Blues Dad's Klamath MISadventures

[blues_dad]

Hey everyone!! Sorry it's been so long for me to get back to ya'll. I had lost the link to this site and forgot the name of it(silly me), until I got a message from whats4supper today checking in on me, lol. Anyways, I've been driving for the last 13 hours, and am in desperate need of sleep, but I owe you guys a story, so here goes....

For anyone who doesn't remember me, or just don't know me, before this summer I had never done any sort of prospecting whatsoever. I was looking to do some dredging out in California, and was hoping to hook up with someone experienced to work with for the summer to show me the ropes and find a bit of gold. Well, after many offers, and a few from this site, I ended up getting together with a gentleman named Glen out of Texas who had a few claims up on the Klamath, and was willing to take me on as a partner for the summer for a 1/4 split. 1 full share each for me and him, one share to the dredge, and 1 share to the claim, which of course he owned the claims and the dredge, so yeah, he got 3 shares, lol. The reason I decided on Glen was because of two things, he claimed to be the most well equipped dredger out there, and he also had a paystreak he had started to develop last season but hadn't really gotten into yet. But more on that later.

Anyways, to start my adventure off, because I am from Michigan, and have a gas guzzling dodge ram quad cab diesel, I decided in the interest of saving money to bus out there and back ($210 round trip). Compared to $1000 plus just for gas for my truck. So from Michigan to Cali, 3 days on the bus. Glen and his wife picked me up in Yreka, CA where the bus dropped me off. Really nice older couple, but you know, me being only 32 and all. So, we get to the campground where we'll be staying for the season in Happy Camp, CA. Glen had converted a race car hauler into a nice little 5th wheel camper. And his wife was a terrific cook. Spent the first day getting unpacked and visiting town, what little there was of it anyways. But that's pretty much where the good times ended, lol.

2nd day, we launch his 5" Keene into the river, and float it about a mile upstream from the boat launch to his claims in the canyons. Easiest way for us to do this was behind a jet-ski he brought for the sole purpose of hauling supplies to the claims. So we spend the first few days shallow with the 5", just working the banks, to get me used to being in the water, and to get a feel for being the nozzle man, showing me where gold drops in the river, etc etc. He was a really good teacher, really knowledgable, or so I thought, until I found out better later. But, I get real comfortable on the 5", we only manage to find about 1-2 grams a day, mostly fines and small flakes, no pickers.

Glen also had an 8" homemade dredge that he brought up there with him, and that was another reason I chose him, because he had the larger dredge we could work. So to start off the crappy part of this little fiasco, we didn't even manage to get the tore apart 8" into the water until the end of the second week. After we got it into the water, it took him another month to put it together and test it, because he hadn't used it before. needless to say, one thing or another didn't work during testing, and he had to do a lot of welding, because he mismeasured when he built it at home. But just about the entire time he was getting the 8" put together, I was working the 5" by myself a mile upstream. He would come by every couple hours on the jetski to check on me, make sure everything was alright. But I'm still working on the banks, because he didn't want me going deeper with it by myself, which I totally understood, plus he was the boss man. So I'm finding still, a gram or two daily by myself, which isn't bad, only meeting expenses though, but not great either. Found lots of great hardpack layers, never saw any gold on the bottom, but did find it in the cleanup.

Now, this is one of the things that irked me. Glen is an older guy, early 60's, retired, and apparantly he needs lots of sleep. He wouldn't crawl out of bed until 11-12, while I was waking up at 6-7 every morning ready to go. And we got out of the water when the sun passed over the mountains in the evening, and the valley got darker, and we couldn't see the river bottom anymore. So we only got about 5 hours quality bottom time in each day, with a 3 days on, 1 day off schedule. Occasionally we would use the off days and go to the old jade mine and look for jade, and I did manage to find some nice pieces, even found one that had some small spots of gold running through it. Even spent a day crawling through some old mine shafts.

And yes, since this is a site for detectorists, I did manage to borrow his 3000 for a few days and swing it around. He wasn't very good on it, and I had no idea what I was doing on it, but I gave it a shot anyways. So if anyone needs to find some nails or barbed wire, I'm your man, I am VERY good at that, lol. Even managed to find a lot of fishing sinkers, hooks, etc. Guess that'll teach me to swing it near a fishing hole.

Ok, so finally after about 7 weeks out there, dinking around on the 5", we finally get the put together, running 8" get it hauled up to the claims and running and dialed in. And boyyyy, let me tell you, huge difference from the 5". On the 5, I was fighting for air on the bottom, on the 8, it felt liek someone was blowing me up like a balloon. And I managed to get my arm trapped a couple times getting it too close to the nozzle. Managed to move a ton of material daily, built a couple new islands that hadn't been in the river before, but we weren't finding much more gold than with the 5", I found out from someone else later his recovery system was set up all wrong and gold was probably blowing out the back end. But it was catching a ton more fine gold than the 5 was, but we were losing the flakes we were finding with the 5. And we re-ran the tailings with the 5, and picked up a lot of the gold we missed with the 8.

Now, the main reason for me being out there with Glen was his "supposed" paystreak he found last season. Claimed he pulled 15 ounces in 2 weeks out of the gut at the edge of his claim. Even managed to pull 1/4 daily just running through the overburden according to him. But when it came time to actually get out there and re-develop that paystreak, he wouldn't go anywhere near it. Claimed there was too much overburden, current was too swift, etc. He had worked it solo last year, and he had me as a partner this year, but wouldn't go near it this year. So either it was never there, or he just didnt want to share the booty with a partner if it was there.

I was supposed to be out there until October 1st, but ended up leaving September 5th, cause I couldn't make ends meet running the 5" off the banks the entire time out there. I was planning on running the 8" in his "paystreak" to make up for what I lost by taking time off work, but it didn't work out that way. So I ended up leaving a few weeks early and going back to work. And yes oakwoodcutter, I did get my job back.

All in all, I had a great time. Got to see a lot of wildlife I had never seen before, bears, eagles, ospreys, rattlers, a ton of deer, and not the shy ones. Even had one come up to me and eat out of my hand, it was pretty cool. Got to see the wildfires, got some great pictures, which I hope to post up in here sometime in the next week or so. And Glen even upped my share to a 50/50 split, probably cause he felt bad about us not finding much gold. For the 9 weeks I spent out there, I brought home 22 grams, only cause I had to sell 8 grams to make some money to keep going. So 30 grams total for 9 weeks, which really sucks, but you know what, I wouldn't trade the experiences I had out there for anything. Met a lot of great, friendly people, learned a lot. Mainly to try it with someone else other than Glen next season, lol. I would do it again in a heartbeat for sure. The experience didn't sour me at all, just made me hungrier to do it better next time around.

Oh yes, and there was gold out there. A guy about 1/4 downstream from us who we had to float by each morning on the way to the claims pulled out over 35 ounces in 4 weeks by himself. From the gut too. So yeah, maybe I would be singing a different tune if we had got our chances in the gut this season, but there's always next year.

So there's my story, it's 5 am, and I need sleep, so I'll check back in later today.

jeremy

[Ridge Runner]

Hey Jeremy (blues dad)

You learn more from that trip than you could ever get sitting on your butt at home.When you get with some of us old fart you got to know how he works.I'm 67 and I work from sun up to sun down when I was dredging.A friend didn't like to go with me because he wanted to play and I came to find gold.

It's good to hear from you and don't you ever stop following your dream.

Chuck Anders

[fredm]

Well, you found gold, had an adventure, learned some lessons and you want to do it again...Cool!!!

Fred

[LuckyLundy]

Jeremy,

Glad you had a great time in Northern California. My partner's and I where out dredging the day that storm hit California. I was underwater and was pulled out due to the close lightning strikes. Of course we took our chances under the trees for cover even saw a funnel cloud pass bye our canyon...what a day thoses fires lasted most of the summer. Now my offer still stands if that fever get's to bad.

LuckyLundy

[acronn]

Thanks for posting Jeremy, I wondered what happened to you. Sounds like you got an adventure out of it, the memories will get better, and the rest went about how I imagined. If you get over some rich ground, your story could be much different, but now you know how rare gold really is!

[tool]

hi Jeremy, sounds like a great first time,and you found more gold than many ever did their first time at it.but i feel for ya not getin in some better ground when you have the big gun like the 8". i dont think ive ever come out much ahead on any of my trips and didnt care like you said i wouldnt trade those times for nothin. cant wait to see some pics. oh and the offer still stands if ya ever want to do some drywashin and detecting in az. and congrats on following thru with your dream, i remember when i decided to go for it. and still get ribed by the scoffers that think were nuts for gold prospecting,but i just smile a little and say yep all the golds been got all the while thinking to my self about the last nug i dug and the next one that ill find take care, tool

[DOC]

Sad you didn't hit the mother lode, but as everyone has told you, you had a fantastic learning experience. Save your pennies, and sign up with Rob to go to Alaska, to Steve Herchbach's camp, at Moore Creek. You can detect, you can dredge, and from people's previous experience, I think you might have a better than even chance of coming back with more than 22 grams, and you don't have to split it with anyone.

Doc

[blues_dad]

yeah, I definitely think next season Moore Creek will be on my list of things to do. Might have to hit up Rob for some detector lessons before I head out there though, good things I drive out west a lot now, lol

[nuggethunting]

Hey Blues Dad,

Well sounds like you had a great time, but understand what happened to you. I know all about that dredging, so if I invited you out you would be right there helping me suck that paystreak up! Too bad the other guy didn't let you get to work the paystreak, if it even was there to start with. However, you now have a lot of dredging experience, so next time your on the end of a dredge nozzle you will be ready to make a killing!

If you spent that amount of time dredging with the 4 or 6-inch at Moore Creek you would have doubled your take and found some very nice nuggets to boot. The guys I seen dredging up there only played around with the dredged for a few days and found in the range of 1/2 to 1 ounce of gold and they were all pretty much "Greenhorn" dredgers.

Last season a few friends (Leigh and Steve) done very well using the Keene Highbankers working some virgin paystreak about 100 yards from waterway. Within just an hour they found over 1/4 ounce, most of the pieces being very course gold and a few Dwt sized gold nuggets. IF I remember correctly, they found nearly an ounce of course gold within 2-3 hours. Most of the guys swinging metal detectors, including myself, wanted to drop the Minelab and pick up the #2 shovel.

Anytime you're down here I will help you with your metal detector. By the way, what brand do you currently own?

Talk with you later,

Rob Allison

[FlakMagnet]

Hi Bluesdad,

That is a classic beginning gold dredging story.

There are many elements of your tale that lots of us recognize well;

the pay streak that was left for the next year

the split for the dredge etc.

the up at the crack of dawn for the rookie while the claim owner rolls out around 11.

not wanting you to go "too deep" - uh huh.

I am sure you became a good dredger during your time there.

One of the guys here - like Mr. Anders - would get an experienced and like-minded hard working partner next summer

if you come out again.

Enjoy the memories

and don't dredge with that fellow any more,

no slam on him

but your enthusiasm deserves a touch more.

Happy Thanksgiving,

Flak

[Hammer]

Jeremy: Sounds like you had a good time and gained some well needed experience..I think your expectation probably

not much different than many others, expecting and believing that the gold was just laying in the river waiting

to be sucked up.

I lived near the Klamath River for about 14 years and I can say that one storm in the winter can really

change things around, so if Glen was taking 75% of all the you dredged up,he was not getting rich and was

stupid for not putting you in a good location on the claim so you could dredge up 100 or 200 ounces for

the two of you, as for waiting for next year--no reason, probably just lied about how much he had got.

As for Alaska all the people that I have heard from had a great time on Robs Trips to Moore Creek and some

have found a lot of gold and some not so much but all had a good fun.. Trips are expensive, $2000 plus,

so start saving bucks now and call Rob soon to find out more info...good luck.

[DigDeep]

Take it easy there Oakwood.

Oh yea, Ill take you up on the "spot that you can get 1 ounce aday detecting" Who is the bull**itter now? Well I guess when pigs fly

[vini]

Blues dad got some good experience hell he got more gold in the time he was there then i've gotten in almost 3 years now, thats sad for me but I wouldn't trade all my time prospecting for a lb. of gold , it's just not all about gold for me or I would have quit that first year.

some comments here don't even deserve feedback Rob *IGNORE*

[kcoulson]

Hi Blue's Dad

I am glad you got this experience. It just shows that even with all the planning you never really know what you are getting into until you actually get there. I am sure that I know who you are talking about-

I am a New 49er Member and we have lots of claims on the Klamath and tributaries also.

As far as dredging by yourself for 10-12 hours per day- that is a hard thing to do if you are working hard.

I was dredging with my 4 inch keene last summer up there on one of the tributary creeks to Klamath and it was all I could do to go 6 hours per day. I was moving/winching large boulders when I was not on the nozzle. After 4-5 hours of that you get really tired and when you get really tired you make mistakes. One bad mistake when alone and you are dead. So I quit after about 6 hours so I could come back the next day.

I did find some nice nuggets but found very little fine gold.

I will be back at it next summer although in a different spot.

Good luck to you - keep at it.

Ken

[LuckyLundy]

BluesDad,

Here's a taste of my diggings. Of course everyday isn't like the next...just better!!!

LuckyLundy

[blues_dad]

thanks for the encouraging words everyone. i had a blast regardless, and am sure i'll pick it up again next summer, hopefully i can find someone willing to let me bust my b utt. i wish i drove out west more, would love tp swing a detector and pick the brains of you guys

[Nuggetslayer]

Blues dad seems like you had a great time but not to much gold. This was my first year running a dredge myself. Luckylundy took me out and taught me the ropes. Running the dredge was fun and a lot of work. We always found gold and the company was great. The only part I didn't like was going under water. I was fine chucking rocks, running the nozzel in the shallow water but not the water in my ears. If Lucky gave you a offer that would be the one to take. He has been doing it a long time and has forgotten more about prospecting than I will ever learn. Oh ya and the food was great at camp! Better luck next year don't give up my no means.