Hunt4gold - First prospecting adventures and beyond

[Jeff95531]

You and I...my friend...have a LOT in common.

Love the pic btw.

Hope you have a safe, happy and golden year.

What I had intended to do was post up some pics to go along with your post. However, I somehow lost the originals BUT I finally found them again from an old post here on TN and copied them. These are the results of a a gift to my Dad from a claim holder in Warren ID from the 1960's. (You know your getting old when you have to specify which century.

Here they are, hope you enjoy...

 

[Hunt4gold]

Jan 1st, 2017 (Monday) Denver weather was mostly sunny with a high temperature of 53 degrees. So, with a winter storm moving in Wednesday I decided to get out for my first venture of new year. Had two spots (one of which I sampled in December) that I wanted to set up the Bazooka on and run material for an hour plus each. The first spot had an easy setup for the Bazooka:



After about 40 minutes of shoveling gravels/sands I emptied the Bazooka into a bucket, ran material through a 1/4" classifier, and then panned down to cons. Was pretty happy with what I saw in the pan.


The spot had good size boulders down to cobbles and pea-size gravels. Was also pretty heavy with black sands.
Here's the first hole that was feeding the sluice.


The second spot was about 100 yards downstream with similar stream bed.


Ran material at this spot for about an hour with two clean-outs of Bazooka. Below is a photo of cons from first clean-out.


It is Wed. now and starting to snow, so the next few evenings I be panning out the cons to see what I got. Will post results soon...

 

[arizau]

Pretty, pretty, pretty, etc.!!

 

[StreamlineGold]

Thats nice..been a while since i have had a pan look like that

 

[Hunt4gold]

Ok, here's the gold from spot #2 with Bazooka (post above). This was actually a better take than I expected. Gold panned out here was from about 1 1/2 hour feeding the sniper. Was also surprised by the number of flakes. Can't wait to see what I got from spot #1 of that day.


More to come...

 

[Au dave]

nice work ..I'm hoping for a result like that soon.. weight by any chance?

Sent from my GT-I9305 using Tapatalk

 

[KevinInColorado]

You really have found some nice spots!

I hope you start a collection of those larger flakes to display somehow. Those are nice and are big for Denver!!

PS nice photo too!!!

 

[Hunt4gold]

Au-Dave, actually, I just got a scale for Christmas from my wife (awesome lady supporting my new habit!).

GemPro 250


Will weigh out the gold from spot #1 tomorrow. Any guesses?
I have not a clue since I have never weighed gold before.

 

[Hunt4gold]

Kevin - Was thinking of testing my clip-on magnifying lens for iPhone tomorrow with a layout of flakes. Should be able to get awesome details of the flakes' structure.

We need to get together and discuss this area's resources.
Also believe that I found some of your old dams...

 

[arizau]

Au-Dave, actually, I just got a scale for Christmas from my wife (awesome lady supporting my new habit!).

GemPro 250
View attachment 1399464

Will weigh out the gold from spot #1 tomorrow. Any guesses?
I have not a clue since I have never weighed gold before.

Is there a prize (the gold pictured in post #85) if I guess the weight? My WAG* is 2.7 grams.

*WAG=wildassguess. Gold is a little less than twice as heavy as Silver and a Silver dime is about 2.5 grams and, and,.....your picture is not three dimensional.

 

[KevinInColorado]

Gold in that pic...I guess 1 gram.

That could be one of my dams. If so, bad news for you cause I cleaned out that spot!!

Meeting up: I'll PM you now.

 

[Au dave]

Au-Dave, actually, I just got a scale for Christmas from my wife (awesome lady supporting my new habit!).

GemPro 250
View attachment 1399464

Will weigh out the gold from spot #1 tomorrow. Any guesses?
I have not a clue since I have never weighed gold before.

nice looking scales ... I'll guess 2.35g . Gold is tricky to guess without seeing it in the flesh.

Sent from my GT-I9305 using Tapatalk

 

[Hunt4gold]

Well, for all who guessed the weight of the gold from spot #2, it ended up weighing .64 grams. Wished it was closer to some of the 2+ grams guesses!
Here is that image again.


And here is the gold from spot #1 of that same day:

Weighed in at .61 grams

So the total for that day ended up at 1.25 grams. My best day since I started prospecting in October 2016.

 

[shofs]

I'm just catching up with your posts Hunt4gold! Very nice job out there, your journey into gold fever really reminds me of myself, both in Denver, the Bazooka, the research we've done... we must meet up!

 

[KevinInColorado]

I'm just catching up with your posts Hunt4gold! Very nice job out there, your journey into gold fever really reminds me of myself, both in Denver, the Bazooka, the research we've done... we must meet up!

Intro made both ways!

ps lovely clean gold pics H4G!

 

[Hunt4gold]

Kevin - here's the photo of some of the larger gold flakes captured last Dec and this Jan.
Close-up taken with clip-on lens micro lens for my iPhone.

 

[GoldpannerDave]

Kevin - here's the photo of some of the larger gold flakes captured last Dec and this Jan.
Close-up taken with clip-on lens micro lens for my iPhone.
View attachment 1400678

Really nice; especially the size--coming from metro Denver. Kevin and I both have found some about 3 mm across and the one to the left of the I in Liberty looks to be 3 mm across and nearly that high. Several other pieces are approaching that size. Nice work!

Makes me want to drive up to south Denver from Monument the next day that is suitable (and I am not teaching). Thanks for the visual encouragement!

 

[KevinInColorado]

^^what Dave said ^^. ...love it!

 

[Hunt4gold]

Got out Jan 11th to a nice 50 degree sunny day here is south Denver. Gotta love the mild days here in Denver while we can drive 90 minutes and ski in 12" of new powder with a 60" base. Awesome!
Working the same area as last post, but got down to bedrock, which was about 2 feet deep in the stream bed.


Bazooka setup:


One thing I will try and start posting about is the stream morphology I am working. I am working on mapping/locating areas where there are alluvial outcrops along the stream (cobbles from 1" to 15") and either a good clay bed or bedrock for gold to collect on. As you can see, this spot has great cobbles, and as mentioned, bedrock under a 1-2 foot layer of sorted cobbles. This spot is the upper end of an inside bend point bar. Also discovered a 4" thick clay layer that comes in about 1/3 of the way down from the top of the point bar, near the bank. The clay bed has about a foot of course gravel (pea-size to 1") on it. Turned out to be a pretty good trap for gold. Most of the gold-bearing material was in the bottom 6" of gravel in the clay bed, and throughout the sorted cobbles down to bedrock. However, I believe that that the larger flakes were skimmed off the bed rock surface.

Here is a photo of the cons from the Bazooka from that day - will hopefully process these early next week.

 

[Goldfleks]

Looks nice and shiny!