Move on or Keep at it

[bigblock]

O/K there is this little stream i have been panning and i do mean little but every time i think i am wasting my time working it i will come up with a spec of gold very small specs that are very rough in texture as if with no wear on them anyhow when i think i am wasting my time and then that little spec will show up in the bottom of my pan.I have panned in several spots up and down this stream with the same results.I can't run a sluice (not enough water) thought about building a highbanker and trying that but may be a waste of time.What would some of you ole Pros do Keep at it or move on try somethin else i am open to any and all ideas!

 

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[Klondikeike]

Klondike here...

Back in the day... the old boys made dams... with spill ways made of piping or maybe a flume....with a gate....

They'd stock pile their material while waiting for the "lake" to fill... then they'd pull the "plug" as it were and washed their material as long as the water supply lasted...

Maybe 35 years ago or so... I had a small 2 in dredge.. I went to the desert, where we had some good results dry washing.... which isn't very effective...

A couple of us guys headed out to our favorite dry washing place with a weather report showing possible thunder storms and flash floods....

We had built a dam in our favorite wash of large rocks and filling the holes with small stones and rocks.... it wasn't perfect, but felt it would work okay... Sure enough, before the weekend was over, we had a real good shower.... it was perfect in that the wash flowed with water, but wasn't a real gully washer....

Soon the water was backing up and we threw our small dredge in the pond and began sucking...with the discharge over or on top of the dam....and we dredged about 45 minutes before we were using more water than what was coming in....and we had to stop....

In a entire weekend of dry washing, we might get 1/2 an ounce on a good weekend.... in that 45 minutes, we got around 2 plus ounces... don't remember exactly now....but we were impressed... just shows how ineffective a dry washer really is...

A year later or so.. this whole area for as far as you could see was removed from entry to protect a desert tortoise

There are two ways you can overcome the lack of water.... I am sure there are other ways too..

Good luck and hope this helps...

Klondike...

 

[bigblock]

Hi Klondike thanks for the response some good ideas for more water, but my question is how do you know it is time to move on or keep at it so far i have not found any pay streaks or any amounts of gold in one location on this stream, but most everywhere i pan i will eventually find a spec or two. I am fairly new to this but have read a lot of books and forums on reading a stream and think i am doing it right just trying to decide if i am wasting my time or keep at it in this stream anyhow i am getting a lot of practice !

 

[Klondikeike]

Okay...

Understand... the following is ONLY an example.....but the process is ALWAYS the same... it's called doing a GRAB SAMPLE...

And if you will do this each time you are prospecting.... when you do decide on a place to work.. you will have good success...


When I am "grab sampling" a location, and I determined that I want to further investigate the possibilities of this property....I measure the amount of material I have moved.... I use 5 gal buckets as my measuring tool...

It takes 40 full and reasonably compacted, 5 gal buckets to equal 1 yard of material.... So if you use only and process only 4, you have moved 1/10 yard....or 8 buckets ..would be 2/10 or 1/5 of a yard and so forth...

Now collect ALL the gold you can separate from the concentrations....of how many buckets you have processed.... weigh it... lets say you have 1 gram of gold.... there is 31.1 grams to a troy ounce of gold....

So now you know... that, based ONLY on that sample...you would get around a 1/4 ounce of gold per yard of material you processed....

Then I take the black sands and have them assayed... and add that amount to my sample total.... which now gives me the total expected to recover from a yard of material...plus what ever silver there may be as well...

Now understand... you MUST do several of these samples from many various locations to get a real good over view of the OVERALL value of the property you are sampling...

That is how I do it.... and done it for years.... This is why professional and commercial mining companies use drills and set up a grid to drill on across the property... assaying each of the drill spoils... they map it out and record the data...and when done..it is an easy decision to either go forward or not go forward...and they'll know just how much material they have to move... and how much values they'll recover... and how profitable they will be...

But for us simple prospectors.. the bucket process works real well...

And, I'll say this... just a speck here and there... depending on your panning skills, may not be worth the time and effort to do the grab samples.. but ONLY you can make that determination as to how much effort you want to put into the sampling process...

But the sampling process will always tell you the simple truth about any property... either wet or dry...

Hope that helps...

Klondike...

 

[bigblock]

Thanks Klondike that gives me an idea of what i should be doing to test this site to evaluate it and see if it's worth my time! Thanks for the Good info !!

 

[Number9]

You have to trust your pan and know your ability is high enough to test a creek to see a true results.
Take your time, it's not a race, or to see how much material you can pan down in a day.
You must be patient when testing a new area!
I didn't know I was on video while testing a creek in North Georgia. When I have a pan in my hands, I'm in my own little world! ...



In many of the creeks and water run-offs in TN, GA, and NC, most of the gold is overlooked...
because most of it is flour gold!

Was the creek worth going back to... yeah, I think so!

 

[TerryC]

Bigblock, Klondikeike's post is truly informative, but I really like the hidden jem, "record your data". That will take the "wishful" thinking and woulda-coulda-shoulda out of the equation, reducing your finds to fact, and not fantasy! Good thread. TTC

 

[goldcur]

What confuses me is places where there is no small gold or any indication of gold in quite a bit of dirt and then wow, just when you were about to give up, a gold nugget.

 

[bigblock]

Thanks to everyone gives me a better perspective to what I should be doing !!!