Hey Joe, first off let me give you some info. There are lots of tailing piles and you can hunt them all and possibly come up with nice piece of gold.
The piles that were put in place by the big monters are usually pretty tough to detect. Most of the time the rocks are larger and there is a lot of space for the smaller stuff to fall down. Over many years these piles have been washed clean by the winter rains. If you could move all these rocks and get to the bottom ground that they are setting on I have no doubt that you would find something. This is more than likely not going to happen.
The next pile of rocks that we want to look at are still in the bigger rock type group again set down by the big dredges. This time you have the same size rock but you also have a lot of debris still on top. If you look around at the other piles you will notice that there is somewhat of a pattern. In the area we are talking about there is a pile with more debris on top about every ten or so piles. You will also find that there is a lot of trash, iron, bolts, nuts, on these piles. The big dredges ran X amount of yardage and then shut down for recovery or repair. When you are working with Mother Earth the rocks always win and the dragline/dredge must be repaired. I have never done very well at these piles other than a lot of trash.
To me the very large piles are out for detecting.
Now, in the Clear Creek area you will find many, many rows of smaller tailing piles. Most of these are north of the Clear Creek road. Do not confuse them with the handstacked piles higher up on the hill. These piles are about five to six feet high and there is a pattern in which they laid down the material. We are out of the realm of the larger river eaters and getting into the ground that was too shallow or to far for them to reach. This where the Doodlebugs came into play. They could stake off and work the shallower ground all along the edges of the goldfields. In our area you will find these types of wind row stacks all over.
Look at these smaller piles the same way as the big ones and you will see patterns of operation. If you learn your local geology and know what rocks you are looking at on the tailing piles you will be better off in the long run. By being able to identify rocks you will know if you are in a heavy pile or not. A heavy pile to me is one that came right off the bottom hopefully near the pay streak. You will see hematite, magnetite, stained quartz, green soda rock, and maybe even some broken pieces of bedrock. These are the piles you want. You will still run into trash but if you have very good VLF that has a very good discrimination mode and you know how to use it then you are ready to hunt.
I have found single nuggets on some piles and I have found multiple nuggets on other piles. I have found larger nuggets and I have found crumb piles. You probably want to know what larger and crumbs are. My largest nugget off of one of these doodlebug piles was a really ugly, gnarly ironstained piece that hit right at four ounces on the scales. I have found many piles with crumbs scattered all over, something must have happened to the recovery system. One day I walked away with a vile full of crumbs that was just under an ounce. Not one piece went over three grains and there were lots of pieces that were sub-grain. That day stands out to me because all I dug that day was gold, not one piece of trash. I have to tell you also that digging that many small pieces was actually labour. I did enjoy it though.
Remember that this area has been gone over with detectors for the last twenty or so years. However, if you do your research and talk to property owners there are still a lot of these piles to be located. I hope this helps, Thanks, TRINITYAU/RAYMILLS
