Needing advice on reading this river and wall

[ace4166]

Hello prospectors,

I took this video at my girls mom property and was needing some input on reading the river along with the side of the hill. We have found very small (fly poop) amounts of color where I was standing on the beach. Went down stream where you will see a couple piles of rocks and had very little luck and up stream a little ways with the same luck. We had sampled the hill side in multiple spots with nothing and was just wondering if someone out there had any good ideas.

 

[Obsessive]

I'll start by saying that looks like a nice piece of property to have access to, regardless if there is gold or not. Got any fish in that creek?

Then I'll add that I have no real idea what I'm talking about when it comes to prospecting, so I'm interested in hearing what other people have to say. Meanwhile I'll add my .02.... My initial observations based off what Ive picked up so far in my minimal studies...

Don't see any obvious bedrock. So cant start there.
Don't see any flood layers in the wall, so can't start there either.

That's all I got. LOL.

I would want to know if the property is in a known gold bearing area, and if there was a gold source upstream that could deposit wash gold down to your area during high water times. Id also want to know what the headwater source for the stream is, it didn't look like there was much fluctuation in the water level.

Good luck!

 

[et1955]

Great video, if you tell me the name of the river I'll be able to help you.

 

[ace4166]

it is the Tahuya River et1955

 

[et1955]

Thanks for sharing your location, at first I thought it was the Tolt river, the high bank your video showed is a glacial deposit. Big Blue as it is called is the glacier that carved out Puget Sound and it came from Canada along the Frasier Canyon witch is why certain areas have gold in western Washington were there is no Lode source. Great job in finding some gold there, not easy, take the lessons you have learned from this place and when you go to a richer place you will succeed in getting more gold.

 

[Bonaro]

There are no native gold occurrences in Mason County. The extremely find gold you may find was deposited from glacial action 10000+ years ago. As the glaciers came down from BC they moved across the gold rich areas in BC and the Cascades they picked up gold. This gold was ground to a fine powder and is usually extremely flat, nuggets are rare. This fine gold is dispersed through the region and has been somewhat concentrated by contemporary stream action. This same fine glacial gold can be found in the gravels East and South of you until you hit about exit 88 on I-5, this is where the glacier stopped and retreated you will find mostly clay south of there.

It is extremely hard to locate a paystreak, because this gold is so fine and flat it tends to go everywhere. Dig behind large rocks and obstructions. Dont bother trying to find bedrock.

 

[ace4166]

I just wanna thank everyone for the input on the education of reading the wall. It is true about no bedrock. We dug down almost 8'-10' with no signs of any bedrock. The sad thing is we have this 8'x16' cargo trailer full of prospecting equipment and no place to go. I am new to the Wa. state due to my job so have no idea. We are joined in 2 different Wa. clubs but dont know which place is go. Willing to share equipment to anyone willing to go prospecting.

 

[Laz7777]

I see all the gravels, but no sand. doesn't look like the right conditions for a layer of compacted sand/gravel/rock to be below the surface.
my best suggestion is to find concentrations in the roots of plants that have fine, spidery roots. don't see any of the grass I know and love.

BTW, nice camera work.

 

[Just_curious]

I watched a pretty good video explaining a technique to find the bigger gold. While sampling, you find a bunch of tiny flakes of gold. You continue working that area, and then start getting nothing in your pan. You think that you cleaned out the spot, but in all actuality, it was just the lightest stuff that you were finding. Continue heading up stream and pull a few samples from a spot here and there, and continue up stream. Repeat the process until heavier gold, that dropped off sooner than the light stuff you were finding down stream, finds its way in your pan.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G891A using TreasureNet.com mobile app

 

[ace4166]

I will continue up stream "Just Curious" but it sounds like we may have just been lucky finding what little bit we did due to not beening a producing ground.

 

[et1955]

I just wanna thank everyone for the input on the education of reading the wall. It is true about no bedrock. We dug down almost 8'-10' with no signs of any bedrock. The sad thing is we have this 8'x16' cargo trailer full of prospecting equipment and no place to go. I am new to the Wa. state due to my job so have no idea. We are joined in 2 different Wa. clubs but dont know which place is go. Willing to share equipment to anyone willing to go prospecting.

PM me and maybe I can help get you to a good spot to mine.

 

[WaterScoop]

Washington is tough on timing and licensing as you may or may not know.

Short time August 1 - August 31

May you strike it BIG

http://wdfw.wa.gov/publications/01729/wdfw01729.pdf

 

[Obsessive]

Thanks for sharing your location, at first I thought it was the Tolt river, the high bank your video showed is a glacial deposit. Big Blue as it is called is the glacier that carved out Puget Sound and it came from Canada along the Frasier Canyon witch is why certain areas have gold in western Washington were there is no Lode source. Great job in finding some gold there, not easy, take the lessons you have learned from this place and when you go to a richer place you will succeed in getting more gold.

@ace4166 Pretty cool though that you can point to those flakes you did find and say they were left by a glacier.

@et1955 Is there a particular layer in that highbank that you can point to as a glacial deposit or is it the whole of it?

thx

 

[et1955]

All of it is glacial.