Placer Claim Mined Out?

[desertgolddigger]

I belong to a local club that owns a claim. This club has had this claim for many years, and acquired it after the old timers had mined it previously, and others after they commercial outfits closed up.
I walked quite a bit of the 160 acre claim, and noted that just about every wash had been worked. Most of the surface nuggets has also been detected by those with gold detectors. In other words, this place has been picked over and over and over.
But I m a stubborn type of person, and I figured, just watching how people ram their puffer and blower drywashers, that some gold was just being blown through them. maybe not much, but some small stuff that never got a chance to settle behind the riffles.
I know many of you would never go to the effort of digging for three to four hours through the tailings in these washes. Again, I'm a bit stubborn, and anyway, I just wanted to have some fun locally, instead of driving 300 miles roundtrip to something that gives a little more for less effort.
I've spent the last three weeks, digging a few times a week along about 30 yards of wash, and have recovered just about a gram of gold. That might not seem like much, but I have only dug up 5 grams, not counting this one gram in almost 20 years out here drywashing in the desert of southern California.
As you would know, things always seem to go wrong. My gas powered blower motor decided it was time for the repair shop, and haven't heard from the shop in two weeks. So I purchased a WORX WG521 corded electric leaf blower to use with my Royal Large drywasher. I'm using a portable generator to provide the power. And it actually is working better than with my old gas powered blower. I have to run the blower on the lowest speed, or I just blow everything through the riffles. Results are very good, as I am getting gold specks so small that I will have to use the Blue bowl in order to recover them.
I'm not only getting a little gold, I'm having some fun, and I am getting a good workout. I've lost 10 pounds since I started. So things are going well.
I'm still digging test holes around the old time hard rock mines in the hope I will find where the gold has drifted downhill below these mines. So far just a couple specks here and there. I figure I just have to move laterally one way or the other before I get something better Of course, I' don't really know if the old timers stripped the hillsides. Even if they have, they apparently aren't as thorough as I am. I hope that I may be lucky and find a larger piece of gold that the old timers, previous placer miners, and detectorists have missed.
Hope everyone is having as much fun as I have been having.

 

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[desertgolddigger]

After nearly a month without a working chain mill, I put the newer one back together with new parts.

I'd been digging in an old timer waste pile, and decided to use what little knowledge I've accumulated in my brain to pick out promising small rocks, less than 3/4 inch size.

Ran about half a pail through the Krusher, and sifted to 80 minus mesh, sluiced and panned. Got about 1/100th gram, so nothing to cheer about. with the accompanying dirt I also sluice from that same waste pile, I figure I'm getting about 3/4 gram per ton.

Just wish I could locate those good rocks like when I first started this hard rock thing. Back then I was getting huge smiley faces in the pan, some of which was the micron gold I knew nothing about. Being dumb, I tossed anything not settling in the corner of the pan. Five years later, I'm lucky to get 1/100th gram per 3/4 five gallon bucket of material.

I vaguely remember breaking dirty quartz rocks back then, so I'm now looking for those. Hopefully they will literally pan out with better gold. I'd probably drop over if I got 1/20th gram in one pan. That's the amount that I can watch travel down my cleanup sluice because there's so much that the ribbed doormat cannot hold all of it.

 

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[russau]

DGD keep at it! I for one is impressed with your fortitude ! My late Brother - in - law lived in 29 Palms but he passed away several years ago. R.I.P. Jerry !

 

[desertgolddigger]

DGD keep at it! I for one is impressed with your fortitude ! My late Brother - in - law lived in 29 Palms but he passed away several years ago. R.I.P. Jerry !

Thanks Russau. It's getting more difficult to do all this hard work and heavy lifting for such a little return, but it is slowing things down when it comes to aging. I'm 75 now, and the body keeps telling me to quit. I keep thumbing my nose at that, and just keep plugging along.

 

[russau]

Man do I hear you loud and clear ! I'm 78 now and had to quit dredging and prospecting because of my beat up ole body told me so ! BUT I still want to do it after watching these video's BUT my ole body is saying WHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO !

 

[desertgolddigger]

Man do I hear you loud and clear ! I'm 78 now and had to quit dredging and prospecting because of my beat up ole body told me so ! BUT I still want to do it after watching these video's BUT my ole body is saying WHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO !

Hey, Join up with a couple of friends, and go out and have some fun. If there's gold large enough for metal detecting, do that, as it takes very little effort. Or just team up and dig for a while.

About 20 years ago I teamed up with a couple other women, and we did a couple hours of drywashing each outing. Unfortunately, they had to quit due to injury. When we did find a picker, we got warned about noise pollution by the residents of 29Palms. You could hear our excitement all the way across 20 miles of desert.

After that I just puttered around until I finally learned how to properly work a drywasher, and started learning more about how to mine gold

A couple months ago I found two campers near our Humbug claim, and discovered the guy who'd helped me unload the rock from my truck for road repair, was a club member, but only came out a few times a year to metal detect. Another gentleman, camping with him was from Canada. They both did metal detecting, and before they left, both detected a wash I'd been working with the drywasher, and gave me five piece they found, as thanks for making the roads good enough for them to get their trailers into the claim area. I had detected the same area, and never heard a peep.

Anyway, our intermittent visiting club member is now up north in the mountains for the summer, detecting for gold. I got invited to visit he and his claim owner friend to come out to Quartzsite this coming fall to get some lessons in metal detecting, and do a little drywashing. Anyway, it's nice going out with someone, even if it's only a few times a year to enjoy the company, and have a little fun searching for the yellow stuff.

Get out, as it gets you a little exercise, and gets your mind and juices flowing. Don't sit and vegetate, as that's not healthy.