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Steve's 2014 Alaska Gold Adventure


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And a cold wet day it was! Barely hit 40F all day and poured down rain. Later we found out it was snowing not that high above us in the hills. Very cold for end of June! Being a nice brother I gave Tom the Minelab SDC again and I dug out the Garrett ATX with 8" mono coil. It is a good thing we have two waterproof detectors along. No worries about getting them wet and muddy, just dunk in creek and wash off later. Tom got two small nuggets and I bagged three fat little nuggets that weighed 4 grams together.

Yesterday I was pleasantly surprised when the rain let up and day got halfway nice. Our early luck petered out and we starred scouting around, ending up in the Jack Wade public mining area. I had the SDC back and put Tom on the ATX just so he could have a go with it. His lack of expertise showed in that he found the ATX frustrating to use after running the SDC for a couple days. The extra pound is not so bad but the inability to toss the coil around at will makes it tougher to hunt with. The SDC you just stab the coil around where you wish and if it bumps rocks or the base of the brush there is no issue. The ATX you have to be in constant careful control of the coil. It is kind of second nature for the way I hunt anyway so no big deal but it gave Tom a bit of trouble. Bottom line is we both got skunked, not that unusual hunting here.

Today started out really nice and so we geared up to hit some good looking old tailings in the public area where I popped a nice nugget last year with the Gold Bug Pro. I am sure there is more gold there. Tom used the SD2200v2 with 24" x 12" mono coil and I put my 18" round Nugget Finder mono on my GPX 5000. We pounded that area hard all day since conditions were favorable but despite digging a pile of targets no gold again today.

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9.1 gram nugget found in public panning area of Jack Wade Creek in 2013 by Steve Herschbach with Fisher Gold Bug Pro

I ran low on gas so filled up. $4.79 a gallon at the Goldpanner and $4.49 at Sue's in "Downtown Chicken" so you can guess where I filled up. Rivers flooding from rain as is Meyers Fork so the local highbanking crowd at the Camp is having a tough time. Internet still poor at best limiting me to text only for now. Wish I could post some photos but hopefully later.

Supposed to rain again tomorrow so we may dive into brush with SDC and ATX again tomorrow but we will see in the morning. Hopefully a nugget or two will pop out. Main thing we need is for creek to go down as we are cut off from a good many places I want to hunt at the moment.

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Raining hard with flood warnings and hills socked in with low clouds this morning. Off we go for another day of detecting in the rain with the Minelab SDC and Garrett ATX. Hopefully a nugget lurks for us today in the thick brush. Looks like everyone else is holing up for the day here in Chicken. Can't say I blame them!

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I no sooner than made last post when I learned we needed to run the 70 miles to Tok to take a phone call. Mikes Skype phone is about as non-functional as the rest of his internet access at the moment. If in Tok stop at Fast Eddies for great food and decent WiFi. Gave me a chance to post photos above and this one of GPX with 25" coil. Now to get back in time to hunt gold on the longest day of the year - Happy Summer Solstice!

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This has been the longest stretch without gold I have experienced here but Tom and I both finally bagged a nugget yesterday. Small ones though, not the 1/4 oz to 1 oz nuggets we are hoping to find. Unfortunately this is par for the course when hunting tailing piles. Just random hits here and there, quite unlike patch hunting. One big nugget can make it all worthwhile.

Our day starts at 7AM and after a quick breakfast and email check we head for someplace to hunt gold. We usually start detecting between 9AM and 10AM and except for brief breaks generally go until 5-6PM. Longer if the weather is good.

We got into some tailing day before yesterday that I was just sure would produce gold for us. Lots of old piles and a bunch of newer maybe 1980s stuff. Quite the mix over a large area and very lightly detected in the past. Tom and I really pounded it with the Minelabs all day and dug a large pile of nails, bullets, and various steel items, all for no gold. I am still betting on gold there and we will go back. Yesterday we hit some low lying brushy tailing piles in the morning, and Tom finally got a little nugget.

That after noon I hit a huge tailing pile that has been hunted in the past with the GPX and 25" mono. I got a surprising number of sweet targets, all trash, but will give it a better go when I have more energy. I wandered off the pile into some low lying tailings and on my way out got a faint signal. I pay attention when I get those as when using the 25" they are often a small target under one edge instead of a deep target in the center. Sure enough, it was an edge target, and I was surprised when this little 0.9 gram nugget popped out from an inch or two deep.

The rain started again in the evening and hard all last night but just cloudy this morning. So far. A balmy 53F so wet and chilly in Chicken this summer. Hopefully the weather gets better before Chris arrives July 8th.

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Good to get an update Steve, it’s too bad about all the wet weather… let’s hope that trend comes to an abrupt halt soon. I also hope the strategy behind using the 25” coil pays off for you… it’s certainly true that one big nugget at depth can be a tripmaker if such a piece is found. I’ve done it often enough at sites where I’m confident about the potential, and usually with good success, but there’ve been some disappointments. We’ll keep our fingers crossed and hope you have some success soon.

I’ll be absent from the forum for awhile, the wife and me are leaving in a few days for the north country camping with the grandkids, long walks down forest trails, fun at the beach… and a bit of water detecting. Good luck...

Jim.

 

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You have a great camping trip Jim. Most of the thunder eggs are cut except perhaps 60-70 little ones. I will be in touch later,  Bob

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On 6/25/2014 at 11:02 AM, El Dorado said:

Steve

Are these tailing piles from bucket line dredges?

Jack Wade is a mess of mixed up tailings and overburden. The lower creek, mostly public area, had a bucket line dredge, but then was mined again later with bulldozers. The upper creek was bulldozer mined. The tailing piles in both areas now are mainly bulldozer stacked, either actual tailings or piles of stripped material and overburden. Most have quite a bit of brush or small trees growing on them. From http://www.mindat.org/loc-198191.html

"In the early (pre-1910) history of the creek, mining was by drifting, hydraulicking, sluiceboxes, and open cuts. Large-scale open-cut mining has been used largely in the upper part of the Jack Wade Creek valley. Prindle (1905) reported that by 1904 much of the ground in the creek had been worked out and only about 50 men were mining on the creek. Production from 1904 through 1907 totaled about 16,230 ounces (Eberlein and others, 1977). A hydraulic plant was in operation on the creek in 1928 (Mertie, 1930 [b 813]), and during the 1936 season, one hydraulic plant and several small shoveling-in operations were present. In the winter of 1935-1936, the Russel King dredge was purchased by the North American Mining Company and moved to Jack Wade Creek from just above Franklin Creek on the South Fork of the Fortymile River (Mertie, 1938). The dredge began operating in 1936, and it operated until 1941. Gold was recovered at the rate of 70 to 100 ounces per day (Naske, 1977). Following the war, the Wade Creek Dredging Company continued to mine on Jack Wade Creek using bulldozers and sluice boxes. Between 1946 and 1947, the company recovered slightly more than 5,000 ounces of gold (Naske, 1977). The Wade Creek Dredging Company ceased mining operations at the end of the 1951 season. Small-scale mining operations using bulldozers have operated almost continuously on Jack Wade Creek from 1951 to 1990. From 1990 to 1993, small suction dredges occasionally mined in the creek (Eakins and others, 1985; Bundtzen and others, 1987; Swainbank and others, 1993). Jack Wade Creek has several placer gold-bearing tributaries, including Gilliland Creek (EA141), Robinson Creek (EA142), and Jefferson Creek (EA145)."

Frost this morning but weather finally cleared after heavy rains and a flash flood on the creek. Pretty dramatic, with one guy nearly losing a dredge. I got a couple small nuggets with my SDC yesterday but so far our luck has been quite poor despite lots of effort. Honestly though we are having a good time. This is in many ways what I live for. And why we are here? Again from http://www.mindat.org/loc-198191.html

"Jack Wade Creek is also known for the occurrence of large gold nuggets; nuggets of 25, 33, 56, and 70 ounces have been found (Yeend, 1996)."

I have held that 56 ounce nugget in my hand - a solid lump of gold. The largest nuggets I have found here in the past weighed 6.5 ounces and 2.3 ounces respectively.

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