PG-Prospecting

Thanks! It was a good weekend for VA gold, though not my best by a long shot. Cant wait to try the equinox at this spot as well. I was able to run the monster in auto+. Running it in manual 10 made it was a bit chattery, but i was switching back and forth. Only had one signal that turned out to be lead, all others were gold. Going to have to pull the GPX 4800 out as well to ply the steep hillsides that are adjacent to this spot. A few of the signals came from spots that had no apparent cracks, but the bedrock was so soft i could just dig into it with my little pick and out would pop a picker. My guess is, is that since the bedrock is so soft some of the cracks that use to exist have gotten smashed over by the water flow. This is part of the reason why when i hit soft bedrock while dredging i always take off the upper couple of inches.

This past weekend me and a buddy got out and did some prospecting, on saturday we both dredged with 4 inch dredges, I did ok got 2 small pickers and a bunch of fines. My buddy killed it and got three nuggets and some pickers. He has basically located our next paystreak that we will hit hard in the coming days. The second day i decided not to dredge due to an old injury that was acting up, so i packed my dredge up and went down stream and decided to pull out the GM 1000 and detect around where my buddy was finding nuggets with the dredge. Just up stream from where he was dredging there was a nice large area of exposed bedrock in the creek that was pretty soft and decomposed, so i fired up the the monster and started detecting. Low and behold the first hit i get is a little picker, second hit another little picker, and so it went. During the course of about 1.5 hours, i got 13 little pickers in about 5 square feet of bedrock. I was stoked, this is basically the first gold patch i have found with a detector. Ill be taking the equinox back there later this week to see what it can find. Once i clean it up with detectors we will dredge it to get all the fine gold that is hiding there. Should be the start of a pretty rich paystreak/patch. All in all a fantastic weekend and i cant wait to detect that spot more as well as dredge that whole section of creek bank to bank. Should eventually get a video together of the weekends events.

Yep you can see the mud motor in a few of the pictures attached to the stern of the canoe. Ive tried to use normal boat outboards but the rivers around here are too shallow. Mud motors are pretty cheap and will operate in about 6 inches of water. Love them.

I agree that it is high, but it had to be that way to be able to raise the sluice high enough for transport on the river. It still works just have to run a little higher rpms. Next canoe rig build will be different and it will be closer to the water. She is an awesome rig for running shallow rocky rivers that have no boat ramps and only canoe slips.

Beautiful day out on the river doing some scouting and testing of new equipment. Only got to punch one sample hole. Little too much overburden at about 4 feet. Got a little color, just need to find more easily worked ground.

1911Colt - None that i know of other then myself. Just realize lidar mapping has not been conducted everywhere. The east coast has good coverage the west coast is less then 50%. Shoot me a pm if your interested, i can at least let you know if your area has any or not.

DrMike - The ground return from the lidar is the return that shows a bare earth model of the existing ground surface. Google earth pro as program has no compatibility with normal lidar data. To make it usable on google earth one has take the .las format and render it into a DEM which is generally a .tif file, then from there you need the right program to turn the .tif into a georeferenced kml or kmz file which overlays in google earth. It is not an easy or straight forward process.

Correct a 6.5 hp for a 5 inch dredge would be underpowered, but i wasnt sure if you were to add a performance exhaust, air intake and re-jet the carb to pull about 2 more hp out of it would it then power a 5 inch dredge ok. Would the keene p180 pump become the limiting factor and not the hp of the motor?

alaskaseeker - When i said three stage i meant keenes newer over/under type sluice not the triple sluice with the side boxes. Im still debating which would be the best to use. Steve - Thanks for the info! I will figure out a way to make it work without the aluminum cutout/flange piece that is missing. What are your thoughts on which box is better. The older single stage that this thread is about or keenes newer three stage sluice pictured below. Both weigh close to the same. They will be used in a 5 inch dredge. I think im going to try and make a uber lightweight 5 inch by making an aluminum frame and using xps foam for the floats (i have a ton of it already). Not sure if a 6.5 hp motor modded by putting on a performance exhaust, air intake and rejetting it, with a keene p180 pump would be enough to power a 5 inch.

Haha, sounds about right! In VA you can dredge as long as it is man portable and nozzle is 4 inches or under. No permits needed. Main issue is that there are no claims, everything is private property, so you must get permission from the property owner or join the local club that leases a number of gold bearing properties.

Klunker : While California is beautiful i could never live there given its current political climate, we will leave that at that. lol Plus i love dredging, and cant dredge there either. But you are right im sure my ounce to 4 ounces a year would shoot up out west lol.

Ridge Runner: Insights and recommendations are welcomed, especially since you've gone down a similar path.

So i love building innovative equipment for prospecting almost as much as i love prospecting. I usually try and build things that solve problems that i see with current designs or builds that help me get to hard to reach places. One of my biggest issues with any high-banker/ mini trommel set up is that regardless of the size of the hopper and depending on the angle you would either have baby feed material in from a five gallon bucket or you would be clearing off the grizzly bars constantly with your hands or a combination of the two. Ive noticed most of the big equipment fed plants and trommels use a vibrating feed system to provide a nice even feed of material regardless of the amount dumped in the hopper. But i have found that no one makes a system like this for smaller equipment and small scale prospectors, so i decided to build my own small version and see how it works. This video is the first time out testing my build and i will say it needs some modifications, but the overall concept worked amazing. My buddy and me couldnt keep up with feeding it, probably need about 4 people shoveling into it. It will take up to three 3/4 full 5 gallon buckets at a time. Should be an awesome tool for leveling old tailing piles, and when paired with a mini trommel should really help with emulsifying clay. Hope you all enjoy the video, please comment and let me know what you think, and like, share and subscribe as well!

Thank for all the feedback! The raw Lidar data that i use is available online for free it just takes certain programs and the know-how to be able to turn it into something useful. The drone was not used for Lidar, only photo mapping of that one river location. As far as i know there is no current lidar systems with under 2m accuracy that can be using by small drones like that pictured above. All the 2m lidar data out there is flown either by fixed wing plane, or helicopter. I believe it might be able to be carried on large fixed wing drones but from what i know it requires a license to fly the larger drones. But the technoloy is advancing quickly and from what i know within 5 years it may be possible to out fit a commercially available drone with lidar that has 2m accuracy or less. For the phototomography that i showed in the video i used a DJI Mavic pro, and i sold just because i never used it enough and i used the money to buy an equinox 800 lol. Afreakofnature - there is lidar available west of the Rockies, the Tahoe National forest area has a good amount including many gold bearing area along the American River and Yuba rivers. Ive made a few maps for a guy out in that area. I also believe Oregon and Washington have some already as well, and both of those states will have a lot more available in the next few years. Sorry about being long winded in the video there was lot to cover and looking back i know that i still missed things. I plan to do a similar video about lidar but more so for a relic hunting point of view. Lots of people here in VA have shown interest in the maps for civil war relic hunting.

I make them. The raw data is generally out there for free, but you have to have the right programs and knowledge to be able to turn the raw data into something useful. Took me about 2 years to figure it out and im still refining it and learning better ways to do things.

I will have to try and find out how much if any lidar Australia has run. I know New Zealand has a good bit, but i havent attempted to play with any of theirs.

Finally got a video up that goes over and shows some the uses and benefits of lidar maps for the gold prospector and metal detectorist. I also delve into some drone usage stuff at the end of the video. Let me know what you think, and if your interested in some feel free to contact me. I will hopefully have a website up in the near future, when i do i will let everyone know here. Thanks for watching!

Hey everyone: So im curious what is everyones drive time and mileage to there nearest gold prospecting location. For me it ranges from out my backdoor to about 1.25 hours one way.

It was a nice find! I need to take the time and locate the vein. The skim of placer gravels on top of the decomposed bedrock is difficult to run due to the amount of clay and topsoil, the lack of water isnt helpful either. Im basically using it as an opportunity to learn more about loaming and locating hard rock vein sources, then from there to learn about hardrock mining. I find it interesting that in the 1860s they stated that pan washing the crushed vein material produced good results. If it was good result for those days it should be pretty good with today's gold prices. Thanks for the interest. And ill keep you guys updated as i slowly move forward with my plans.

When i bought the house i didnt realize that there was an old gold prospect in the backyard. An old history report from around 1860 says that an 18 inch wide quartz vein prospected by open trenches and that pan washing the crushed ore yielded good results. A pan of the soil pretty much always give 5 to 20 colors and abundant magnetite crystals. I have metal detected the area a good bit and have found plenty of hot rocks and hot ground but no detectable gold yet. I will be doing a loaming program and trenching to located the specific gold bearing vein. Then maybe decide to dig a root cellar. lol In the video i run a highbanker in the little feeder close to the old prospect and about 100 yards from my back door.

kiwijw - I meant that the large coil tires me out faster. I am not swinging it fast. lol Sorry for the poor word choice and lack of comma.

Yes I meant that the big coil tires me out quickly. I Always try to take my time and swing slowly. araratgold - Are the evo coils much better then the commander coils? I know my buddy who found a number of patches in VA runs a 14X9 evo coil as his primary coil.

Yep i have that document and read it regularly, i also have pretty much all the docs it cites as sources. I also have made lidar maps of pretty much every major mine in VA and in the areas i have access to i have attempted to map out vein trends. I am definitely a prospector at heart as i am always searching for the next good area. My main good gold area for dredging has pretty much been worked out, so im searching for the next area to equal it or be better. And i like having options. lol

Klunker - Is the super smooth threshold the main reason you recommend running a DD. Ive generally only used mine in areas with lots of iron trash to have some ability to discriminate. The two DD coils i have area a coil-tek 8X12 platypus coils which has not impressed me, but im also not as familiar with the setting to run a small dd coil. The second DD coil is a Detech 17X21 coil. Thing is huge and gets heavy to swing really fast. I should probably have an intermediate sized DD coil as well, but i have yet to buy a coil for the GPX all the coils i have came with the detector when i bought it.

Thanks for all the input. Ive toyed with the idea before but, ill put it back on the back burner. Ill still keep the 4800 since I know large gold nuggets have been detect in VA before with a 4500 and 5000. My buddies have hunted those patches out though before I met them. So I know there are more to be found. Im stubborn and will keep at it. I have access to a couple thousand acres of private land that is gold bearing, so that's a lot of ground to cover, but im sure there is a detectable patch somewhere. Winter is my detecting and scout season in VA and summer and fall are my dredging season. Vanursepaul - I already have too many dredges so there is no need for more. I currently am working on building three different ones lol. Ive found three small nuggets with the GM 1000 in VA, and will continue to use that and the equinox to hunt shallow bedrock. Klunker - This last outing I was using a Minelab commander 11 inch mono coil, but I also use a minilab commander 15x12 frequently as well. My general starting settings are as follows: motion: slow, Rx gain: 8, Audio type: normal, Audio tone:50, stabilizer:8, signal peak:16, target volume: 8, tracking speed: med