Need some advice from the pros!

[shadowlid]

Get ready guys and girls because I have a whole slue of questions for you all.

First the reason why… my cousin and I have found a creek near our house that has gold in it. We have found around twenty flakes and one very very small nugget about the size of a pen head.

1. We found all this gold on one piece of bed rock in crevices the rock is only about 6 feet by 2 feet. So knowing this do you think that there is a lot more gold to be found in this creek? We probably only paned about 15-20 pans of the rock.

2. We hiked up the creek about ¼ of a mile and didn’t find any more exposed bed rock. How would we go about retrieving more gold with only pans and basic garden tools(shovel, pick axe/ crow bar.)

3. How do you go about working bed rock that is under ground?

4. We don’t have a hand dredge(yet) how can we get the material out of the water successfully?

5. Have you every found gold at the bottom of a small water fall? About 6 inches high.

6. Any information that will help me and my cousin out will be greatly appreciated also any info I can give you just ask.

Thanks,

Johnathan

[nuggethunting]

Hello J,

Not seeing the spot you're talking about, I can you give you some suggestions. I would continue working the creek like you are. Crevice some of the exposed bedrock areas like you have. Take samples from various cracks and crevices if you can. Anywhere the water slows down will be a good spot to take samples (insides bends, where the creeks get wider, bedrock or other obstructions ...).

If there are upper benches above the current creek, you might want to sample some of them also.

To speed up production and recovery, you might consider a sluice box if the creek is somewhat running. If it's a dry creek, you might consider a small drywasher or vac-pack.

Sample ... sample ... sample and then try to figure out the best spots. From there you can figure out if you want to bring in bigger equipment such as a gold dredge to move more material.

Hope this helps a bit,

Rob Allison

[whats4supper]

I would also try to open up the crevices using chisels, flat bars, or an improvised big screwdriver, along with a single jack or larger sledgehammer. Crevices are notorious for trapping gold.

Because there is water there, getting the gold vacuumed out can be tricky if you don't have some sort of dredge, but investing in a vac pac may work because it has a 2-stroke engine and no internal filter to get clogged up, meaning that dirt that is wet or in water probably won't affect it ability to suck up material into the container.

I think you are onto the right way of doing things right off the bat.

Besides the vac pac (a five gallon bucket and Echo weed Blower), you may want to think about buying a trash pump, 1"- 2" size so that you'll have the ability to spray water on the crevices and dirt as a means of washing gold into an improvised catch basin. If so, buy rigid PVC hose for both the intake and the output. On the output, on can also install a hose bibb that will allow the use of a garden water hose.

A trash pump is one that has seals that aren't affected much by silt and small gravel. Northern sells them; and you could also rent one to try out from a local rent-all shop. The trash pump alllows you to recycle used or muddy water. To keep it light, get a homelite 1" model. if weight and conditions allow, get the heavier 1 1/2" pump with a cage. You can also use the trash pump (1 1/2" to 2" size) intake end to suck up dirt, which will then pass through the pump and discharge the material into a bucket or catch basin, just be careful to keep the material at the minimum size suggested by the pump specs and information, In essence, it'd be like a dredge without the sluice box, though you would be able to discharge into a sluice box or other improvised gold trap. Be on the lookout for gems also, as they are heavy minerals that also tend to lurk around gold deposits.

Trash pumps are handy, as you can also use one to work a trommel, pump out flooded areas, drain swimming pools, drain swimming pools to fight a fire, etc. I have a honda 2" for my needs- low maintenance, self priming. 100,000 gallons later, still works like new.