Big gold with small gold?

[eureka77]

From my expirences, I've never found bigger gold with the small. Like today I went to Thermal City goldmine. It's a pay to play place, but instead of digging in the brought to you material I struck off just walking the river looking for a place to set up the sluice and dig in the ''wild'' material.
Well I found a good gravel bar where the black clay was only a foot or so under the overburden. Right off the bat I started to find the gold.
Now this gravel bar with the thick ''playdough'' consitencey clay layer is only about 3' to 4' wide by 10' to 15' long. I only managed about a 3' section of it. I wasn't there that long, only ran 3 five gallon buckets, but for some reason I just wasn't in shape to tackle it today, maybe my puss was hurting.
After I left I just started to wonder if maybe there might be something bigger in that bar, so I thought I'd ask ya'll if you've ever had a bigger piece of gold show up with the flood gold.

PS: I also need to build a miller table! In the pic.s the back sand is circled black for a size reference. The yellow, tiny gold. I had 3 pans of cons from the sluiced material. In total of those 3 pans, I probably tossed back in the river 30-40 ''colors'' of that small stuff. My back just didn't have the patience to dab out those little colors with my finger.

 

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[Astrobouncer]

Eureka I must have missed you out there, I was out there today with a buddy sluicing down at the area where they deliver the dirt from the mine when you buy it. My buddy left early because of family stuff.

After he left, a guy that I had been talking to all day upriver had to go and he left me an almost full pile of mine dirt to work and I couldn't finish it by myself, though I put a huge dent in it. I did really well I think, though I havent cleaned up yet but I was seeing some nice color in my drop riffle sluice grooves. I ran around 10 buckets in 3 hours or so, and that was all I could do after shoveling all morning earlier.

As to finding big gold with little gold, it depends. Sometimes when I hit a pay streak I start finding the small stuff first, sometimes a lot of it, then I start seeing bigger and better until it finally tapers off and all the colors gone. Also, the mine dirt from Thermal varies tremendously because some of it came off false bedrock, and some was mixed in the gravel, etc.

Also, at the beginning of this year, there was a sandbar at Thermal City I did really well on after the winter flooding, and it had some nice size gold in there. I am pretty sure I was the first person to work it and I got some decent size gold there (20 mesh or so I think), but no pickers. If you look back at my old posts, you can probably find the pic of the cleanup.

 

[chkn]

Hey, that's something.

 

[enamel7]

Eureka, get you a snuffer bottle. Forget all that dabbing!
HH
Gilbert

 

[AU Seeker]

Went the river was flooding and that gravel bar was forming in the low pressure area, the bigger gold will be at the upstream portion of the bar as it is heavier and will drop out first and the finer gold will be carried further down the bar before dropping out of the flow of the stream into the low pressure area/bar.


Skip

 

[Hoser John]

Out in kalif,oregon,nevada,wyoming and elsewhere the only time you don't find'm both together is in a high pressure situation where all the smalln's got blown out. Luv'm all-big and small if they meet the oz & lb requirements-John

 

[Goldwasher]

if your recovering flood gold, you will recover bigger stuff if its there period................ ...unless your sluicing upside down or somtin promise...just keep digging and trust your gear.....and dont sluice upside down

 

[kuger]

Biggest nugget I ever dredged was with over 6 ounces of small stuff

 

[eureka77]

Appreciate the responses and info ya'll. I'll have to go back there and give it an honest go. If it has been worked already I know a few more small bars there with the thick clay not to far beneath the overburden. Gotta thank my goldmaster 4/b for finding em. I need to work 1 whole bar down a foot then rerun the detector over and see if I get any stronger signals, and just keep repeating the process till it gives out or something big shows up.