Rookie Gold!

[sanmateo]

nice

[Gold4Mike]

Awesome job man! It will become quite the addiction if it hasn't already

Oh, it has! That's why we're still going out as we head into winter.

[Gold4Mike]

The river was frosty this morning, but my wife and I headed out to see what our tolerences were. I also wanted to try out a new back pack frame that I bought to lug the ever increasing amount of gear out to our dig site. It worked well and I'm sure I'll figure out better ways to haul everything. The sun never shined on us, staying below the high bank on the other side of the river but we did ok for about 2 1/2 hours before fingers and toes became too numb. We were happy with our results though. I'm interested to hear how everyone stays warm digging during the winter months.

[et1955]

Par for the course this time of the year in our area, to keep warm keep digging besides if you are on the gold you forget everything including the cold. I don't carry any more since I built my dolly.

[Oddjob]

Gold4Mike, you going to show off your total.

[RTR]

My wife and I got our first gold on the South Fork of the Nooksack today. It's not much, but we only ran about 1 five gallon bucket of gravel classified to 1/8 and run through a Angus Mackirk Foreman sluice. I had trouble getting the sluice to run right so there was a lot of time wasted, so I'm pretty happy with what we got, and yes I did the happy gold dance, which wasted more time. The gold looks bigger in person!Attachment 1458963

Nice going on the Gold... Idea....Bring your classifieds home.Set up your Angus like this.And take your time at home.Good luck.

[Gold4Mike]

Oddjob, that was our total, lol.
RTR, I was liking you're setup in the picture. I may try to do that for my back yard creek, because during summer it doesn't have enough flow to sluice. Wife and I are way above the one bucket production now and I wouldn't want to have to carry all that classified material out. I really like the AM, but with good flow we have been able to run unclassified easily through our Grizzly Gold Trap. Saves us a lot of time and energy.

[Gold4Mike]

Par for the course this time of the year in our area, to keep warm keep digging besides if you are on the gold you forget everything including the cold. I don't carry any more since I built my dolly.

The digging and seeing gold in the riffles definitely worked for a while, but eventually fingers became too numb. No sun patches showing through to try and warm up. How does your dolly do on rough or steep ground? My pack was comfortable, but heavy. I would love a donkey or burro to carry my stuff for me.

[Gold4Mike]

My wife and I have gotten out a few times to the local river this winter when the weather has been warm or dry enough. We've been without internet since Christmas so I haven't posted any results. It was nice having upper 40's yesterday so we headed out, although it did shower on us a few times. Certainly looking forward to warmer and longer days but it has been nice to add to the vial occasionally.


This picture shows our mesh bag safety anchor at work! Put a large rock into a mesh bag and attach to sluice to keep it from floating away when I'm not watching.


We found more bigger flakes than we normally do, but seemed like less of the little specks. Maybe that's a good sign? We seem to have our best luck tight into the bank and under the brush that is in the flood level water. This stuff is from the top 4-6 inches of gravel. I do find gold deeper than that, but it seems to be smaller and less prevalent.

[mytimetoshine]

nice idea about the mesh bag

[Gold4Mike]

It was actually my wife's idea. I give her all the credit for that one!

[oneguy]

It was actually my wife's idea. I give her all the credit for that one!

yeah... good idea! I've got the Motherlode and it's like trying to set up a sail during a wind storm!!!! Sometimes my RR tie doesn't even want to hold it down..........

[Gold4Mike]

Wifey and I tried out a new spot this past weekend. We hiked in about half a mile to this spot. Always hoping to find bigger or more gold, lol. We didn't see flakes as big as we had been seeing in the other spot, but we sure found more flour gold than we have seen. Every medium (big cobble, gravel under cobble, gravel on surface, sand on surface) that we ran through our Grizzly Prospector showed color in the riffles. And yes, the Grizzly catches fine gold. This is from about 8 buckets of unclassified.

[RTR]

Gotta dig deeper Mike

[Gold4Mike]

The deeper we dig, the less we get, lol.