I have been trying to find the source of the large gold on my claim for a few years now. This weekend my nephew and I had access to a helicopter on Sunday. So we decided to try prospecting a few spots upstream. The plan was to see if we could find the same chunky gold we have on the claim.
The first spot we dropped into looked real good. The gravel was course and the boulders were large and heavy. There was an old gravel bench about 15 feet above the river on the inside turn and clear evidence that this area had been worked on earlier. David started working downstream, while I checked out the bench area. While detecting around a very large old oak tree, I got a very loud reading that was registering as a iron target. After raking back the leaves, I discovered a hollow spot that was created by the large roots in the boulders hiding a very old gold pan. After checking the area thoroughly, I was somewhat disappointed that the miner left me his pan but not his gold. I decided to finish checking the bench area and began working upstream where I found very few targets. When I got a reading, I would dig the gravel and place it in my pan and check the area to make sure there was no more targets. When the area was clean, I would then pan out the material.
We met back at the drop off point for lunch. During lunch we compared notes, we found out we were both on the same level. Nails - lead and a little (very little) gold. I had done a little better than David. I had the old gold pan, and an old cow bell I found a little later.
After lunch, I headed out to pan some gravel in the river. The results after checking several large pans of gravel were lots of black sand and a little bit of fine gold. By then the chopper had returned and we moved approximately a mile upstream.
In this area the river made a very large bend. There was a large area of expose bedrock. The river split in two at the top of the area, and came back together approximately 200 yards down stream. The bedrock in this area was fairly hard and had a lot of crevices ranging in sizes. We worked the same plan; I went up stream and David worked downstream. We worked this area for about 2 hours and had very few targets. I ended finding 3 very small lead birdshots and David found a lead bullet. If there were any large gold, I think one of us would have found something. This leaves me to believe the large gold is coming in the river below where we first started. There is about a mile of river between where I had found nuggets and where we first started prospecting this morning.
Prospecting in this area is very difficult. Being so remote that by the time you hike in and back out, there is little time left for prospecting. Even with the helicopter, it is still difficult to work this area, because there are so few spots where you can be let out on the river. We may have to wait until summer time to finish this area, because the only way to get up or down stream is to swim in a few spots.
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