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Forum member East Texas Chris came to Alaska last summer to do a little fishing and hunt for gold. I let him prospect on my claim at Canyon Creek in the Kenai Peninsula while he was here, even let him use a dredge to work with.

Chris did a great job dredging by the bank with the 2 inch dredge I believe he ended up with about an 1/8th oz. of gold for the effort.

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Been really busy the last few months, but Saturday I got some free time. I decided to dredge the spot Chris worked last summer to make sure the area was clear of gold. Well about the area he had been standing wile dredging I found a crack in the bedrock, after busting it open and cleaning it up I was surprised to find about 10 G. of fine flakes and a really pretty 4 G. nugget.

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Really nice to see nuggets.

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Hope you enjoy the gold.

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Thanks for that opportunity last summer and I would have done even better if one of my days cleanout hadn't floated down the creek in my 5 gal bucket!  Oh well, lesson learned, wwhen working by one's self, keep those knees tight around the cleanout bucket!  Good to see the creek is still paying.  That's a tough place to work, with the narrow canyon and water flow, but fun none the less. 

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  • 2 months later...

I'm glad your doing so good.. the previous owner of those claims couldn't find gold to save his life and he had a 6" dredge! hahaha

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Thanks Brian, Living the dream !

Just read your classified post. You are done with commercial mining?

Looks like I'm gonna have to push the dredge back to my side of the line:smile:

 

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I am.. slowly selling off everything except the claims and small rec stuff.   I'm back at AMDS permanently, you should stop by and say hi.

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I too had a brief foray into commercial mining in 79-80 when I made all my income for a couple years by dredging. The first year was great. The second year was high water flooding all summer, and very disappointing. Dredging is like farming in that Mother Nature controls you and when she is not happy.....

Long story short that summer burned me out so bad I sold every bit of gear I had and did no mining to speak of for a couple years. You never really lose the fever though so I eased back into it, but I learned a valuable lesson. Never make your fun into a job. For most people like me prospecting is best left as a side job or activity while making a living with a steady paycheck. Then the gold is a bonus instead of something you need to keep from going broke.

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I was a member of a group on Canyon Creek at one point, and dredged a couple ounces of Canyon Creek gold. It was all the smaller flatter stuff like you got SJM and every bit came out of bedrock I broke up. There is both soft and hard bedrock, and the hard stuff will collect a lot of gold. The soft stuff erodes away to quickly too hold the gold for long.

The theory is that is the small gold is coming down from Mills Creek. There are ancient channels way up on the canyon rim also, and those are supposedly where the oddball larger nuggets come from that turn up now and then.

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3 hours ago, Steve Herschbach said:

Dredging is like farming in that Mother Nature controls you and when she is not happy.....

Boy.. isn't that the truth!!  That was me this year up in Chicken, although my 4 wheeler and truck was broke down most of the season the river being high and muddy didn't help either when I was able to get back in there. 

I always said, when/if dredging ever becomes not fun anymore I will get a day job again..

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