- Jan 1, 2013
- 2,653
- 5,418
- Detector(s) used
- Tesoro Vaquero, Whites MXT, Vsat, GMT, 5900Di Pro, Minelab GPX 5000, GPXtreme, 2200SD, Excalibur 1000!
- Primary Interest:
- All Treasure Hunting
We run the twin 9hp Hondas with the twin Proline HP500’s that came with our 6” Proline to recirculate the water from our settling pond back up into the main hole where the 4”Proline with the HP400 is running. We switch off using either the 4” or the 6” Dredge depending on whether or not we are trying to take it easy that day and what type of material it is we are trying to work. We run the 6” with the twin HP400’s because we’ve found that there is no need to run it with the twin HP500’s unless we are deep water dredging. When we are working the bedrock or checking tailings we use the 4” just to make sure we are getting the best recovery. Sometimes we have to bring in the 2½ to hit the crevices but we only run one dredge at a time because of the extremely low water situation. Black water diving is tough not only physically but emotionally as well and with the 2½” we have almost enough water to run for an hour in clean water, which makes seeing the gold real easy while letting the silt run out of the hole. Imagine yourself submerged in complete darkness for an hour and a half at a time between gas tank fill ups. One man is in the dark water lost in complete and total darkness while the other is out running everything up top. Jim or Tom & I switch off every day for at least a half day in the water. It is completely black, you can put your hand to your mask and see nothing so it is complete darkness. Imagine being blind and dredging, first you learn how to feel, your senses become intense because you need to find the boulders along side of you and then strap them in the dark to move them before they fall on you. When you are alone under black water and a rock falls on you, nobody will hear it or be able to see it from above.
When we first started out there were posts exposed which turned out to be the up rights for the beginning of the old 800ft hydraulic sluice box which was still buried under here from the 1800’s. I have worked the box out that is exposed down stream but I had never looked for the beginning of the box because it’s located where there is no water whatsoever. My family and a friends family have been mining in this same area for well over 140 years now and first rediscovered the old original sluice box in the early 60’s after a friend told us the story of how it got buried in a flash flood just before they were able to clean it up for the season that last time. By the time the flood was over the sluice was buried under many feet of tailings that were washed down over the top of it from a mine up stream. So they dredged a little back then in the 60's but not much because it was buried under 30 feet of tailings by then.
The canyon continues to produce year after year though recently it hasn’t produced more than ¼oz a day with the 4” but it has nice beautiful course nuggets, which keep bringing us back every year. The only drawback is having to dive under that pitch black water.
We were looking at the chance of a lifetime with the uprights being exposed. We are finding gold by the pound. My personal best day before this was 3½oz sniping up the stream here about 15 years ago. Then I pulled out 1¾oz with a little 2” back pack dredge from the same hole. Back in the late 60’s with an 8” dredge the best day was 14oz with 10oz days being normal for quite a few years. That's over a pound of gold in one day, on the best day ever back then when they had set it up the day before to hit it hard before it caved in on them. In the 1880’s this was an active hydraulic mine. Thousands of ounces were taken out of here back then but we can’t hydraulic legally in that spot anymore so we dredge legally when we have water because everything is contained and no water can get into any river as it goes underground a few yards down stream. My great uncle was born up on the ridge back in 1878 and I still have my Great Grandmothers diary from when they lived here. His wife was the only person to ever witness a murder when they were both children back when this was an active hydraulic mine.
Here’s a picture of our 6”Proline. Look under the water beneath it and you can see what looks like part of an old fence. This area has been buried under 40ft of hydraulic tailings since they quit hydraulicing up river back in the 1930’s. So as you can see these days in California the rivers are finally starting to return to their original pristine beauty as the tailings continue on their way down stream toward San Francisco Bay.
When we dredged down here, which is about 60ft down stream from the first post that I saw, I hit another part of the sluice box. Uncovering who knows how many pounds of gold once again. The stream has been running over this box since it was built and the riffles were all in place down stream and packed with pounds of gold. How many times in your life do you get to take a chance like this. It was like we were looking for buried treasure that we knew was there. We’ve all had wild and crazy dreams of gold and riches many times in our lives & I could never ask for more. We figured it was there, and it was there, life is good.
Then we found the contact zone. Here’s Jim pictured with me in the water working the hole down. Look in the upper right hand corner and you can see the decomposing quartz vein that we are starting to follow down. It’s a great looking contact zone and we have pulled quite a few ounces of gold out of it so far and we haven’t even hit bottom yet. All of the nuggets and specimens that we are getting are coming from an old vein up on the hill that we will uncover sometime in the future when we get time. There is an old lode mine above us just a bit out of site on the hill which produced nice gold, but the specimen nuggets we are finding come from a different vein still hidden up there somewhere. Here are some more pics below. The blue lay flat hose is being held in place under water in the top hole by having it hooked into my 8” power jet.
Then last but not least here is a pic of some of the gold from there. This truly was our greatest treasure hunt and in the end we ended up cleaning out over 50 feet of the old sluice and we have taken out many pounds of gold from there for many years. So ask yourself. if you were given a chance to dredge for gold in total darkness, would you do it? I've dredged many hours and even fell asleep underwater in total darkness once & then I have dredged in the middle of the night when the heat of the summer kicked in. We had lights and everything set up on shore and for the diver it didn't matter whether it was day or night because once your head slipped under the water even a few inches, there was no light shining from above. In that hole under the 6" dredge was when I fell asleep on the bottom. I had found the side wall of the box and had worked for many hours when all of a sudden I woke up.
The strangest thing about waking up under water in the dark is that you have no idea whether you are even looking down because you are floating weightlessly trapped inside the muddy water. I sat there for a second because only my feet were on the ground, then I started feeling around and got my bearings. It took a few seconds to figure out which way was up but I did find the balance point and I started for the surface without having to drop a weight belt. I came up and Tom asked me what had happened because even though I did fall asleep for maybe 10 minutes, the nozzle was in my hand and it kept sucking up material though not as much as normal. he was wondering why I had slowed down so much. It was when a large cobble stuck to the nozzle that I was suddenly awakened by the jolt.
So is diving in black water worth it?
I would do it again anytime
When we first started out there were posts exposed which turned out to be the up rights for the beginning of the old 800ft hydraulic sluice box which was still buried under here from the 1800’s. I have worked the box out that is exposed down stream but I had never looked for the beginning of the box because it’s located where there is no water whatsoever. My family and a friends family have been mining in this same area for well over 140 years now and first rediscovered the old original sluice box in the early 60’s after a friend told us the story of how it got buried in a flash flood just before they were able to clean it up for the season that last time. By the time the flood was over the sluice was buried under many feet of tailings that were washed down over the top of it from a mine up stream. So they dredged a little back then in the 60's but not much because it was buried under 30 feet of tailings by then.
The canyon continues to produce year after year though recently it hasn’t produced more than ¼oz a day with the 4” but it has nice beautiful course nuggets, which keep bringing us back every year. The only drawback is having to dive under that pitch black water.
We were looking at the chance of a lifetime with the uprights being exposed. We are finding gold by the pound. My personal best day before this was 3½oz sniping up the stream here about 15 years ago. Then I pulled out 1¾oz with a little 2” back pack dredge from the same hole. Back in the late 60’s with an 8” dredge the best day was 14oz with 10oz days being normal for quite a few years. That's over a pound of gold in one day, on the best day ever back then when they had set it up the day before to hit it hard before it caved in on them. In the 1880’s this was an active hydraulic mine. Thousands of ounces were taken out of here back then but we can’t hydraulic legally in that spot anymore so we dredge legally when we have water because everything is contained and no water can get into any river as it goes underground a few yards down stream. My great uncle was born up on the ridge back in 1878 and I still have my Great Grandmothers diary from when they lived here. His wife was the only person to ever witness a murder when they were both children back when this was an active hydraulic mine.
Here’s a picture of our 6”Proline. Look under the water beneath it and you can see what looks like part of an old fence. This area has been buried under 40ft of hydraulic tailings since they quit hydraulicing up river back in the 1930’s. So as you can see these days in California the rivers are finally starting to return to their original pristine beauty as the tailings continue on their way down stream toward San Francisco Bay.
When we dredged down here, which is about 60ft down stream from the first post that I saw, I hit another part of the sluice box. Uncovering who knows how many pounds of gold once again. The stream has been running over this box since it was built and the riffles were all in place down stream and packed with pounds of gold. How many times in your life do you get to take a chance like this. It was like we were looking for buried treasure that we knew was there. We’ve all had wild and crazy dreams of gold and riches many times in our lives & I could never ask for more. We figured it was there, and it was there, life is good.
Then we found the contact zone. Here’s Jim pictured with me in the water working the hole down. Look in the upper right hand corner and you can see the decomposing quartz vein that we are starting to follow down. It’s a great looking contact zone and we have pulled quite a few ounces of gold out of it so far and we haven’t even hit bottom yet. All of the nuggets and specimens that we are getting are coming from an old vein up on the hill that we will uncover sometime in the future when we get time. There is an old lode mine above us just a bit out of site on the hill which produced nice gold, but the specimen nuggets we are finding come from a different vein still hidden up there somewhere. Here are some more pics below. The blue lay flat hose is being held in place under water in the top hole by having it hooked into my 8” power jet.
Then last but not least here is a pic of some of the gold from there. This truly was our greatest treasure hunt and in the end we ended up cleaning out over 50 feet of the old sluice and we have taken out many pounds of gold from there for many years. So ask yourself. if you were given a chance to dredge for gold in total darkness, would you do it? I've dredged many hours and even fell asleep underwater in total darkness once & then I have dredged in the middle of the night when the heat of the summer kicked in. We had lights and everything set up on shore and for the diver it didn't matter whether it was day or night because once your head slipped under the water even a few inches, there was no light shining from above. In that hole under the 6" dredge was when I fell asleep on the bottom. I had found the side wall of the box and had worked for many hours when all of a sudden I woke up.
The strangest thing about waking up under water in the dark is that you have no idea whether you are even looking down because you are floating weightlessly trapped inside the muddy water. I sat there for a second because only my feet were on the ground, then I started feeling around and got my bearings. It took a few seconds to figure out which way was up but I did find the balance point and I started for the surface without having to drop a weight belt. I came up and Tom asked me what had happened because even though I did fall asleep for maybe 10 minutes, the nozzle was in my hand and it kept sucking up material though not as much as normal. he was wondering why I had slowed down so much. It was when a large cobble stuck to the nozzle that I was suddenly awakened by the jolt.
So is diving in black water worth it?
I would do it again anytime
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