Saturday my daughter and I decided to go out and look for some gold. We headed out to the same location I went last Saturday. We had to be home about three so we got an early start. The plan was to be at the river at 8:00 AM. We arrived right on time but to our surprise, when we got out of the truck it was 39°. After putting on a few more layers of warm clothes were ready to head out.
I wanted to try a different approach. We hiked up to where I found some gold last weekend. The plan was to remove some of the gravel out from under the largest boulders. Then after detecting it, take it down to the river and pan it out to see if there is any fine gold in the gravel. Removing the gravel from around boulders wasn't as easy as it sounds. It took at least an hour to get 5 gallon bucket of material. I ran the detector over the material and got no response. Then we took the material down to the creek and tried panning. I was somewhat surprised to the fact that we got no gold at all and hardly any black sand. We moved upstream to a spot where there was some large heavy boulders sitting on the bedrock. We had the same problem digging out the gravel from underneath the boulders, you have to chisel and bar every bit of it to get it out. After we had pulled out about a 5 gallon bucket worth of material we went thru the same procedure. I got no response from the metal detector again and after packing it down to the creek we got the same results from panning - nothing.
It was now almost 11:00 AM and we decided head back down to the truck. We were both hungry and tired of packing around all the extra clothes, it was now close to 70°.
A little discouraged my daughter came up with a plan B during lunch . We spent the next hour or so trying to catch lizards. Planned B didn't come out much better, half the day was gone and we had no gold and no lizards.
We decided to move upstream. Then go down to the river and detect any crevices in the bedrock along the edge. The main problem was, we were on the wrong side of the river. The river was making a long slow bend and we were on the outside of the bend. This time of year the river is too cold and flowing too fast to try an cross it. One thing I have learned over the years, gold is not always where it's supposed to be. So why not give it a try. We started detecting our way back towards the truck - keeping an eye out for lizards on the way.
I'm somewhat amazed to the sensitivity detectors have now! I was picking up targets that were so small even with a teaspoon of material in my hand I was having a hard time finding the target. By the time we reached the truck, we'd done an excellent job of cleaning up the environment. We had recovered quite a bit of lead and some iron targets, but no gold. Even though we came home with no gold, it was still the perfect day. The weather was great we had all kinds of fun and I got to spend the day with my daughter in the mountains - how do you top that.
I wanted to try a different approach. We hiked up to where I found some gold last weekend. The plan was to remove some of the gravel out from under the largest boulders. Then after detecting it, take it down to the river and pan it out to see if there is any fine gold in the gravel. Removing the gravel from around boulders wasn't as easy as it sounds. It took at least an hour to get 5 gallon bucket of material. I ran the detector over the material and got no response. Then we took the material down to the creek and tried panning. I was somewhat surprised to the fact that we got no gold at all and hardly any black sand. We moved upstream to a spot where there was some large heavy boulders sitting on the bedrock. We had the same problem digging out the gravel from underneath the boulders, you have to chisel and bar every bit of it to get it out. After we had pulled out about a 5 gallon bucket worth of material we went thru the same procedure. I got no response from the metal detector again and after packing it down to the creek we got the same results from panning - nothing.
It was now almost 11:00 AM and we decided head back down to the truck. We were both hungry and tired of packing around all the extra clothes, it was now close to 70°.
A little discouraged my daughter came up with a plan B during lunch . We spent the next hour or so trying to catch lizards. Planned B didn't come out much better, half the day was gone and we had no gold and no lizards.
We decided to move upstream. Then go down to the river and detect any crevices in the bedrock along the edge. The main problem was, we were on the wrong side of the river. The river was making a long slow bend and we were on the outside of the bend. This time of year the river is too cold and flowing too fast to try an cross it. One thing I have learned over the years, gold is not always where it's supposed to be. So why not give it a try. We started detecting our way back towards the truck - keeping an eye out for lizards on the way.
I'm somewhat amazed to the sensitivity detectors have now! I was picking up targets that were so small even with a teaspoon of material in my hand I was having a hard time finding the target. By the time we reached the truck, we'd done an excellent job of cleaning up the environment. We had recovered quite a bit of lead and some iron targets, but no gold. Even though we came home with no gold, it was still the perfect day. The weather was great we had all kinds of fun and I got to spend the day with my daughter in the mountains - how do you top that.
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