Having Trouble With Dredging For Gold

[Jake Ficarra]

can anyone help me? I recently bought a keene 3 inch gold dredge and took it out on the Yuba river on my claim
. Anyways last week I went on a dredging trip with just me and my son and we chose a spot in the middle of the river and started dredging and crowbarring rocks out, we dredged that whole day and we got nearly nothing, I thought we would get a lot more considering how I would find gold in every pan on this claim. I wish there were jagged curves one the river on my claim and lots of exposed bedrock but there just isn't. Where is the bedrock I can't tell? Where is the gold? where do I look? where do I dredge? heres a picture of an area of my claim any tips on where to look?

 

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[SunshineMiner]

If there are no bends or turns, try and get an idea if the large rocks form more of a line in the creek. You've got big rocks all over the place too it looks like. I'd say go for the center, and go down lol

 

[huntsman53]

It appears there is at least one or more small bends, so concentrate on the inside bends out to the middle of the river. Due to the amount of rocks, stones, boulders and what appears to be some bedrock rising up in the river, it is going to be hard to do much dredging without moving tons and tons of the same. You might also concentrate on crevicing cracks in the rocks, between bigger rocks and even on the shore of the inside bends. There is just of lot of big stuff in the river to halt the movement of Gold without flood waters.

Anyway, welcome to the Treasure Net Forums! Hope you stay with us and share some stories and pics!

 

[N-Lionberger]

If you were finding gold in every pan but none in the box could mean you were running it incorrectly and blew all your gold back into the river. Got a picture of the dredge? Are you dredging in the spots you pulled your sample pans?

 

[winners58]

gotta find the gold line, sometimes it takes weeks of sampling to find it,
choose 10 spots that look likely to be a good catch for the gold,
then dredge all the way to bedrock, a lot of time there wont be much in the overburden.
might start at an edge closer to bedrock then follow it down toward the center of the river.
I've found a lot of times the gold line is on one side or the other.

 

[Bejay]

I will make an assumption: If you are finding gold in every pan, I will assume you are in or on the banks of the stream. That said, if that is the case; the in stream gold could be blown out by high velocity winter water flow. I have often seen this be the case. Secondly the river/stream flow you see now could be a fairly new channel and the old channel could be located somewhere else. I have had that happen often on claims that I have.....if you are finding lead bullets and lead fishing weights (split shot...etc) and no gold....then you are in a new channel and not the old. Bedrock is the secret to finding gold in streams that SORT the gold and send it DOWN. I have some claims that produce NO GOLD unless I get down to bedrock....and then the gold is chunky and nuggety. If I go downstream 6 miles I find the fine gold...….so the fine gold gets blown out in the winter flood/high velocity flows. Thus you can find some fine gold along and in the bank deposits. Get to bedrock and hope that you hit bedrock that has some "catch" spots....and not just smooth.


Bejay

 

[Bonaro]

Gold will concentrate is pay streaks but it is unusual for areas of the river to have no gold at all. I think you were clogging your sluice or something.
Disappointment is part of the adventure and common when you start out so you cant give up. Try a different spot but only run for a hour and do a cleanup to see what you are getting. If not enough then move on.
You should always be able to see your riffles. If they fill up they are not working and you will catch no gold. Slow down and/or increase the angle on the sluice. Also get yourself some birdshot and small fishing split shot sinkers. Count them and toss them into the spot you are about to dredge. When you clean up look to see that all of them are in the sluice. If you are catching lead then you are also catching gold. If you have no lead then you are doing something wrong.

 

[N-Lionberger]

When I first started playing with a dredge I thought I had it running right until I tried sucking up some pieces of lead to test, boy was that unsettling thinking about all the gold that could have been...

 

[Reed Lukens]

You probably need to run it faster... Is dredging legal now? Or are you taking a chance of putting your kid in jail?

 

[Bonaro]

You probably need to run it faster... Is dredging legal now? Or are you taking a chance of putting your kid in jail?

"The catching" comes before "The hanging"

 

[Goldwasher]

it's just a ticket.. the kid isn't going to jail

 

[benny]

I tend to "cherry pick" where I'm panning and so always see better gold from the pan. Processing in bulk is bound to show less gold, for me.

 

[mikep691]

I wouldn't plan on dredging around or near the hunting season opening weekend. Fish cops will be in full force.

 

[Goldwasher]

I wouldn't plan on dredging around or near the hunting season opening weekend. Fish cops will be in full force.

All fourteen of them

Just don't dredge in the premium tag zones and you'll be fine

 

[mikep691]

Just dawned on me....New member, dredging the Yuba, No home location given. RED FLAGS just went up. WE don't dredge in Commiefornia, it's against the "law". Maybe this guy should ask his Congressman if it's ok to dredge the Yuba river.

 

[Jake Ficarra]

Thanks

 

[winners58]

no need to be rude, so what if its his first post, encouragement is usually the best medicine, with someone just starting out...
I put one of the photos in the OP on my desktop to be able to zoom in, and noticed it had the GPS in the properties.
looked up the claim, it is Jake's dad's claim, he posted this for his dad, I sent him a PM and he took the photos down.
not sure anyone has gone to jail for dredging, they do write $800 tickets,
I would say a kid just starting out, instead of dredging, learn to read the river, snipe / bust cracks,
use a sluice or try out the Grizzly gold trap, join a club/listen to the old timers, educate yourself where to find the gold.

may your pans be heavy...

 

[Bonaro]

Just dawned on me....New member, dredging the Yuba, No home location given. RED FLAGS just went up. WE don't dredge in Commiefornia, it's against the "law". Maybe this guy should ask his Congressman if it's ok to dredge the Yuba river.

Where someone dredges is 100% their business. If it's not legal is it is also 100% their responsibility. The most we can do is provide advice