Happy Fathers Day, To you who believe Options

[Redpaw]

Today was the first day in a long time I got to have fun, put down the guard and run some gravel. it was a bright sunny day and many of the public were in the vicinity watching with wonder as we got to tried on the wetsuits and have a few cold ones with a few strangers....

What made today special is the fact that others out there have taken a chance to help me get through a few rough final days of making ends meet around this place I call home and it has been a long fight to walk and deal with the problems of after surgery, I may be far from perfect but dammit I'm trying to become a human on two feet again..

BUT, I have people out there for the first time in a long time that I can call friends, people who took the chance to help my family out as we break out of the slump to get on the right track...so as I sipped a beer and sat at one of my favorite places to go I decided to put a shovel into the ground where the black sand beaches were starting to show this time of year.

The gravels were concentrated into thick rich layers of black sand along the shores where the bedrock slopes I have pointed out to other members of the MRT that were present at the time should have noted. I did the classic thin skim off the top slowing taking layer from layer and I eagerly waited to see what laid trapped underneath the black beaches.

after 20 minutes of skimming the top and watching the bedrock underneath expose the cracks and pockets as the ripples of the river revealed them slowly I patiently skimmed the surface following the thin ragged line of the bedrock as it met with a different basaltic layer that lay upon it..

It was this thin line that formed a crack that had my anticipation looking eagerly into the tight slit of packed goo, and I was hoping to just have a great day of being part of a Great Fathers Day on the water let alone what lay ahead...

as we took buckets and washed the black sand layers down into the crevice while cleaning out the lower end it became apparent that this crack had not been worked before ( heck the area hadn't been worked for 20 years, and last year it was only tested ). The crack was only a finger or two wide and was 12-15" deep so far and thats when we hit the brown clay....a thick sludge of tan bbrown deposit just loaded with placer gold and we smiled as we rubbed our hands into the classifier on top of the bucket and could easily see the gold squishing between our finger as we pinched the goo out with our fingers and then brought it carefully over to the waiting bucket....

I was doing the two leg boogie at this point and the public was thinking this guy is BS'ing us....as the wife and kids scrambled over to get a better view of what I was balancing on my finger tips it became apparent that we'd never get it all with what we had with us for tools.....such is life, but we pinched what we could and sat back with eager eyes of what we found that was right under everyones feet for so long.

Under the brown clay was a thick layer of blue green ( teal looking ) gooey clay that was just studded with freckled size gold....my screams were heard for a mile in directions that produced echos up and down the canyon....

I can't tell you how many times in the past I stepped over this crack, this area, this boulder ridden spot to look where I thought it was futher away and even though I was always able to find some gold ( enough to say I found gold without throwing it all back ) I was dumbfounded that I did not see how it got there in the first place and check this obvious spot.

I was blessed today with the abaility to have a break from the stress that is slowly trying to make me quit some of the battlefronts I wage war on every day and I was very grateful that a few came forward and stepped up to help out, because things were getting a little tight around here after many possessions traded off for food and a quick buck to feed the family...and now I can say that those who came forward can now come and claim their interests on the loan that kept us breathing....The money helped and the interest on the money is to be paid in gold....

I'm going back for the rest when time allows and this is clearly not all that was there, but it was the best I've seen in a crack in a Loooooong time for the anmount of gravel moved vs. gold recovered..

YES todays gold....We found enough gold in one little crack to make us feel this is the least we can do for those who came forward and helped us get through this....I'm tickled shitless that I was able to have a day in the water and stiumbled on this new area that holds plenty of gold right in the same crack that I'm going back for...( yes we buried it in a big layer of boulders that will not easy be raped by those who saw what could be a big payoff...

Now granted....we only ran a few buckets at that....what we got out of the crack was pinched out and was really cool to see it in your hand as you dumped it into the bucket....

QJ, Steve W, and Double D the gold is yours.....I'll post some pics shortly ( batteries are charging ) and I wll send some gold to my brothers for taking the time to help and hope to see that I got through this...

Pictures shortly.....Dinner time and it weas the best Fathers Day for a few decades all in less than 6" of water...

[Redpaw]

Quick glimpse

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[Redpaw]

Another Fanback with a second Dilated Pupil size nugget found...!!

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[Redpaw]

Just another Fanback......lots under the black sand.....Hee Hee...GOLD BABY !!!! GOLD...

couple weeks is dredging season....

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[Redpaw]

The really wild part......I took the black ribbed matting out of the sluice last week because it had a bubble forming underneath it. I ran gravel all day with no black matting and with a care free attitude of just running gravel.

I had no idea that I was getting gold until that big 'ol dilated pupil just laid there on the remnant of the old sticky glued area that I didn't remove before running gravel.

I damn near fell over when I looked down and saw that nugget just sitting right there in the fast moving water with little specks trapping behind it.

Damn, I need to make a nozzle modifier to get into that crack now as it is only a finger or two wide.....too sweet of a day and well worth sharing with my buds....

Rp

[LilTimmy]

Holy Crap, RP!!!

I'm surprised I couldn't hear you yelling from my house! That is one HELLUVA find, especially just sluicing!

Way to go!!

[Redpaw]

One day.....5 hours of playing and a few cold ones.

and like you said before Tim, "on the bad side of the river".....

Whoo yaaaaaa, I'm still stoked and thinking of how to make a motorless dredge or a suction tube that goes to a five gallon bucket...

Smokin......

maybe one of those old gas siphon dealies that one used to use for siphoning gas from a car tank?.....there is not enough drop anywhewre for a grvity dredge.

[russau]

happy fathers day dave, im glad to see you upn round! your gold looks good! things will come around for you in no time.you just wait and see!

[LilTimmy]

RP, your last post made me think.. I've got one of those "hand dredge" PVC suckers with a 1 way valve, attaches to a bucket with a hose. Has 4 end fittings of various sizes.

[Redpaw]

That or it will have to wait till July 1st, either way it's not out of the question to try something like that because the crack is real narrow and needs to be scraped out with like a long rod and then sucked out from there....

I'm thinking I could break off this huge slab of rock ( couple tons ) a little at a time and work it down to get something in there...

I'm heading over to the college, got some research to do....mainframing it.

Rp

[Coalbunny]

Happy Father's Day Russ and RP!