Metal Detecting & Drywashing "can" Be Rewarding

[Rob Allison]

Hello All,

   I came across a really old Youtube video I made back around 2008 here in Arizona.  There are only a number of places in the last 25 years of metal detecting that I can say were honestly rewarding and worth all the effort to drag down a drywashing/vac-pac, set it up and run it all day or weekend.  This happen to be one of those locations where we found a number of very rough gold nuggets using metal detectors, but the amount of smaller pickers and fine gold was unreal.  

Practically ever nugget my partner and I dug up, we saw a half dozen or more small pickers and a good amount of fines.  You honestly don't find this too often, but they are out there and it does happen.  We worked the small gully (as seen in the video) for several weekends, getting whatever we could metal detecting with a VLF and PI's.  We then started down lower in gully and drywashed/vac from side to side, digging all the cracks and crevices up the best we could.

The wash wasn't too long, nor very wide, maybe 3-4 foot in the widest spots.  However, after about 2-3 weekends, we had the entire gully down to bedrock and ended up removing about 3 ounces of very small nuggets, pickers and fines.  I believe we did so well due to the nature of this type of gold being very crystalline in nature.  The source was probably weathered away as we never were able to locate any type of real vein or source.  

Overall, with all the gold, fines and gold nuggets, we ended up with about 6 ounces of really nice placer gold.  There are hundreds, if not thousands of these locations still to be found, so a good metal detector can lead you into one of these hidden gems!  Heck, at todays gold prices, just over $1900 per ounce, that's a nice $11,400 payday.  It probably took about 5-6 days to recover it all.  

Wishing you all a bedrock-gold rich gully.

Rob

 

 

[Ridge Runner]

Thanks Rob for the show and tell.

 As we get older it’s nothing like reminiscing of time’s past.

  The Best To You Rob .

 Chuck 

[Valens Legacy]

I hope that one of these days I can get out west to do some of that, all I need to get is a decent dry blower system.

I have more sluices, pans, and everything that goes with them for creeks and streams.

I enjoyed the video and the information you provided so thank you very much.

[Mike C...]

Thats it  Rob  No show No gold-Is there a part 2 to this ???-

[Cascade Steven]

Rob, thanks for sharing.

[Rob Allison]

Hey Mike and all,

   Yes, there were several other videos, I'm trying to dig them up.  I guess I never uploaded them to Youtube, but I did have more footage of the wash completely gutted out and me walking down it and the gold! 

Thanks for all the comments. 

Rob

[Cascade Steven]

Rob:  Looking forward to the additional videos.🙂

[Rob Allison]

Hey Cascade Steven,

    I have a Youtube Channel that I'm sure you seen at - 

https://www.youtube.com/user/Nuggethunting/videos

I haven't done any new videos in months, but need to get some new material up.  Thanks for watching.

Rob

 

[Cascade Steven]

Rob:  Thanks

[GotAU?]

On 6/1/2021 at 9:10 PM, Valens Legacy said:

I hope that one of these days I can get out west to do some of that, all I need to get is a decent dry blower system.

I have more sluices, pans, and everything that goes with them for creeks and streams.

I enjoyed the video and the information you provided so thank you very much.

Rob’s video shows it like it really is, it can be hard work but it also it can be fun.  And you don’t need to bring your own drywasher to do it. Announce your plans when you are visiting the west I am sure that more than one of us would gladly use an extra shovel bum to schlep buckets full of dirt over to our drywashers!  😁

Seriously though, if ever visiting in So Cal, I’d meetup with someone from DP to go for a day as a guest to one of the club claims I belong to or to an open BLM area.  Drywashing and detecting can be pretty fun and there’s always at least a bit of color to be found.