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california crumbs

Always good to hear from ya Herb, even if you haven't
hit the Mother yet. (no worry...none of us has found it either!) :occasion14:

Q: What made you choose that particular spot to dig? Was
there some mineralization on the surface that said "Dig Here",
or some other signs?
 
DizzyDigger said:
Always good to hear from ya Herb, even if you haven't
hit the Mother yet. (no worry...none of us has found it either!) :occasion14:

Q: What made you choose that particular spot to dig? Was
there some mineralization on the surface that said "Dig Here",
or some other signs?
Click to expand...

Thanks Mike,
sampling the vein is how you find these guys, find exposed mineralization and sample it, if it has values go to diggin.
lots of walikin and crackin rocks is how we do it.

I one time hit a placer on a ridge couldnt find the source, for years i kept going back up to look for that vein it drove me nuts as there was one lone nugget found up on the top of the hill about 50 foot or so from the placer find. nothing else in beetween.
on a hunch that nugget came from a vein up top i started a trench E / W i guess i dug in about 3 foot deep 6 foot long, hit a few pieces of green minerlization, i was excited at the point where i found the green indicator i started trenching N / S i dug about 20 foot south and at about the 15 foot point i hit the pocket, it was down i guess 5 foot ? trench was hand dug.

that was an exciting dig, i ended up givin the spot to some guys from the local club i think they did decent cleaning up after me, i probably would of stayed there a little longer but it was time to move on i had been diggin that spot for over 14 years, it just got old, and we had to go find Mitchels 10 oz to the ton dead mans boulder, where he said in the 1980s he blew shut a shaft that had a boulder hanging over the entrance he decided it was to dangerous to mine the 10 oz ore so he sealed it, that was his story.

we ended up finding it but it wasnt anything like he had talked about, it had 10 oz a ton ore, that story will have be for later when i got some time, got samples to crush, and have to sharpen steel again today.
body is getting banged up pretty good as ive been wedged into an 18 inch wide trench beatin the bottom out of it, chasin a 3 inch wide chunk of vein.
Feels good to be back at prospecting again, the mill is fun but that prospecting bug has to get itched.

GT......................

Note the stuck steel Jboy bull dogin the rock again took him a good 10 minutes to free his steel from the rock man this stuff is hard.
Picks Dubois, standing on the pocket site in trench at the Notch.
View attachment 1024543View attachment 1024544View attachment 1024545
 
Great stuff Herb, that trench the kid is in looks a lot like one near the Mission(I won't go into any more detail as I'm sure you know where I mean)
 
Hard Prospector said:
Great stuff Herb, that trench the kid is in looks a lot like one near the Mission(I won't go into any more detail as I'm sure you know where I mean)
Click to expand...

Good to here from you Rob long time, this hole is up on the humbugs it is on the Excheaquer mine vein systyem above the club claim. i use to have a little foot trail going up but progress moved in and in the name of gold a new road was born.
I managed a pound of gold off that notch mine most was elluvial and hadnt moved more than 100 foot, i would be intrested to know just how much the guys i gave it to found ? but folks were sworn to secrecy and woulnd t tell the ole Cpt,
I hope they did well, my intrest were more with finding the lode, i had found another pocket over in the same area, the mine we called the Jeannie Marie, got an ounce or so from the holes they were more prospets just chasing the veinlet and some minor mineralizations.

I always wanted to work the humbugs over better they were just too damn spoty for me and to many guns out that area to be walking around, excelent area to bleep if thats what you do, as for that mission mine i would like to do some work in that area, its just the road is so rocky the daily trips out n back just shreads the tires, so i stay out till i get some new skins, i wouldnt mind finding another 30 foot deep shaft to dig we could use a good ore shoot school clothes time next month, guys are older, cant get away with the cheap stuff any more.


spent yesterday sharpening steel again had to break out with the long tools our little dig has pinched out at 6 foot and left a 2 foot x 2 inch wide piece of vein pans like fire, trouble is its the pinch ? and probably wont be much more than us having to haul all our tools to the hole for a piece that only is an few inches deep, story of my life but it has to be bottomed out as pockets tend to show up at the end of the line, so with any luck.
we have some under ground to chk out then its back to diggin the next pocket i will make a movie of the birth of a pocket from the initial few indicator pieces, to the main dig and sampling techniques. that will give folks some idea of what we look for and how we recover our values.

Any ways its back to prospecting and trying to find our next dig, i have a possible spot but its up high on the mnt 45 minute walk through rock rattler infested boulders, and we have to carry our gear n water up. i will try to find somtheing that we can get closer too as those walkins are a bear this time of year and this one would be an over night sleep on the mnt.
We did one last year 108 during the day and massive bees, so we stayed up top a couple nights, when my site is back up i will post the story of that dig.

GT.....................
 
Been beatin the heck out of the rock, the new estwing bit the dust first off on last diggins, ended up swing a 4 lber ( Big Blue ) till my arm was ready to fall off, i had a backup 2 lber but it was dry rotted and not much use.
maybe 1 more trip we finish this one and back to placering till the rains, the guys up the humbugs are hitin it hard, man i coulndnt believe the amount of traffiic out in that area ? glad to see guys are workin it.

It was so bloody hot yesterday i think at sundown it was still 103 ? we have been short dayin it, i can only manage 4 hours of work in this heat could walk all day on flat lands but the workin is really hard on the body.
Thats hard rock mining i could be wrestilng a jack hammer and genarator, just as much work and cost moneys to run the eqiupment so its a toss up with what we use here the values dictate what we do light values we hand job it, if we are getting the course goodys we would want to bring in the big guns.
I rarely find a spot worthy of power tools, we dont make enough off the gold to justify the use, so i just beat the heck out of the rock, i like to get down into the workings of the vein and get my hand on the mineralizations this way one can really gets a good look at how this stuff forms, I just like it !

Heres a couple pics one for the fly poop king ( Kevin ) its the stuff building up in the cracks on the arasstra drain going to leave it for a while n see how much gets stuck there over time. and one good shot of me chasing the vein. need to get the small solid steel estwing !

GT.......................
View attachment 1027535View attachment 1027536View attachment 1027537
 
^^^LIKE!^^^
 
Herb,
Have you seen or heard of many nice specimen pieces (last year I saw a guy detect a golf ball size chunk of quartz with over an oz and heard of a fella just a few years back find a bowling ball size chunk with well over 30 oz) Rumor was he sold it, bought a Jeep for himself and new set of "cans" for the old lady. Now thats a gift that keeps on giv'n.
 
As long as she hangs around, you could be providing entertainment for the gardner:laughing7:

Hard Prospector said:
Herb,
Have you seen or heard of many nice specimen pieces (last year I saw a guy detect a golf ball size chunk of quartz with over an oz and heard of a fella just a few years back find a bowling ball size chunk with well over 30 oz) Rumor was he sold it, bought a Jeep for himself and new set of "cans" for the old lady. Now thats a gift that keeps on giv'n.
Click to expand...
 
havnt heard much from out there as i just work no play im on my 21st month of being out of the mix, havnt seen but a handfull of folks, so i dont get informed of gold strikes out here have to hear it on the wind.

i have in the past found some sizable pieces but im more into mining than metal detecting, im trying to write a book of the trials and tribulations of a modern day desert prospector, trying to make it off the land.
I also wanted to write about hardrock mining from a differant point of view that of someone who has actually done the labors of hole digging, and not just book work, more from the blood sweat n tears point of view, from the inside of the hole looking out.

But mostly im just out trying to make a buck, if i had to rely on just my metal detector for finding the yellow I couldn’t do it, I don’t have to tell you that Rob as you are a metal detectorist and know how hard it is to find nuggs, not every one finds big gold its a rare thing to find chunks, and I wouldn’t mind a big payday but it just don’t happen that easy, so i stick to diggin, most times i can at least make a few crumbs daily at hard rock, we do supplement with placer, but for the most part its hard rock running through my veins.

I could of just been a metal detectorist and thats how I got my gold start, but i found my calling in the diggin of holes, most folks can only wonder what its like to work like this, I like to show what its like to live the life of a modern day prospector trying to make it off pennys a day gold mining, I know it offends some folks to show the poverty of mining as we do, but it’s the truth about mining ( all mining ) theres no big moneys here only the daily struggles trying to make this work a little longer, sure there might be a 1% of folks who hit it but how much time n $$ did they spend to get there? If you dont beleive me go try it for your self.

One thing for sure i left my mark on the mnts for all to see from space and on the ground, in the present days and 100 years from now folks will follow the trails we blazed in the rocks and stand at the edge of our workings and say, man I bet they got some good gold out of here !
Hope youall enjoy my ramblings. heres a pic of gold from the school teacher mine, Cpt Herb at Mitchels mill.
GT..........................

View attachment 1027946
 
Last edited:
A book is a great idea
 
Dont have too much of anything to ramble about, the heat in the hole is like 130 and can only manage 15 minute of work at a time, Jboy leaves the newly sharpened chisel up on the edge of the hole it falls on my arm blood everywhere, they still havnt found that girl.

We have really been hard on the steel latley as we are down at least 7 ft, was fairly soft at first now im down into fresh rock, not a real juicy vien system where the mineralization work to break things down in the surrounding rock making it of fair ease to dig.

cleaning our site now and moving on got a bunch of rain spreadout over the valley so most places are to wet for placering now, only got three weeks left to mine with the guys they will be back at school.
This year i will be looking for a partner to hang with me, i got these health issues, the wife doesnt like me to go out alone anymore, its just easier to do what she asks of me.
Goes against the way i think but it would be a good chance for someone to learn about desert prospecting. dont want to get a know it all, but someone serious about finding hardrock gold. its not a deal where one is going to get ounces of gold unless we hit it, but a good learning expieriance.

once we get done cleaning our site its back to working on mill the next few days resharpen dulled steel, and think about the vein i found last year up on top of the mnt, Jboy really wants to go hiking so we may doit?
Its really hot right now so it would be at night, at least there are no Beees !!!
GT.............
 
Last edited:
Herb, you get that book done put me down for an advanced
copy; signed by the author, of course!

Winter's a ways off yet, but I'm gettin' itchy feet again, and
come colder weather I'll be chompin' at the bit to get away from
here for a bit and get some wind in my face going down the road.

Next to me you're the most anti-social person I know of, so if I
could spend some time out in at the digs with ya we'd get along great.
Unfortunately, I'd probably be as useless as boobs on a boar, but I make
good company...:coffee2:

That, and I promise to keep ya laughin'...:laughing7:

Got to get over this current onslaught of the Meniere's first,
but looking forward to getting away for a couple weeks sure
helps the time pass and keeps the attitude up. :icon_thumright:
 
I'm looking forward to a copy as well
 
Last edited:
Thanks guys but a book is a long ways off yet.
finished our dig and we are going to do some prospecting/hiking, with that girl still missing we are going out to some older mines that are off the grid just too chk. would like to get over to the calumetts again but the sand is just to deep for the tortoise, so we will hit up the big mnt and out in the clark pass area, back to walking that sand its takes a good week to get used to that stuff again.

We prospect n mine year round and i have to say i prefer the heat to the winds of winter, sometimes it seems like it will never stop blowin, cant do a thing in that dadgum wind.
hope to have a gold shot before my computer shuts down got a few more days online.

Havnt started the stamp yet just trying to gather the funds, i need 3000 to finish the mill, so we have a few ounces to find and i aint gettin it done sittin on the computer.
GT......................
 
Still here for now.
Excellent prospecting weathers, lots of clouds and nice cool couple days allowed us to get out and do some cleanup work and prospect out a little further into the bush. It was still hot but not 110 last week we had a some days it was so hot the chuckwalla was out at dark.
Good to see others out this weekend saw a few folks were out there.

Last couple weeks we have really beat the heck out of the rock and now we are getting geared up to take out a sizable chunk of mnt solid rock it has been exsposed for a while by a wash out lot of water working at it is fairly easy to break. We still have to punch through at least 6 foot of rock into the vein and down at least 8 foot so 6 x 8 foot square chunk of mnt.
All hand work, i will get a lot pics of it as this one is hard rock prospecting at its very best !

Would like to get some folks at the mining camp this fall/ winter, would help fund the prospecting adventure a little longer and could use some help on the mill.

Today finds us working on the rig and running the table i can manage about 4 hours before my water gets to thick, and thats about all the standing in the heat i can take at one time.
Here in our desert we dont have an abundance of waters to waste and the shaker table uses large amounts of waters, i put waste waters to the trees make that shade.
You might wonder how i deal with not seeing through the mucky waters on the table, i trust my machine to do its job, once the table is set up it requires only monitoring and very little in the way of adjustment is needed, so turn it on and go. I still chk the tailings with the pan while im running just to be sure i get a very low values in my midlins doesnt matter as im working on a small leach plant to run all the heavys.
hope to get a gold shot tonight.
GT..............

Pic of the shaker
View attachment 1033790
 
WOW!

Herb, you're a perfect example of persistence paying off!
 
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