I can plan it out while recovering...... VLF in the gulleys. Then the slopes above and around the top ..where they stopped
Then rockrake and highbank... I may be there for a while.
It really pays to write to the owners and get them to call YOU on the phone to give their OK.. Happy Easter... B

Good luck with your recovery.I'm Sure the gold will still be there lol. Happy Searching when ya get back friend.

 

[geodesic9]

Glad to see this thread alive and putting out some information. I have been busy hard rock mining and did meet up with Ray up at Sawtooth Mts. for some desert swinging. May still work some of these tailing piles this fall. Way too hot to go out on them now and the buzz worms (rattle snakes) are there as well.

Thanks for the great information Ray!

 

[cazisme]

My grandfather worked on one of these on the Yuba river near Smartsville for years he made the bearings he was a machinist. He said they went down to 40 foot but gold was present to 60. I always thought these were doodlebugs, I guess I was wrong these are dragline dredges correct? What exactly is the doodlebug a smaller dragline system? At the Folsom museum they have a bucket from one of these I think it holds close to a yard of dirt in each bucket.

 

[meMiner]

Years ago, I talked to a couple of older fellows in the heart of the Cariboo in BC. One tidbit they told me was the dredge on Antler Creek only sluiced material that was -2". Anything larger was immediately discarded. There are long rows of large loose cobbles, so this makes sense. The other comment was someone on the crew once noticed what they thought was a large nugget falling out into the pile, but they looked hard and never found it. This was on someone else's claim, so while I wandered through many times, I never prospected or detected the tailings there.

I recall reading that one method for hunting these kind of tailings, is to set up a bench with the detector on top and the coil off the ground. Then slowly take the cobble pile apart and run any interesting pieces by the coil before discarding. Also detect any of the loose dirt or clay in your hole, because over the years any dirt that remained on the top cobbles washed lower and accumulated here and there. The problem in that location is these stacks of cobbles were mostly dumped into the dredge holes as the bucket dredge moved forward, so the cobble piles are like icebergs with the exposed portion being 10-20' high, but probably go down to depth of over 40'. In that area, you can hear the stream running through them out is sight, so digging down will pretty quickly run into an underground stream.

 

[Goldwasher]

My grandfather worked on one of these on the Yuba river near Smartsville for years he made the bearings he was a machinist. He said they went down to 40 foot but gold was present to 60. I always thought these were doodlebugs, I guess I was wrong these are dragline dredges correct? What exactly is the doodlebug a smaller dragline system?View attachment 1017176 At the Folsom museum they have a bucket from one of these I think it holds close to a yard of dirt in each bucket.

Doodlebug is a small mobile dredge....dragline is one bucket with a cable like an old steam shovel pull scrape dump......those big floaters are bucketline dredges...like a ditch-witch that scoops..

 

[Armchair prospector]

Going down hwy. 50 west bound near Lake Natoma there are tailings on the north side of the lake that can be seen while driving. Looks like only access is maybe using bicycle or walking. Anyone tried this area or is it off limits?

 

[Nameless]

Going down hwy. 50 west bound near Lake Natoma there are tailings on the north side of the lake that can be seen while driving. Looks like only access is maybe using bicycle or walking. Anyone tried this area or is it off limits?

Take hazel to sunset, and you can park your car as subset turns, just dont block the gate. I used to play paint ball there about 6-7 years ago, not even knowing what those piles of rock were lol