White Mountains NF, .... scored big.

[67miata]

I headed back to tunnel brook again today and scored big. Well for me anyway. I actually did find gold, ... a first. One piece could actually be picked up with tweezers, the other two took magnifying to grab. But what the heck, there is actually some gold in that river. I found it odd though that the larger of the pieces I found was quite near the top of 2+/- feet of digging I did along a nice piece of ledge I found. I also found it quite early in my quest, that of course kept me going for several more hours where I really did not find anything additional. I keep thinking my panning tecnique is bad (I am new at this), but I took that little piece and tossed it back in the pan (with a safety pan below) to see if I would loose it, ...I never did. I thought I had the perfect spot and was digging along ledge until I found the holes bottom and scooped along it.

Oh well, it was an awsome day up there and the water temp was just shy of the point of being uncomfortable. That is likely it for me for the season. I could not possibly get back to it until next month and it looks like we are in for a bit of rough weather (river reset). Temps will be headed down pretty quick from here, it is already reaching the 30's at night. It was good to actually find something, ..... however small.

Brian

 

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[brw0525]

Nice find Brian! I just got into panning couple of weeks ago. Been panning the contoocook River. Looking to get up to WM sometime and try the wild am. For now staying local. Hopefully I found something tonight. Still trying to identify it though. It was flat, gold color and bendable, so it's looking good so far.

 

[Lanny in AB]

I headed back to tunnel brook again today and scored big. Well for me anyway. I actually did find gold, ... a first. One piece could actually be picked up with tweezers, the other two took magnifying to grab. But what the heck, there is actually some gold in that river. I found it odd though that the larger of the pieces I found was quite near the top of 2+/- feet of digging I did along a nice piece of ledge I found. I also found it quite early in my quest, that of course kept me going for several more hours where I really did not find anything additional. I keep thinking my panning tecnique is bad (I am new at this), but I took that little piece and tossed it back in the pan (with a safety pan below) to see if I would loose it, ...I never did. I thought I had the perfect spot and was digging along ledge until I found the holes bottom and scooped along it.

Oh well, it was an awsome day up there and the water temp was just shy of the point of being uncomfortable. That is likely it for me for the season. I could not possibly get back to it until next month and it looks like we are in for a bit of rough weather (river reset). Temps will be headed down pretty quick from here, it is already reaching the 30's at night. It was good to actually find something, ..... however small.

Brian

Finding a piece and then digging a hole the size of a swimming pool is usually the way it goes, and then you often only find some tiny stuff after that. But, it's all part of the game.

Congratulations on finding some sassy gold!

All the best,

Lanny

 

[Ben Cartwright SASS]

Congratulations
I got some dirt from Tunnel Brook last month, as you go up the road towards the bridge there is a spot where they reinforced the bank and put some big rocks along the road, I went down there and got a couple buckets and then went home, didn't find a thing. Were you around the bridge (about a mile in from the highway)

Got my first gold a couple weeks ago on the Wild AM by Twin Rivers! a couple pieces I could just get with the tweezers and about 5 fines.

I am now hooked

 

[Astrobouncer]

One possibility about finding gold like that is that it is newly deposited. See if there has been any major excavations upstream, new runoff areas, ditches added, etc. I know a creek where all the gold being found is in the top 6 inches because of some major excavations nearby that just recently deposited the gold.

 

[freddy williams]

Nice astrobouncer newly deposited gold sounds just like what he described finding I am the same why if you find some dig deeper..

 

[Phanntom]

Spent several summers on the San Gabriel river in So. Cal. In the end using a shovel, sluice and pans, my buddy and I excavated a hole to the bedrock beside the river you could've set a 3 bedroom house in...all we ever accumulated was less than an ounce of very fine gold. By contrast...there were guys working the river with small dredges taking at least an ounce every weekend in nuggets. While most were small, they do add up fast. The largest they found while we were there was about the size of 3 nickels stacked.

 

[67miata]

I do not believe there is any excavations upstream as it is a national forest, but who knows. The storm that is approaching right now will be doing some excavation however. I do not have any pictures of this area, (I figured I would just drop my camera in water like I did to my cell phone) but it is easy to see that at times the water could be 6+ feet over my head where I was working (no exageration). This river does get angry at times, and certainly moves a lot of material. I would like to see it sometime when it is in that mode, must be LOUD.

Ben- I was working upstream of the bridge. The river is on open bedrock there in several places (slipery bedrock). I look forward to going back, but wonder if I should try somewhere else (but that is probably what we are ALL wondering about our last spot).