Bedrock and Gold: The mysteries . . .

[Lanny in AB]

Do you love to chase the gold? Please join me--lots of gold hunting tips, stories of finds (successful and not), and prospecting poetry.

Nugget in the bedrock tip:

I had a visit with a mining buddy this past weekend, and he told me of an epic battle to get a nugget out of the bedrock, and of what he learned from the experience. I thought some of you might like to learn from his mistake.

While out detecting one day, he came across a large sheet of bare bedrock. The bedrock was exposed because the area had been blasted off with a water cannon (a monitor), by the old-timers! It was not fractured bedrock, in fact it was totally smooth.

He was not optimistic at all of the prospects of a nugget. But, for some reason (we've all been there) he decided to swing his detector over that bedrock. After a long time, just as he was about to give up on his crazy hunch, he got a signal, right out of that smooth bedrock.

There was no crevice, no sign of a crevice, nada! So, he had to go all the way back to camp to get a small sledge and a chisel. The signal in the rock intrigued him, but he still wasn't overly optimistic. For those of you that have chased signals in a similar situation, sometimes there's a patch of hot mineralization in the bedrock that sounds off, but this spot, according to him, was sharp and clear right in the middle of the signal, not just a general increase of the threshold like you get when you pass over a hot spot in the bedrock.

Anyway, he made it back to the spot and started to chisel his way into the bedrock. If any of you have tried this, it's an awful job, and you usually wind up with cut knuckles--at the least! Regardless, he kept fighting his way down, busting out chunks of bedrock. He kept checking the hole, and the signal remained very strong.

This only puzzled him all the more as he could clearly see that it was solid bedrock with no sign of any crevice. He finally quit at the end of the day, at a depth of about a foot, but still, nothing in the hole.

An experienced nugget shooting friend dropped by the next morning to see him, and asked him how the hunt was going. My buddy related his tale of the mysterious hole in the bedrock, and told the friend to go over and check it out, and see if he could solve the riddle.

Later in the day, the other nugget hunter returned. In his hand was a fine, fat, sassy nugget. It weighed in at about an ounce and a quarter! After my friend returned his eyeballs to their sockets and zapped his heart to start it again, he asked where the nugget had come from.

Imagine his surprise when he heard it came from the mystery hole!! He asked how deep the other guy had gone into the bedrock to get it. "Well, no deeper" was his reply.

So, here's the rest of the story as to what happened. When the successful nugget hunter got to the bedrock, he scanned the surface got the same strong signal as my buddy. He widened out the hole and scanned again. Still a solid tone. He widened the hole some more so he could get his coil in, and here's the key and the lesson in this story, he got a strong signal off the side of the hole, about six inches down, but set back another inch into the side of the bedrock!!

My unlucky friend, the true discoverer of the gorgeous nugget's resting place had gone deep past the signal while digging his hole!!

Now, of course, a good pinpointer would easily solve this problem. The problem was, my buddy didn't have one, so why would he widen the hole, right? Well, the other guy was the one with more experience, and that's why he did. It was a lot more work, but what a payoff!

So, my buddy's butt is still black and blue from where he kicked himself for the next week or so for having lost such an incredible prize.

Some nugget hunting lessons are harder than others to learn. . . .

All the best,

Lanny


P.S. When in gold country--check the bedrock, regardless of whether it looks likely or not! Mother Nature likes to play games sometimes.

 

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[Lanny in AB]

Lanny your pictures of the Mountain Wonderland you are in just stops my heart as they are just so lovely. What Splendor!

Now your diggings site is also a wonder but of a different kind, yes you can see some things off to the sides but how to determine were to start in the machine worked places. Big question there!!!!!!!!!!!!! Herb

Hi Herb! Always great to get a visit from you.

I've been to California a few times, so I know I don't have a lock on mountain splendour as you have incredibly beautiful vistas in your neck of the woods as well, and one day, I'll take seriously my self-challenge to capture some gold in beautiful California, home to the spectacular gold rush that opened up so much of the Western United States, such a rich history in your state!!

As for detecting recently mined bedrock (or bedrock previously worked by the Old-Timers), I've learned to stop trusting where my eyes tell me the gold should be, and I've learned the hard lessons instead of how to trust my detector's abilities (I've written previous posts about being a "Gold Snob" as I detect bedrock where my eyes think there's the best chance of finding gold [intact channel tight on bedrock, likely looking cracks, transition zones, etc.] to lead me to the gold), as oftentimes the places that look the best might to me, might not be the best at all.

Moreover, the gold hides in all kinds of strange places in those excavations (modern or ancient), plus some of nuggets get moved around in the mining process to some very unlikely places, ones far removed from their original site of deposition, or on the other hand, Mother Nature has camouflaged the bedrock gold in such a perfectly matched manner that the only way to find it is to forget about using my eyes and trust instead to trust the computer brain over my own prejudices.

The results of taking the leap of faith to just swing the coil over the most unlikely looking spots have sometimes been spectacular! (In fairness, my prejudices as to preferred spots to detect often pay well too, but the gold I've found in what I'd call ugly looking or unlikely/impossible places has convinced me of the foolishness of only detecting bedrock that "looks good" to me.)

Sorry about the long overall answer to your short question! (Oh, and learning to detect underwater nuggets in such locations has been a learning curve as well, but a strategy that has netted some very sassy gold.)

As always, great to hear from you and great to have your input,

Lanny

 

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[Cariboo5]

Been getting all the tools & gear in order to head out in 2 1/2 months on the new ground and revisit some older ground this spring & summer and I must admit that after viewing all of your awesome pictures the "gold bug" is really setting in....Thanks for sharing & you are a lucky man to have such beautiful country to detect in....

 

[Johnnybravo300]

Beautiful! You're a lucky man to have that!

 

[Lanny in AB]

Been getting all the tools & gear in order to head out in 2 1/2 months on the new ground and revisit some older ground this spring & summer and I must admit that after viewing all of your awesome pictures the "gold bug" is really setting in....Thanks for sharing & you are a lucky man to have such beautiful country to detect in....

I can relate to your gold-chasing preparations . . .

My son and I are both getting cabin-fever from not being able to detect for nuggets, so we're watching lots of videos (including all three seasons of Aussie Gold Hunters), looking at pictures of previous hunts and photos of gold finds, not a very good substitute for being in the wilds.

I hope you have a fantastic season with lots of golden finds.

All the best,

Lanny

 

[Lanny in AB]

Beautiful! You're a lucky man to have that!

Many thanks, and I appreciate you dropping in to leave a note.

All the best,

Lanny

 

[Lanny in AB]

Golden Bonanza Days, Part 3: This section continues with the description of the cut and some of the detecting conditions.

(I have been stunned sometimes by the gold I’ve found doing this bedrock examination or scouring process; It was a learning curve to stop the temptation to follow my eyes, but relying on the detector’s brain instead has been a tactic that has paid well.

However, at other times when the bedrock was extremely hot or littered with highly reactive rocks, I’ve put the detectors away to rely on the slow process of sniping by using scrapers and crevicing tools to feel out the hidden gold traps. Of course, this tactic is used in areas where I’ve already been finding nice gold, and where all of a sudden with a bedrock composition/mineralization change or a sudden plague of hot-rocks tight on bedrock, I have to switch gears to look for the gold with the age-old, yet proven, process of sniping and panning. [I have a story about this as well for a later date.]

The area my son was working was not an easy spot to detect. He was swinging his coil on that aforementioned steeply rising iron-hard slope of bedrock-wall, all while trying to keep his footing secure in order to gather targets, and yes he slipped more than once [as I did when I checked it later after he’d finished], so it was definitely a sketchy place to work. We both had a few scares, but the gold was there for the getting, so we were game.

That wall of bedrock held all kinds of little traps [we even had to do hammer and chisel work to free nuggets], and those traps held wonderful gold. The hardness of the bedrock made trying to reduce it with machinery economically unfeasible for the placer miners as the damage to profit margin ratio would no support the cost of repairs involved; moreover, the miners recovered incredible gold regardless of what they had to leave behind as that ancient dinosaur channel that bedded the entire cut paid off exceptionally well.

So, in summary, the composition of the cut was undulating bedrock with a variety of low spots, crevices, water-filled traps, small yet intact areas of ancient stream-run, large gutters, warped and twisted bedrock, contact zones of bedrock with varying compositions of hardness, terraced ledges, etc., plus a steeply sloping wall of invincible bedrock riddled with small gold traps.)

To be continued:

All the best,

Lanny

 

[Terry Soloman]

Slip sliding away.. Glad you guys didn't get hurt slipping on that bedrock. LOVE, LOVE, LOVE these stories Lanny! Thank you so much for taking us all there with you!

 

[Lanny in AB]

Slip sliding away.. Glad you guys didn't get hurt slipping on that bedrock. LOVE, LOVE, LOVE these stories Lanny! Thank you so much for taking us all there with you!

Terry, so nice of you to drop in, and so nice of you to leave such a wonderful comment!

Much appreciated, and all the best,

Lanny

 

[Lanny in AB]

Where do I chase the gold?


Here's a few pictures, taken over the years, of one of the rugged areas where I chase the gold.






























And of course, the first picture, and the last picture, that's why I'm in those mountains; moreover, that's why I write the stories . . .


All the best,


Lanny

 

[63bkpkr]

Awesome country, I'd go there even if there wasn't any gold though likely I'd need to have some fish in the water that could be had for dinner. Thank you for the 'look see'!...........63bkpkr

 

[Lanny in AB]

Awesome country, I'd go there even if there wasn't any gold though likely I'd need to have some fish in the water that could be had for dinner. Thank you for the 'look see'!...........63bkpkr

Hi Herb, thanks for the compliment on the country, and I'm with you when it comes to mountain streams, if there's no gold to be had, why not a fantastic, red flesh cold-water trout! Nothin' better.



I remember for years watching the trout while I was dredging, how they'd dart from ambush where they were holding behind any obstruction they could find (rocks, sunken logs, bedrock outcrops, etc.). What fun that was!



I never turn down a tasty trout from an alpine lake either!



All the best my friend,

Lanny

 

[Lanny in AB]

Golden Bonanza Days, Part 4:

My son and I kept at it, swinging the coils, gathering the signals, and depositing them in the pans. In retrospect, I adopted this “speed-panning” system a couple of years ago while working a target-rich area, and now I use it regularly if a spot proves good for continuing gold production; I no longer waste time isolating each and every target captured in the scoop.

On a related note, (in the fall of the year, or early spring) when the days are short, I don’t have much of an option to sort and sift targets as I have to quickly cover as much ground as possible to avoid the dark and the cold. So, every target goes from the scoop straight into the plastic pans. This approach allows me to maximize my time on site, which means that sometimes I’ll pan by flashlight or take the pans back to camp to process the next day. So, when I’m detecting alone, it’s an efficient time saver, but when I have someone to pan for me, I can maximize even more time!

To elaborate a bit more on the speed-detecting/speed-panning process, we weren’t ripping across the bedrock in race mode, we were carefully investigating every bump or whisper that broke the threshold. The only element of speed involved was how quickly we were able to collect and dump targets without having to isolate them.

A couple of times while swinging the coil, I heard multiple targets in one sweep (this happened to my son as well). Exciting stuff indeed when there’s more than one nugget in that coil pass! The best we did on that outing was three nuggets in one sweep. (Tip: I always use a super-magnet on an extendable wand to quickly eliminate ferrous trash, which saves even more time wasted on individual target isolation.)

To get back to my gold tale, my wife came walking carefully toward me cradling a gold pan, and what a smile! This is a good sign, and man you should have seen the nice nuggets, their gold color sharply contrasted against the deep-green. Over the two days, she repeated this ritual numerous times.

As I was using the small sniper coil on the Gold Racer, and having chosen a more traditional section of bedrock (a softer one the machines were able to work easier), the nuggets in my pans were smaller, nothing much over two grams, with the exception of on five-gram piece that startled me. However, my son’s pan had lots of beefy pieces, but nothing over seven grams.

After my son finished working his sloped cliff (that’s exactly what it was), he wandered down to detect the south end of the excavation where there were two pools of water, separated from each other by a ridge of hard bedrock. So, I jumped his claim by wandering over to his cliff-face honey-hole to detect for leftovers. Using my Gold Racer, I reached up as far as I could to swing the coil across a sort of rounded knob, one that bumped out slightly from the bedrock slope. That nasty little spot held a signal!

Well, this caused me lots of problems because now I had to see what the signal was. After pinpointing a small area just above the knob, I left the detector at the bottom and clawed my way up, barely hanging on by the tips of my boots. I saw a small V in the bedrock that held rusted, cemented material. (With ancient, intact material like this, it’s a great sign that gold may be present.) Swinging the pick, I would get a couple of shots in, but then the pounding motion would jar me loose from the precarious knob, and I’d undertake a controlled, downward crash. I did this over and over again, until at last I broke out a chunk of bedrock with rusty, cemented material attached.

So, that’s how I recovered a lonely 1.5gram nugget my son had missed. I kept at my crazy stretching to detect tactic, and coupled it with my sketchy footing routine until I’d captured six more small nuggets (from a gram to half a gram in weight). All of the were nuggets trapped in similar, small depressions. (I had to use a sledge and chisel to break out some targets, as some were cemented in, while others were jammed tight in cracks.) On a related note, I lost track of how many bruises I collected (I felt them all though for the next few days), and I probably left enough hide from my arms to do a skin graft! The crazy things we do for gold . . .

As I was closing my gold bottle, my son gave a shout from the south end of the cut, and with my climbing days over, off I went to see what he’d discovered.

To be continued:

All the best,

Lanny

 

[meMiner]

I can always count on Lanny and this thread for a wonderful detecting story. Next best thing to being there. Thanks Lanny!

 

[Lanny in AB]

I can always count on Lanny and this thread for a wonderful detecting story. Next best thing to being there. Thanks Lanny!

Welcome to the sometimes adversity and sometimes adventure! Many thanks for your kind words!

All the best,

Lanny

 

[IMPDLN]

Hey Lanny. Those are some beautiful pics you recently posted. We just don't have that shade of green here in Az. Especially not in the golden areas. How I wish we could find gold like that in the higher elevations around here as I am also a fly fisherman and would sure like to be able to do both in the same area. It would certainly be a treat to end a day of chasing the sassy gold with a fresh trout dinner.

So where I live at about 5,000ft. elevation, we got about 32'' of snow in about 36 hours. How nice to get some winter for a change, especially after last year getting none. Of course the weather then warmed up like it does in Az. and within a week it is all gone except for a few plow banks. Higher elevations still have snow on the ground but it is melting fast. The creeks are all flowing high and the reservoirs are rising. The smaller reservoirs up in the mountains will certainly fill back up this year after being as low as I have ever seen them last year. The larger drainages will flow for awhile, but the smaller normally dry washes in my area have either stopped flowing or already down to a trickle.

I hope some new gold was exposed, but that is more likely after the summer monsoons with localized down pours in my particular area. Unfortunately the creeks in my area that drain the mountains are not gold bearing. Which by the way did strip a little area of bedrock for me last summer that exposed for me a few little sassy pieces that equaled about 2.7 grams. It was refreshing to find some newly exposed bedrock and acquire some new gold for not getting out much lately due to still working on the house.


I'll leave a pic or 2 of our unusual Az. snow. This 1st pic is my tow truck Friday morning, after I had cleared the snow 2 times on Thursday. The 2nd pic is my old 72 K-10 also Friday am after starting to clear it also for the 3rd time. Of course this old girl goes through the snow like it wasn't even there, lol. You might notice the neighbors car parked next to me, completely entrapped. My driveway after extricating a stuck and buried Subaru, then making a few laps with the old reliable Chevy.


That's my update for now. I hope to be finishing the work on the house this spring. Then I can get back to a somewhat normal life.....I hope. Dennis

 

[IMPDLN]

P.S. Sorry about the bedrock pic rotation. Not sure how to correct that. Cell phone pics, what can you do. Dennis

 

[Lanny in AB]

Hey Lanny. Those are some beautiful pics you recently posted. We just don't have that shade of green here in Az. Especially not in the golden areas. How I wish we could find gold like that in the higher elevations around here as I am also a fly fisherman and would sure like to be able to do both in the same area. It would certainly be a treat to end a day of chasing the sassy gold with a fresh trout dinner.

So where I live at about 5,000ft. elevation, we got about 32'' of snow in about 36 hours. How nice to get some winter for a change, especially after last year getting none. Of course the weather then warmed up like it does in Az. and within a week it is all gone except for a few plow banks. Higher elevations still have snow on the ground but it is melting fast. The creeks are all flowing high and the reservoirs are rising. The smaller reservoirs up in the mountains will certainly fill back up this year after being as low as I have ever seen them last year. The larger drainages will flow for awhile, but the smaller normally dry washes in my area have either stopped flowing or already down to a trickle.

I hope some new gold was exposed, but that is more likely after the summer monsoons with localized down pours in my particular area. Unfortunately the creeks in my area that drain the mountains are not gold bearing. Which by the way did strip a little area of bedrock for me last summer that exposed for me a few little sassy pieces that equaled about 2.7 grams. It was refreshing to find some newly exposed bedrock and acquire some new gold for not getting out much lately due to still working on the house.


I'll leave a pic or 2 of our unusual Az. snow. This 1st pic is my tow truck Friday morning, after I had cleared the snow 2 times on Thursday. The 2nd pic is my old 72 K-10 also Friday am after starting to clear it also for the 3rd time. Of course this old girl goes through the snow like it wasn't even there, lol. You might notice the neighbors car parked next to me, completely entrapped. My driveway after extricating a stuck and buried Subaru, then making a few laps with the old reliable Chevy.

That's my update for now. I hope to be finishing the work on the house this spring. Then I can get back to a somewhat normal life.....I hope. Dennis

Dennis, great to hear from you again--it's been too long, great to have an update!

Thanks for your kind words about the pictures, much appreciated. I guess when it comes to surrounding country, it's one of perspective for sure, as I love the desert for its exceptionally different beauty, a haunting beauty actually, one I can't get out of my mind. (Yes, it seems like everything pokes, stabs, or bites, but that's part of the newness of the experience.) I have a son that lives in Las Vegas, so I get out in the desert there quite a bit, but I've only been in the Arizona desert looking for gold three times, but I'll never forget the uniqueness of it, and I'll never forget all of the historic mine sites (Arizona and Nevada) I got to peek at either, quite fascinating.

Nice to know you had a chance to get out and chase some gold and actually get some! Nothin' like sassy gold in the poke. (The house taking a priority over the gold is understandable, but I'm sure you'll be glad when it's done so you have more time for fun.)

I can't believe how much snowfall you had. That kind of snowfall here would be expected, but where you are, quite the anomaly indeed, and enough to cover cars, something else! (It's a great thing to have a reliable 4x4 when that happens. We've had nothing but 4x4's for many years, a necessity for what we do and for where we go; they are a particular necessity when we're out in the wild of the mountains getting ourselves into sketchy territory and back out again.

Good to know that your reservoirs are filling. Nothing like Mother Nature doing a kind deed every now and then (and she helped clean some bedrock to boot!).

I see you were using the SDC. What are your thoughts on the machine? Do you use it in conjunction with your 4500 to clean a spot to make sure you've found all you can? Or, do you use it for another purpose? Have you ever used it underwater? Lots of questions . . .

My detector stable has full stalls right now, but that doesn't mean I couldn't open up a new stall for a worthy thoroughbred!

All the best,

Lanny

 

[Lanny in AB]

Golden Bonanza Days, Part 5:

My son was digging like a wild man at a spot just past the bedrock hump that split the two pools of water. As I wandered over, I could see why he was working there.

On the right-hand side of the hump (facing west), working with the 25-inch Estwing, geo/paleo rock pick (that’s one fantastic pick if you’re looking for a pick that will go all day and never let you down), he was uncovering a long ledge of bedrock that stepped out about eight inches from the intact channel wall (the bedrock ran under the edge of the wall then rose up quickly [I could see places where the teeth of the excavator bucket had cut into the steeply rising bedrock where it angled off under the channel material into the wall]). The edge of the ledge of bedrock then dropped about another foot in the cut into a wide bedrock trough of a different color and hardness. The combination of channel wall, shelf, and trough generated the perfect conditions for the excavator bucket to skip from the wall, off the shelf, and down into the trough.

The trough had been cut down into and cleaned well by the excavator as the rock there was softer, but the eight-inch shelf above it was tougher stuff, part of a transition zone, and being located at the foot of the wall of the face, it was still covered by intact material, but hidden by some slump that had slid down to bury the shelf. Moreover, the placer miners were not going any farther into the face as the bedrock was rising steeply to match the slope of the side of the mountain, so what was left of the channel would never be worked, no profit margin.

However, that little shelf was something else, and I was proud my son had found it on his own (he’d been detecting along, got a soft signal in what looked like ordinary, yellowish-orange channel material, but the pick soon hit solid bedrock underneath as he chased the target, so more digging exposed the shelf.

My son was working the spot by uncovering a section about two yards long, then he’d grab the Gold Bug Pro and scan the bedrock shelf, but also the junction where the bedrock joined the face. He was getting lots of small nuggets and pickers, some down in little gutters and cracks in that shelf, and some from the intact channel material at the foot of the wall where it was rising up, two pay zones. How can you beat that? Furthermore, by wife had moved over to one of the bedrock pools nearby, and he was throwing scoops of target-rich dirt into two plastic pans for her.

That’s why he’d called me over, to see that little bedrock ledge of honey that he’d found, but I didn’t want to jump his claim, so I left him working his spot, and I wandered down to the end of the trough, following a good stream of seepage water that followed the gentle, downward slope of the trough until it met a hump of harder bedrock that rose up.

To be continued:

All the best, and thanks for tagging along,

Lanny

 

[Lanny in AB]

Golden Bonanza Days, Finale: (I will include some general tips in this section for those that are still learning about nugget shooting.)

A small stream of clear water ran down that gentle slope over small pieces of broken, black and reddish bedrock salted with medium pebbles and smaller stones. With no intact, original material remaining, the spot didn’t look promising; however, I’ve found nuggets playing hide and seek in settings like this before.

In retrospect, I remember way back, when I first started chasing nuggets, a successful Old-timer told me, “Lanny, water and gold are good friends.” (I really didn’t understand what he meant then, but I do now. Water follows trough and gutters; it drops into cracks and crevices, and it drains downward into low spots in the bedrock. Guess what else loves to do the same thing?)

Learning what he meant, I’ve followed running or trickling water back up into bedrock that was covered in channel, and it’s led me to gold. I’ve also followed water downslope as it hugs bedrock contours, and as it dives under intact material, all with the same golden results. To be frank, I’ve also followed it and found nothing, but that’s part of the experience too: success never comes for me without failures along the way. Regardless, learning that water and gold are good friends was a remarkable tip.

Knowing the relationship of water to gold on bedrock, I scanned the area with the Gold Racer. Knowing that gold loves the opportunity to drop in water when it’s moved by machinery, I’ve recovered quite a few sassy nuggets in this way, and I put two small nuggets (the biggest being just over two grams) into my jar. Moreover, the Racer screamed on both targets due to the thin layer of pebbles and broken bedrock.

I worked my way up from the low spot leaving the water behind, and carefully detected every transition zone of hardness and color change in the bedrock. Each little fold in the rock; every crack, crevice, and friable section; all slips and faults, including numerous gutters and troughs, got scanned. As a result, lot of signals went into my gold pans for my wife to work down.

At this point in the day, the sun was high overhead without a cloud in that alpine-blue sky. Tiny orange and brown spotted butterflies, with smaller squadrons of blue and white ones, were flitting back and forth from seeps in the dark bedrock. Large, lazy, black-bodied flies, with iridescent blue and green highlights, lumbered by us while performing slow, corkscrewing aerobatics.

No wind stirred the setting, and it was getting warm, so I stripped off a layer of clothing, and as I did so, my brain reminded me it was time for a break: muscle fatigue was setting in, my stomach was starting to grumble, and I was thirsty.

Our bottled water was cached in one of the small streams of ice-cold seepage water, so it was perfectly chilled. We ate our traditional mining lunch (meat and cheese sandwiches, a piece of fruit, some chocolate pudding for desert). After eating, we all had a nice rest.

TIP: The five-gallon bucket my wife takes along makes a great panning-pool seat that saves the back muscles: moreover, anytime there’s panning to be done, if a seat [rock, bucket, bedrock ledge, etc.] can be found, muscle stress and fatigue are reduced.

Why take a rest when there’s gold to be found? Taking a gold-hunting break lets the conscious brain rest, and then the subconscious fires up and quietly analyzes the day’s global input for processing. Next, the subconscious brain delivers suggestions to the refreshed conscious brain for recognition. (TIP: I can’t overemphasize how critical it is to take breaks to keep the mind alert: rushing without breaks severely compromises productivity.)

With a rested brain, my subconscious popped the suggestion to “Go low and slow” over the previously worked northern end of the excavation. I quickly realized the bottom of the north cut needed just that process. I would head back with the Gold Racer to scrub the bedrock floor. (My son was still working his honey-ledge, so my wife stayed to pan.)

The bedrock floor had dips and rolling rises of hard rock (some bull quartz too), with occasional flatter areas of softer formations. My son had already hit these areas with the Gold Bug Pro, after working his rich rise of bedrock, but he’d made only standard passes through the bottom.

Firing up the Gold Racer, I scrubbed the coil slowly across the bedrock. I soon had a signal. I kept repeating this low-and-slow scrubbing process which netted a steady stream of pickers and nuggets for my bottle, with most targets trapped in cracks and seams that held almost no accompanying material. After finishing the bedrock, I went to the crazy areas (the places where you’d have to be crazy to look), and picked up some nuggets weighing under two grams that were obviously been redeposited by machinery action. (This tactic has produced enough gold that it’s part of my routine now when I work disturbed ground, either that mined by the Old-timers or by modern methods.)

Using the same techniques outlined above, the next day produced more nuggets as well.



It’s true, this may have been a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, and we certainly left with heavy gold bottles, but the wonderful memories of family fun over those two golden bonanza days was the greater treasure.

All the best,

Lanny

 

[Terry Soloman]

I could see the butterflies in my head! What a great story. WRITE THAT BOOK!