29prospector Posted October 4, 2006 Report Share Posted October 4, 2006 Well after a hellish weekend at the mine I was not in any hurry to go back out. I have finualy got my eye open enough to see but it still hurts. Well Doc calls and says the tractor man wants to go out tomorrow(Tues), I said well good for him. Doc said I need you help cause he wants to finish up our hole and any other loose ends. Well you guessed it, out I go. Well we were able to finish our hole, clean up Ken's hole and make a new cut southwest of our present hole about 75 feet. This new trench maybe a good one. We cut it 30 feet long, 3 feet wide and 4 foot deep. He stoped at 4 feet because he hit calcahi and rocks.So now it looks like we will have our hands full for awhile. I hope the pictures make sense, sorry no bee stings this trip. Bob Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FlakMagnet Posted October 4, 2006 Report Share Posted October 4, 2006 I'm impressed Bob,Lots of work ahead, and from the looks of it,good potential for gold too...The hump is interesting. I couldn't figure out whether itwas across the angle of the "flow" of the material or not.Glad the eye is coming along too...all the best,Flak Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ridge Runner Posted October 4, 2006 Report Share Posted October 4, 2006 Bob What made you start digging down as far as you did? Did you run test holes first are you going on the hope of blind luck? I just know that a backhoe don't come cheap if its only for the gas price. Do you run a detector over the material you remove and always down in that crater you have? I know this is one question after another but I just want to know your thinking on it. You may have to put on a crew on this one this time. If you keep making these holes so deep you may have to stop calling it placer mining and change to lode.Bee safe Chuck Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
29prospector Posted October 4, 2006 Author Report Share Posted October 4, 2006 Bob What made you start digging down as far as you did? Did you run test holes first are you going on the hope of blind luck? I just know that a backhoe don't come cheap if its only for the gas price. Do you run a detector over the material you remove and always down in that crater you have? I know this is one question after another but I just want to know your thinking on it. You may have to put on a crew on this one this time. If you keep making these holes so deep you may have to stop calling it placer mining and change to lode.Bee safe ChuckI'm keeping your quote up on this so I can answer all your questions.Back in Feb. 04, Jim O'Toole and I started in the middle of this wash where it had narrowed down to about 6 feet wide and removed all the sand, gravel and small rock. We ran all the material and found very little. We proceeded to scrape the bottom and was able to remove about 2 inches of material until it got hard. We recovered a small amount of gold. I decided to go east, upstream toward Doc, and see what we got. I'll follow this up with a few pictures.1. We ran no test holes, but did use the Gold Bug very often. Hope, luck and prayer are the miners 3 best friends . Actually I found a seam about 24 inches wide on average and 12 inches deep in the basement material and started to follow it. I never expected anything like this to happen.2. You are right about the backhoe operator, he is not cheap. The first one we got this year to repair the road cost use 1200.00. He repaired the road and made it passable and moved the berm and overburden to the north blocking the wash and rerouting it to keep us from getting flooded out. I've dug our first hole out 7 time since 04 and I was getting tired of it. The gold was to sweet to walk away from.Our new operator is a friend of ours who has retired(works when he wants) and wanted to come and play in the dirt. What does this cost us, well we will be starting a 10 dollar a month road maint. fee, which is worth every bit that much. He will maintain his own equipment at no cost to use and will open up whatever area needed. He fee for Doc and I in the big hole is 1/3 gold. I personally don't like this type of idea, but has more to lose than I do. He will do the same for the other members also. I know its a price to pay but well worth it in the long run.3. I run the Gold Bug 2 over all tailings from drywashing and I also run the walls and floor before leaving. Doc and I do a lot of double work because we re-run all our tailing 2 even 3 times just to make sure we haven't missed any thing.4. As for a crew, well I believe we have the best on the paperwork. They are all knowledgeable in dredging, drywashing and metal detecting. But the best of all, they all know how to have funny while working.Hope this has helped. In one sentence, we just followed the gold. The pictures show some progression in work.BobDavid, thanks. I tried my best to get a few other areas openned up that I wanted. I did get the trench cut that is south of us about 50 feet. It is an old wash bed that has been forgotten and the water deverted else where.I will PM you with the new info.bob Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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