Creeks And Heavy Gold And Lead Placement Questions

[maxxkatt]

I used to know this, but am not sure I remember it correctly. I now hunt civil war relics and plan to look for bullets in creeks and smaller branches. These creeks and branches are slap dab in the middle of a major Civil War battle in metro Atlanta. All the other areas around I mostly cannot hunt but the creeks and branches are fair game.

Where in the creek would you expect civil war bullets from July 1864 to now be located. In the areas of the creek that are built up by the water flow in the curves or in the deeper curve that is cutting into the bank. I know they could probably be in both places since the walls of the creek and branches have eroded quit a bit since 1864.

So I am asking which sides of the creeks/branches would most likely yield the most civil war bullets. I know that lead like gold moves in a creek until it is stopped by something like a crevice or clay or boulder.

 

 

[GB_Amateur]

What are the three keys to waterway gold?  Gravity, gravity, gravity.

There's a small creek near my house, which I don't think is old in geologic terms.  It has exposed (limetstone) bedrock and I found one crack/crevice in particular that is about 1" wide by 4"-6" deep.  I started by metal detecting it (with discrimination) and found a few modern coins.  Next I cleaned it out with a crevice tool and panned what I removed.  There was some rusty iron from fences and quite a bit of lead shot, I'm guessing from bird hunters.  I know there have been farm/ranch homesteads here going back well into the 19th Century.  So origin of the metal is likely from the past 150 years.  I don't remember if I found spent bullets, but likely (not the herky Civil War kind, though.)

If you can access bedrock cracks, crevices, and hollowed out holes you should be able to cash in, assuming others haven't beat you to it.

I'm sure there are many good (and some not-so-good) YouTube videos that cover all this.  Chris Ralph writes about streambed gold locating fairly often so maybe he has a YouTube video on the subject.  Kevin Hoagland, Jeff Williams?  Pretty standard stuff.  (I quickly skiimmed through Steve's Guides titles but didn't find one.  Likely he's written about it somewhere.)

[Gold Seeker]

In gold bearing streams/creeks and rivers the gold is usually found on the inside bends of the water course, the water slows on the insides bends and goes faster on the outsides bends, that's the reason you see gravel/sand bars mostly on the insides bends, as the water slows anything suspended if heavy enough will drop out of the flow, on the outside bends the water going faster is stronger hence as you mentioned it erodes the bank and that material will get deposited on another inside bend downstream.

Also keep in mind that those streams and branches of the stream have most likely moved from where they were during the Civil War and the years after so also look for low laying areas nearby that may have been the stream bed in the past, to help identify an old stream bed also look for rounded rocks and pebbles, also most water courses when they move they tend to move towards the outside bends because of the erosion and the buildup of new land on the insides bends, so what is an inside bend now could of been a outside bend in the past.

[MSC]

maxxkatt, I have watched some youtube vids on folks finding bullets and other civil war objects in rivers, you may try checking some of them as they give advice on some of them. Good luck.