Hydraulic pit

[nvradar]

Hey guys
I found this spot the other day and the river rock is cemented in so hard I could only get it out ( with a ton of sweat and swearing) with a heavy pinch bar. I'm new to the hydraulic pits but I believe this is ground the monitor missed. Am I wrong? Anyways I dug a big hole as you can see and ran my 2200d and my gm4b and absolutely NOTHING! I know bedrock is the hot spot but don't you think there should have been something in all the dirt and rocks moved? The hole is a bit over 3 ft. deep. NVRADAR

 

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[kuger]

LOL!!That depends on how far down bed rock is there!It may be 100' or more.Yes there can be gold in every layer but the higher most likely the finer.

 

[bug]

Good effort but...like kuger said, the pay is usually sitting right on bedrock. Probably just flour gold in the upper strata, if anything.
The miners may have been getting poor results leading up to the unmined area you found, and left it. The bedrock below may have been out of the pay streak, sloping or high ground with little gold on it. Then again you never know...

 

[nvradar]

I think this was accidentally missed for whatever reason because there isn't another missed spot in the whole place that I have found,and it is a large pit. Bedrock is only 5-6 ft. away from the hole I dug but it isn't the smooth bedrock found in the river so thats got me a little curious. Maybe I should try a little further up to find the bedrock? I need a DOZER!! NVRADAR

 

[kuger]

Yes,as said,it may have just been out of the Paystreak.You have to realize the mode of operation....it was no big deal for them to "take down",material,but if it wasnt paying why?You need to concentrate on the exposed bedrock crevices as well

 

[nvradar]

True but... everyone else has been there done that. I know some has been missed even with our new detectors. I suppose this rock and gravel I beat on could have very well been an outside corner once upon a time. Could have been an inside too. Gonna have to try another run at it I think Maybe when it cools down a bit cause it's damn hot! Thanks Kruger. NVRADAR

 

[kuger]

...you are samplin....thats how they did it too!!

 

[Hoser John]

Rent a mini backhoe to punch down and looks like tailings to me but sounds like they were left by efficent miners who got almost all the gold. Good miners left squat and china men even less. My spot is the absolute goldless I've ever seen and nuttn' but respect for them fellas a old---gold miners make the bedrock-John

 

[nvradar]

Hoser john
It's definitely not tailings it's much to hard. I've dug in some tailings and they are not even close to how hard this stuff is. Just have to get to bedrock somehow like you said a mini backhoe. nvradar

 

[Hoser John]

I seen tailing so hard we used dynamite--- --and it didn't barely dent it. Don't presume till the deed is done and then summarize.-John

 

[nvradar]

HMMMM How would it get so hard, any ideas? NVRADAR

 

[trinityau]

Hey NV Radar, is that at one of the locations that I sent you to ? M....F....area.. If it is then what you have are islands that were concreted together and never worked. We ran into several of those in that area. We never got anything off them. I have done very well on some cemented gravels and pretty poorly on others. If this is the area I would not waste too much time. If you get back to the above area take the middle road to the left down towards the yellow car body and go past it towards the edge of the pit. Right there at the edge I left off on a couple of small islands of bedrock, maybe three feet higher than the rest of the area. Not much on them but alot of red and white clay and a few cobble. I was scraping off about one foot of material and going over it with a Bug II and getting alot of small pickers. I remember getting a few pennyweighters in the mix. On those hydraulic pits you want to try and see where they had the monitors set up and how they pushed the material to the boxes. There will usually be a line where the gold dropped out in a pattern as it was being pushed to the sluices. There was also a dead zone alot of times where the monitors did not overlap to clean the bedrock real well. Hope this helps some. I may be taking a trip into the high country in Trinity to one of my spots here in the next month. Ten miles in, stay for for three days. Strictly VLF but some nice gold to be had. If you are up to it give me a holler. TRINITYAU/RAYMILLS

 

[nvradar]

Ray
Yes it's at M and it is past the yellow car. I have md all over the place with no luck so I figured what the heck I'll dig a hole and see. Not even a color!!! I tell ya Ray I have honestly sat down on a high point to really study and look at things and the way they are placed in the pit and by god I have absolutely no idea of how and why they did what they did. It is a jumbled mess!! Piles going in all different directions. I will tell you what I am going to concentrate on now and that is BEDROCK!!

I would absolutely love to hike in to a md place with you but I have a bad four letter word that keeps me from doing it..." WORK". I hope you find a bunch of fatties in there and keep me informed. NVRADAR

You still have my number Ray call anytime.

 

[minerjoe]

I hear you radar, i've sat there in awe or howerever you spell feeling like i have no spine! ha ha those guys worked so much harder than i could ever! dang cool just trying to figure it out. Trinity, you the man. I like what you were saying and just because its a hydraulic pit, dont mean there's gold everywhere. they quit for a reason. The benches they refer to in the old days, though not hydraulic, they called bastard benches. Wonder what they call the islands! P.S. Radar, there's more gold in carson isn't there? You just gettin out of the heat?

 

[Klondikeike]

Klondike here...

I've found the larger commercial hydraulic areas are harder to read as to how hey had their equipment set up.....

However, In eastern Oregon, there are numerous small 2 to 3 man operations.. and it is easy to see how they set the equipment... some you can still see where the long toms were by the lay of flat sides of the hand stacked rock pitched out of the boxes.......

Now seeing these smaller workings.. and re-visiting the larger ones, I was able to piece together how tings were set up at a particular site.. and every one I visited was different....

Some, if not all the mounds of "tailings" or cemented areas you are referring to, that looked like they were left behind, are usually where they had various water cannons set up...and other equipment set up...

Some cannons were used to tear the mountain down.. others were used to move the material into the boxes quicker... They work in unison and usually overlapped...

One thing they had in common.. they HAD to pitch larger rocks out of the boxes.. look for these piles of rock.. these will be 4" to 6" in diameter or so.. not much bigger than that...they will be very similar in size and shape.. (there will be very little if any dirt in these piles)..and were piled along side the long tom...... because these piles of rock are just where they left them and the long toms were very close by...and prospect the end of the box run... I have found some nice high grade placer gold around the end of the long tom...

As they worked into the mountain and up the channel.. they usually just kept adding to the box rather than moving it every week...

Just some suggestions when you prospect a hydraulic area...

Good luck,

Klondike...

 

[nvradar]

Hello Minerjoe
I lived in N Cal. once upon a time and in my years of deer hunting,camping,fishing and such past quite a few places that had gold. So now I'm into MD'ing I wanted to try some of these pits. IF it is cooler it can't be by much! Dayton Nv. is where gold was first discovered in Nv. I tried some dredger piles with no luck. I'm slowly learning of some places to try here. Going on a trip tomorrow so hopefully it's my time. Trinityau has been a huge help to me ... yup he is da man.!! NVRADAR

 

[nvradar]

Hey Klondikeike
I've been searching some pits for the elevations you told me about and there are some good ones out there. Every bit of info gets me a little more of the picture... won't ever be a complete picture though. I have looked through piles with my vlf and nuttin yet. I know they are there for sure just waiting. As for the long toms heck I can't figure where they start or end But thanks for the info Klondikeike. NVRADAR

 

[minerjoe]

I'm sorry bud it says carson on your page. No big deal. SO, nor cal to me is north of redding, same for you? Oh and yeah trinity has the dope for sure. Like you, i wasn't into detector till they took my dredge away. I went from something to nothing in no time but now i got the hang of it! Maybe not as good as trinity, but i get stuff. Made 600 yesterday, well if i sold it! Keep it up and like you i love trying to figure these piles out. I know they had to stack on top of virgin ground somewhere! My first nugget came from a long tom output right on top of a pile that was clay and gravel just cemented so hard my apex barely got through it. It was 26grains down only 4in. I scraped the rest of the 12 foot pile to nothing with no other gold. I want to take the new coils back and see though. I bet there's more. It was the first time out with the new 4500 and it took 6months to start feeling good about what i was doing. Keep it up and stay in touch. joe.

 

[nvradar]

Minerjoe isn't that just crazy!! you find a nice nugget and no more in a spot like that. Oh I do live in Carson, I lived in N. Cal for most of my life. Never going back sorry. lol I think with the gold price going crazy it won't be long before the dredgers say F it and dredge. I would be one of them! So anyways I will post my gold when I DO find some. I was amazed not even a color in the hole I dug in that cemented crap! Fooled me big time. NVRADAR

 

[minerjoe]

Well you wont believe this, but my wife found a nugget in our driveway yesterday! Ha ha was one of the test nuggets i lost! i had it wrapped in a piece of gorilla tape. I musta drove over it all winter and snow blowed the driveway like 30 times but never got it! Funny crap! It weighs 16.5 grains, so a nice one to get back. she said she's keeping it, but i got it hid now.