Rookie Gold!

Gold4Mike · Jun 4, 2017

My wife and I got our first gold on the South Fork of the Nooksack today. It's not much, but we only ran about 1 five gallon bucket of gravel classified to 1/8 and run through a Angus Mackirk Foreman sluice. I had trouble getting the sluice to run right so there was a lot of time wasted, so I'm pretty happy with what we got, and yes I did the happy gold dance, which wasted more time. The gold looks bigger in person!

et1955 · Aug 17, 2017

Never was there much gold there, The Sky in the right place has a lot of gold, the pic shows what I got the last time I was there using my electric highbanker

Gold4Mike · Aug 18, 2017

Well that's certainly nice!

Gold4Mike · Aug 23, 2017

My wife and I were able to get out to explore a new location a couple days ago. It was quite remote and a bit of a hike to get there. Unfortunately, just as we were arriving at a spot to work, I kicked up a nest of hornets which went after my wife. :sadsmiley:

We ran like a couple of greyhounds down the creek and I got off with no stings, but my wife got stung about 8 times. She has always had mild reactions to bee stings, but we were so far away from help that there were some anxious moments until it became apparent that she would only suffer localized reactions. If it had been me, I would have called it a day right there, and trudged our way back out, but she is a trooper and insisted that since we were there, we might as well dig. She did most of the sluicing so that she could keep her lower legs in the cold creek water. We lost some time running from the hornets and waiting for things to calm down, and didn't get to work where we really wanted to, but we did sluice about 3 buckets before we headed home, and got some very interesting looking gold.

Gold4Mike · Nov 16, 2017

My wife and I weren't ready to call it quits to our rookie summer of prospecting, so last weekend we decided to try colder weather digging and went out to the Nooksack. We found we can put up with 45 degrees and digging so that leaves us a lot of opportunities during the winter in the PNW! It was sunny but we were in the shade the whole time. With the river running higher, I was able to get my GGT running well and we were able to just dump unclassified material right from the bucket and the sluice did a good job of clearing most of the bigger stuff out. We only dug for about 2 hours but were able to run about 8 buckets before heading home. We tested out a small bench we had been looking at, just above the current flood level of the river and we were pretty happy with the results. It's got me thinking about a highbanker. :laughing7:

We are excited that we will be able to continue to get our gold fix even through the winter months! :headbang:

scruggs · Nov 16, 2017

Good gold your finding. I use a Foreman too and a Grubstake for small creeks, love them both. Good luck to you!

et1955 · Nov 16, 2017

Ya those hornets are the worst, once I was testing a new area on the Sultan and while panning I looked up and guess what was a few feet from my face

Fortunatly nothing happened. Your new spot looks great, get the highbanker, you will get a lot more gold with it. ED

Gold4Mike · Nov 17, 2017

et1955 said:
Ya those hornets are the worst, once I was testing a new area on the Sultan and while panning I looked up and guess what was a few feet from my face View attachment 1516931 Fortunatly nothing happened. Your new spot looks great, get the highbanker, you will get a lot more gold with it. ED

That one wouldn't have been fun to run into. I'm glad we don't have to watch for winter hornets!

scruggs · Nov 17, 2017

Hopefully their all gone for this year. Be careful out there and good gold to you!

Arachnofreak · Nov 17, 2017

Underburden said:
The best part of this episode was having your wife with you. Best mining partner you can find.

Agreed! Some of my best memories mining was with the wife at my side.

Arachnofreak · Nov 17, 2017

Awesome job man! It will become quite the addiction if it hasn't already

bradyboy · Nov 17, 2017

Gold4Mike · Nov 17, 2017

Arachnofreak said:
Awesome job man! It will become quite the addiction if it hasn't already

Oh, it has! That's why we're still going out as we head into winter. :laughing7:

Gold4Mike · Dec 9, 2017

The river was frosty this morning, but my wife and I headed out to see what our tolerences were. I also wanted to try out a new back pack frame that I bought to lug the ever increasing amount of gear out to our dig site. It worked well and I'm sure I'll figure out better ways to haul everything. The sun never shined on us, staying below the high bank on the other side of the river but we did ok for about 2 1/2 hours before fingers and toes became too numb. We were happy with our results though. I'm interested to hear how everyone stays warm digging during the winter months.

et1955 · Dec 10, 2017

Par for the course this time of the year in our area, to keep warm keep digging besides if you are on the gold you forget everything including the cold. I don't carry any more since I built my dolly.

Oddjob · Dec 10, 2017

Gold4Mike, you going to show off your total.

RTR · Dec 10, 2017

Gold4Mike said:
My wife and I got our first gold on the South Fork of the Nooksack today. It's not much, but we only ran about 1 five gallon bucket of gravel classified to 1/8 and run through a Angus Mackirk Foreman sluice. I had trouble getting the sluice to run right so there was a lot of time wasted, so I'm pretty happy with what we got, and yes I did the happy gold dance, which wasted more time. The gold looks bigger in person!View attachment 1458963

Nice going on the Gold

...

Idea....Bring your classifieds home.Set up your Angus like this.And take your time at home.Good luck.

Gold4Mike · Dec 10, 2017

Oddjob, that was our total, lol.
RTR, I was liking you're setup in the picture. I may try to do that for my back yard creek, because during summer it doesn't have enough flow to sluice. Wife and I are way above the one bucket production now and I wouldn't want to have to carry all that classified material out. I really like the AM, but with good flow we have been able to run unclassified easily through our Grizzly Gold Trap. Saves us a lot of time and energy.

Gold4Mike · Dec 10, 2017

et1955 said:
View attachment 1524925Par for the course this time of the year in our area, to keep warm keep digging besides if you are on the gold you forget everything including the cold. I don't carry any more since I built my dolly.

The digging and seeing gold in the riffles definitely worked for a while, but eventually fingers became too numb. No sun patches showing through to try and warm up. How does your dolly do on rough or steep ground? My pack was comfortable, but heavy. I would love a donkey or burro to carry my stuff for me.

Gold4Mike · Mar 5, 2018

My wife and I have gotten out a few times to the local river this winter when the weather has been warm or dry enough. We've been without internet since Christmas so I haven't posted any results. It was nice having upper 40's yesterday so we headed out, although it did shower on us a few times. Certainly looking forward to warmer and longer days but it has been nice to add to the vial occasionally.

This picture shows our mesh bag safety anchor at work! Put a large rock into a mesh bag and attach to sluice to keep it from floating away when I'm not watching.

We found more bigger flakes than we normally do, but seemed like less of the little specks. Maybe that's a good sign? We seem to have our best luck tight into the bank and under the brush that is in the flood level water. This stuff is from the top 4-6 inches of gravel. I do find gold deeper than that, but it seems to be smaller and less prevalent.