Hi all-
Lurked for a long time around here but finally decided to see what my property has to offer. I'm in the coulterville area on my private ranch. I have numerous drainages on my property that eventually end up in Maxwell creek. These drainages are thousands of feet long, and start at an elevation of about 3000-3500 feet in elevation and drop to roughly 2k feet in elevation before entering my neighbors ranch where Maxwell runs through. The neighbors have been there since the 49r days so gold is obviously there and they have a couple hard rock tunnel mines on their land that they haven't worked in at least 50-75 years. There are numerous tailing type piles on my land, although I have yet to find a tunnel. There are roads that you can see carved into the sides of the hills on my ranch going to some precarious places which are now completely overgrown. I can only imagine if these roads or trails are in these areas, they must be for very good reason because it is not easy travels to say the least. I also have two of the best springs in the area that run year round even in the worst of droughts. I'm telling you all this just to paint a brief history and of my thought process as I'm certainly new to this.
Anyways, I bought a little yellow jacket 36" sluice and figured I'd look on my property to see if there was any type of placer in my drainages. First spot I went to was the spring. I dug a decent hole behind a nice "knob" of bedrock in the spring area and found a few nice specs and some decent flour gold. This wasn't even a proper hole down to bedrock. I'll have to go back. I know there is gold eroding from somewhere above this drainage point now, so I decided to go to the drainage behind my cabin which looks much more mild, less steep and doesn't flow nearly the water, only flows a few times a year during rainiest times. I found a nice little spot where the bedrock drops a foot or two into a "hole" of bedrock. I cleaned it out decently, certainly not as precise or in depth as I could have gone and I again, got some nice colors but also got a little picker that I saw sitting in the sluice before panning! I can't tell you how excited I was. The reason I'm writing this isn't to boast or brag, the fact is the number value is small. What I'm most excited about is that the gold is on my ranch. Because my ranch is a big hill (80 acres) and flows into Maxwell, does this mean that this gold has to be eroding from a vein somewhere above me on my land? These drainages pretty much start on my property at the peak of the hill. Because gold can't travel up stream my understanding is it must be from somewhere on the face of my property? Please correct me if I'm wrong. I'm not in a hurry to find the gold as it isn't going anywhere and I'm never selling this place, but what would you folks do? I have a lot of free time for the next few months which happens to be when the water is flowing. I feel like a newbie at this and if I found this little gold in 2 days with minimal effort and knowledge my thinking is there has to be some nice deposits here. With the best springs in the area on my land, all the gold activity in this area back in the day, and even all the hand forged tools I've found on my land (axes, rock hammers, etc....) I figure there must be a lot here that was missed ? Maybe I'm being naive I don't know, but please if you have any thoughts or suggestions share them. I'll try to put up a picture of the "picker!" Thank you for reading.
Lurked for a long time around here but finally decided to see what my property has to offer. I'm in the coulterville area on my private ranch. I have numerous drainages on my property that eventually end up in Maxwell creek. These drainages are thousands of feet long, and start at an elevation of about 3000-3500 feet in elevation and drop to roughly 2k feet in elevation before entering my neighbors ranch where Maxwell runs through. The neighbors have been there since the 49r days so gold is obviously there and they have a couple hard rock tunnel mines on their land that they haven't worked in at least 50-75 years. There are numerous tailing type piles on my land, although I have yet to find a tunnel. There are roads that you can see carved into the sides of the hills on my ranch going to some precarious places which are now completely overgrown. I can only imagine if these roads or trails are in these areas, they must be for very good reason because it is not easy travels to say the least. I also have two of the best springs in the area that run year round even in the worst of droughts. I'm telling you all this just to paint a brief history and of my thought process as I'm certainly new to this.
Anyways, I bought a little yellow jacket 36" sluice and figured I'd look on my property to see if there was any type of placer in my drainages. First spot I went to was the spring. I dug a decent hole behind a nice "knob" of bedrock in the spring area and found a few nice specs and some decent flour gold. This wasn't even a proper hole down to bedrock. I'll have to go back. I know there is gold eroding from somewhere above this drainage point now, so I decided to go to the drainage behind my cabin which looks much more mild, less steep and doesn't flow nearly the water, only flows a few times a year during rainiest times. I found a nice little spot where the bedrock drops a foot or two into a "hole" of bedrock. I cleaned it out decently, certainly not as precise or in depth as I could have gone and I again, got some nice colors but also got a little picker that I saw sitting in the sluice before panning! I can't tell you how excited I was. The reason I'm writing this isn't to boast or brag, the fact is the number value is small. What I'm most excited about is that the gold is on my ranch. Because my ranch is a big hill (80 acres) and flows into Maxwell, does this mean that this gold has to be eroding from a vein somewhere above me on my land? These drainages pretty much start on my property at the peak of the hill. Because gold can't travel up stream my understanding is it must be from somewhere on the face of my property? Please correct me if I'm wrong. I'm not in a hurry to find the gold as it isn't going anywhere and I'm never selling this place, but what would you folks do? I have a lot of free time for the next few months which happens to be when the water is flowing. I feel like a newbie at this and if I found this little gold in 2 days with minimal effort and knowledge my thinking is there has to be some nice deposits here. With the best springs in the area on my land, all the gold activity in this area back in the day, and even all the hand forged tools I've found on my land (axes, rock hammers, etc....) I figure there must be a lot here that was missed ? Maybe I'm being naive I don't know, but please if you have any thoughts or suggestions share them. I'll try to put up a picture of the "picker!" Thank you for reading.
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John
