You Gotta Find It

So yesterday my buddy and I panned cons for 9 hours. It was fun at first, but that gets old fast. We got everything narrowed down to one last tiny amount in one bucket that was all black sand. We knew there was great gold in there, as we had just been dumping the black sand and gold into this one bucket so we saw most of the gold that was going in. We were doing all of this in the comfort of my apartment. We went and freshened the water in the wash tub in the tub. Best part about working indoors is you get to use warm water. I got panning on the final black sands and decided my back had enough of the hunching over. I lied down on my back to straighten out a bit. Then I saw a drip from the bottom of the wash tub. I took a closer look and there was a nice crack in the bottom corner of the tub. I quit panning right then and didn't get to see the rest of the gold that came out. I hope my neighbor didn't get rained on.

Today we decided to do some local exploring and take some samples. Sampling is not an easy task when you are surrounded by Columbia Plateau Basalt. So we had to do some searching. We got into a good looking spot. It was an old creek bed that appeared to run periodically with exposed bedrock and a lot of bends. This is not a known gold producing area. Gold does occur in a few of the surrounding areas, but in very small occurences. Took a couple of samples went home, and out of this gold-less area where nobody believed we would get gold we found it. Not a lot, but enough out of two pans to catch my attention.

Get out and explore, you never know what you find.

Cheers

Sean

Linkback:

You are not allowed to view links.
Please Register or Login

http://www.thunting.com/smf/index.php/topic,22030.msg153112.html#msg153112

This summer when the ground dries out we might head back there with some more fitting tools. I will probably take the dry washer down there, and if that doesn't work might just classify buckets down to nil to run through the auto-panner at home. Either way, it is something interesting to do while the idiots flood the lakes. Fish early prospect when it gets hot, and fish when it starts to cool off. The secret is: location, location, location.

Linkback:

You are not allowed to view links.
Please Register or Login

http://www.thunting.com/smf/index.php/topic,22030.msg153160.html#msg153160

I went down to my local "Ace is the place" and bought some parts & pieces to put together a sucker.  it will have a 3" body with about 24"s of stroke, at the bottom of this is a 4 way with 3" straight through and 2" out the sides.  I have a 1?" valve on the input side and a 1" valve on the output side with about 8" of 3" pipe on the bottom with a removeable plug to act as a reservoir so I can get a good amount of pannables with each stroking session. 

On the in side I am going to put about 6' of hose and 4' of ? or ?" CPVC to poke under rocks and such and on the out side I'll put a few feet of accordion hose into a bucket, don't want any of the good stuff to get away now do we.

Got the idea off a You Tube video I saw while checking out other videos on the subject.  I'll report on how well it does or doesn't as soon as the rain decides to give us a break, are you hearing me Mother Nature enough already.

Gramps

Linkback:

You are not allowed to view links.
Please Register or Login

http://www.thunting.com/smf/index.php/topic,22030.msg154339.html#msg154339

I was wanting to build one of those as well. It's small, light, and great for exploring. The concept doesn't seem that difficult. Be sure and post some pictures of your build.

Cheers

Sean

Linkback:

You are not allowed to view links.
Please Register or Login

http://www.thunting.com/smf/index.php/topic,22030.msg154513.html#msg154513

Get yourself some plumbers waterproof grease for the plunger, that helps a lot.

Linkback:

You are not allowed to view links.
Please Register or Login

http://www.thunting.com/smf/index.php/topic,22030.msg154788.html#msg154788