How much gravel can you dig up in a day by hand with a pickaxe/shovel?

[firebird]

Curious to see what other prospectors can do with muscle power alone. I'm not very physically fit and ended up having some serious health problems doing this, but at a max 10 hours a day I could only dig up around 4 or 5 five gallon buckets of paydirt with the larger rocks removed. A lot of times I had to hand wash the larger rocks because it was tightly compacted in a clay layer and gold was sticking to the rocks, so a lot of time was also spent doing that. It was not easy moving each bucket at around 50lbs and the amount of gold varied quite a bit, at most I could only get 0.5 grams doing this per day.

 

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[RTR]

4 or 5 gallon buckets is a workout for 1 day .

 

[oneguy]

Back when I used to do the dig in the bank, classify to 1/4", sluice, pan thing... My old tired body could only do 4-6 buckets (approx. 3 gals/bucket) classified in a 6 hr day. Along came the Forest Service and their stupid rules telling me I couldn't move any boulders, touch a tree root, and my little AM sluice had to come outta the river because of the "bull trout", etc. etc. That pissed me off big time so I left the claim and decided to metal detect gold instead. Thank you Forest Service....my back is much happier now and my take home gold for hrs and effort spent is way better than doing it the hard way..... I kinda miss being on the river and when I run into a skunk streak detecting I sometimes do return to the water and crack scratch/pan to recover some fines to cure that itch for awhile until that next nugget shows up under the coil..... Just my opinion...but you might consider at least using a detector also, your back will be much happier.... Nice gold in da pan!!!!!!

 

[firebird]

Back when I used to do the dig in the bank, classify to 1/4", sluice, pan thing... My old tired body could only do 4-6 buckets (approx. 3 gals/bucket) classified in a 6 hr day. Along came the Forest Service and their stupid rules telling me I couldn't move any boulders, touch a tree root, and my little AM sluice had to come outta the river because of the "bull trout", etc. etc. That pissed me off big time so I left the claim and decided to metal detect gold instead. Thank you Forest Service....my back is much happier now and my take home gold for hrs and effort spent is way better than doing it the hard way..... I kinda miss being on the river and when I run into a skunk streak detecting I sometimes do return to the water and crack scratch/pan to recover some fines to cure that itch for awhile until that next nugget shows up under the coil..... Just my opinion...but you might consider at least using a detector also, your back will be much happier.... Nice gold in da pan!!!!!!

Wow, what state where you having trouble with the forest service??

 

[oneguy]

Wow, what state where you having trouble with the forest service??

that would be Montana...…..

 

[1637]

best thing that i did was get rid of the 5gal buckets and got 3gal ones.and i moved my drywasher closer so i and shovel right into it.
good luck brad

 

[UncleVinnys]

At a younger age, I filled about 20 5-gallon buckets, about 60% full (=~ 3 gallons) in six hours.
And, BTW, got about ONE DOLLAR worth of gold.
Never went back to prospecting, but it's still a fun experience, fun to teach others how to do it.

 

[N-Lionberger]

It really depends on the dirt in question, how rocky, how compacted it is.

 

[seafox]

I would say I moved a yard a day of hard pack.
on the last trip where boss had a backhoe dig dirt out of ground I shoveled and sifted to 1/2 inch minus about 25 buckits in 45 minutes while the boss took a load of buckits to trailor in camp ground. I call it SMP syndrom ( Stupid Male Pride) the previous day he had filled 25 unsisfted buckits to my 19 sifted. I honestly congratulated him ( PS he's 89 TO mY 58} I can say I was pushing as much as i cause at the end of thaqt month I was diagnosed with congestive heart failure.

on the previous trips by myself digging in old gravels about the consistancy of poor concrete long summer days got shorted by running out of steam an hour two by dark. wish I could have puc=shed harder but the strength wasn't there

 

[mendoAu]

Wish I was a Kubota.....I don't shovel anymore, blaster nozzle and a highbanker with a nozzle in a hollow in the winter.....half ah wetsuit, a bottle of sippin' gin and my trusty 5inch dredge in the summer...but when I hit 80 yrs. I might slow down a bit.

 

[Silveraith]

They've got no right to tell you not to roll rocks or touch roots. It's YOUR claim, not theirs. I would have told them to get the hell off my claim.

 

[oneguy]

They've got no right to tell you not to roll rocks or touch roots. It's YOUR claim, not theirs. I would have told them to get the hell off my claim.

I assume that was directed at my post earlier?? That claim is one I've been granted access to. I'm just trying to enjoy my retirement, don't really have the time or patience to butt heads with any government Nazi's, or the time and $ to take it further in court. It was easier to walk away and NOT get the claim owners in any squabbles with the government because of my actions....just not worth it imo. Like mentioned already...I do a lot better with a detector anyways and much easier on me physically so the F'n Forest Service actually did me a big favor...…!!!!!

 

[IdahoGoldGettR]

I think the forgotten message here is,,, they work for us. Whether it be the Forest Service, State Land, BLM, Dept. Of Water Resource whoever, it is our tax dollars, our permit and licensing fees, etc., that pay their wages. The overreach by these agencies is utterly ridiculous. I could go on and on about this but that’s not what this post is about. I showed this pic of some rusty iron like deposit earlier and thought it should be shown again. As you can see there is an abundance of quartz in this hard pack and though very productive, it didn’t last long. A portion of me was glad that it was short lived because as I recall, it took a lot of muscle with a 5 foot pry bar to break it up. However after seeing what gold came of that mineralized area, the other half of me wished it could have continued. While this pocket did not produce a full ounce, it and its neighboring area did accumulate a total of 4 ounces. If you look closely, some of the gold does contain that rust color.

Oooooops my bad,,, I thought this was the 1 ounce of gold in a day post. Just to add to this post, I was moving roughly 6 yards of overburden each day to get to this gold. Not an easy task nor did I do this more than three times a week for obvious reasons. All in all, the work was worth the gold.

 

[Bejay]

Digging ain't my cup of tea. Being a dredger I have always chosen to let the hose and nozzle suck it up. So, on my Az claim I chose to suck it up again...but of course no water is to be found in the dry washes. So I got a big industrial grade shop vac and a generator and hauled it into the areas to be dug. But I just chuck the rocks aside and get down with my knee pads and vacuum up the material....which pretty much gets classified per the hose size. Then when the shop vac is pretty full I have a small shovel and transfer the material into 5 gal buckets. I would accumulate up to 25 buckets in the morning hours and head back to camp around 2pm with them. Then process the material up until dinner time. But I would say I would average 18 to 20 buckets a day. Processing the material was the less than enjoyable part of my day....had to recirc….and muck the tanks etc..... often.


Bejay

 

[DizzyDigger]

I think a lot of it depends on the type of ground you're working.
If it's hard, rocky ground it's going to be much tougher work
just to get the material to load in the buckets.

Was just reading back through my old prospectors journal,
and recalled that there were many 20+ 5gal. bucket days working
the Longhorn Bar. Also ran a couple dozen buckets a day through
the drywasher down near Barstow, Ca.

http://www.treasurenet.com/forums/prospectors-journals/413578-dizzys-diggin-thread-2014-a.html

I was 54/55 back then; now at 60, I'm not sure the body can do that anymore.

 

[Silveraith]

If the ground is more gravel than rock you should be able to dig 20 - 40 unclassified 5 gallon bucket per hour. One 5 gallon bucket per 2 minutes gives 30 buckets in an hour. Figuring a 6 hour day you should easily do 180 - 240 buckets. Not sure why it would take any longer than that unless you need a pickaxe for every bucket. Also, never waste your time hand classifying buckets. I've talked with experts on this. You are killing yourself for no reason. Shovel directly into equipment that will do the classifying for you like a small trommel, highbanker, drywasher, etc. The gold you would lose not hand classifying is more than made up for by increased materials run. The only time to hand classify might be for assay purposes where you want a more accurate sample of the gravels.

 

[akflyer]

No one is going to be able to keep up that pace. That is not even in the realm of reality. I think you are missing the point that most of us do this as a hobby and enjoy getting out and looking for the "mother load".

 

[Silveraith]

I'm only saying that you can easily dig a 5 gallon bucket of unclassified material in 2 minutes. That is not a hard pace to maintain if the ground is mostly gravel. When you say no one can keep up that pace I think you might be surprised. I have seen it done. Figuring 40 buckets to a yard that's only 4 - 6 yds per day. I figured a 6 hr time frame leaving adequate break times totaling several hrs. It's called work. I'm starting to equate prospecting with play time in some of these threads. If the ground pays $20 per yard that's $80 to $120 per day. If you can't at least get that for a days work you are wasting your time.

 

[Silveraith]

I got a buddy that digs gravels on a claim. I've seen him dig 8 to 10 yards in a day easy. It's called ambition.

 

[N-Lionberger]

Why would you be digging in loose even sized easy diggin gravels? It has been stated numerous times that most people on this forum do this as a hobby, you seem to have trouble with that concept. Also Prospecting isn't about producing as much as possible from one spot, thats mining. Prospecting is the act of looking for a deposit to mine.