Dredge Tailings Question

[Cascade Steven]

I have some questions about dredge tailings such as are found in California, Idaho, eastern Oregon and other places in the western US.  This spring I would like to add dredge tailings to my selection of areas to  hunt for gold and I am in need of some advice.  As I understand the environment, one might find either nuggets or specie gold, and that the approach for finding each one is different.  Is this a correct evaluation?   When looking for specie gold in dredge tailings, where does one start:  along a road, at the base of the piles, near the top, on the side, either near or away from vegetated areas, near the pond or away from the pond, or ?  Are there specific characteristics one should note?  How does the hunt for nuggets in this environment differ from the specie search?  It appears that a large loop on a VLF would be better for specie gold and a small loop (VLF) would be better for nuggets, correct?  I realize that there may be some "trade secrets" that you prefer not to share but any general help would be greatly appreciated.  Thanks in advance.

[Steve Herschbach]

The easy answer - hunt everything!! Nothing is off limits in tailing areas.

It seems I have spent half my life detecting tailing piles - there are many stories at my Steve's Mining Journal on the subject. Ganes Creek and Moore Creek in particular.

As a rough generality over the years I have found two hot spots in unhunted tailing piles (good luck finding those now). The very top of the pile came off the bottom of the workings and I have found some nice nugget mini-patches on the top of some tailing piles. The other spot is the lowest areas around tailing piles. Once nuggets start rolling they usually keep rolling all the way to the bottom. And then yes, you can find a nugget also just about anywhere else so nothing is off limits. Dragline operations in particular can be a real mess.

Do keep an eye out for clay lumps, often covered with moss. If the gold is on a clay bottom a lot of gold gets caught up with clay chucks and discarded. Detect any areas with clay in the tailings very carefully. Another clue is ripped shards of bedrock on tops of tailing piles letting you know they really were at the bottom.

Check the records before starting. Many bucket line dredges worked areas where there was nothing but fine gold. I do not hunt tailing piles unless I have some sort of evidence nuggets were recovered in the area. Even then the patience and effort required can be daunting, but at least you know the chance of big gold really does exist, making it worth the effort.

Aerial view of tiny portion of Ganes Creek tailings in 2002. The old machine shop shown in the photo was unfortunately destroyed in floods a few years ago. I would hunt any disturbed material in this photo including the roads.

[Cascade Steven]

Steve:

Thanks for our tips.  Greatly appreciated.

[cobill]

Cascade, here is probably the best article written on the subject by Gerry McMullen.

Bill

[Cascade Steven]

cobill:  thanks for the link and article.  

[jasong]

Outside CA and AK, there some likely very productive dredge tailings around the Rockies. Unfortunately all of them I've looked into have either strange city/county ownership issues or are privately owned (or claimed since before I was born). My success rate getting permission to detect the private ones here in the Rockies? 0%.  Even when I first started and literally offered to give them 100% of the gold just so I could make sure I was learning on a place I knew there was a chance of nuggets existing...nope.

It was the same when I lived in Oregon, I had zero success getting any permissions for places to learn to prospect or detect for gold.

The places that do grant permission seem to be "already granted out" to older prospectors, and won't give any new permissions. Good luck though, may your luck be infinitely better than mine was. I gave up, realized the chances of me prospecting anywhere close to home were basically zero, and went to the desert where no one would bother me and no permission required.

[Cascade Steven]

jasong:  thanks for the insight, advice and reality check.  

[oneguy]

Hardest part of the gold game is finding a place(s) with detectable gold to swing on...... (without stepping on someone's toes)

[oneguy]

59 minutes ago, jasong said:

My success rate getting permission to detect the private ones here in the Rockies? 0%.

On the flip side of what Jasong said above...  Myself and Reese headed out early over near Helena and a snow drift kept us from getting to our location.  Reese was gonna head for home, I wasn't cause I drove over 200mi to get there.  I mentioned to Reese about an area I spied on Google earth loaded with dredge tailings.  He followed me and the 1st farm house I saw we stopped and I said "lets go up and ask for any info, etc. about who owns what, etc."  We go up and knock and after an hour we had 130 acres with half of that in tailings to hunt.  Hubby gets home and informs us he's caretaker for the 900 acres bordering and he may be able to get us permission on that property.  Next day we get the additional 900 acres, at least half of that in tailings.  So 1030acres with one door knock...it can happen.  Good things come to an end....900acres sold and so went our permission....lol

[jasong]

I'm guessing asking in person is the only real way to have success. A lot of what I did was via mail or over the phone since I was working every day in the oilfield and couldn't travel except on days off.

But on the selling and losing permission thing - one thing I've noticed that is happening now which wasn't happening anywhere close to as much 10-15 years ago due to the country demographics/age is a ton of land is getting inherited down and then later sold. I see a lot of land owned by kids now who will never see or even visit the land (by kids I mean people in their 40's/50's now but children of the owners who wouldn't give permission). So it's worth the time to pursue permissions again probably.