Flood Gold

[Dig It]

After the rain storm / snow melt off, a place that was already work, was check again and the Gold Bug 2 did it's job again. 3 penny wt.

[rexhavoc]

Around here those are referred to as nuggets lol.  Quite the antediluvian flood needed to move those chunks  :)

Anything +30 mesh around here is a nugget.

 

rex

 

[johnedoe]

Man that was some kind of flood.........

 

[Dig It]

I believe it was running at 310 cubic ft. a second, last flood was calculated at 260 cubic ft. a second and that one was years ago. 3 days of very little sleep. Have cleared another pad and started rebuilding creek bank.

[Dig It]

Trying to get back. to where  I was at start of season 1st photo, what flood left behind 2nd photo, what I'm up against with to small of mini hoe. This spot was showing decent gold on way down to bedrock, then flood. So I have to get area cleaned up again, but losing snow melt quickly, water source. Now I have panned a bit of what came down creek and filled in my dredge hole and I am finding flood gold around 50 mesh give or take, just enough to have to run it. So I just can't ignore this gold so looks like I will be using my trommel to run flood material. Good thing I have different choices of small scale commercial equipment. How plans change in an instant !!!!

[Dig It]

Didn't load photos in order I put them, but I think you guys get the idea.

[Dig It]

Hello kiwijw, yes these photos of creek & equipment are on my claim, and all is on Plan of Operations and I do find beautiful gold when I get to run material, but working a claim at 64 is not as easy as it once was. Also I am regulated to nothing bigger then 3" equipment due to lack of water. And that means a lot of wing dam building and rebuilding. There is a dam 80ft above the top of my claim that directs water into a pipeline which takes water to a man made lake that supplies water to a hydro electric plant dwn on another lake. And once a week they open a gate to clear debris from grate at pipeline entry point, which releases water into creek and washes away my dams, and the process just repeats itself, and that includes pulling equipment from creek once a week and then repositioning once flush has been completed. That is the reason for the wee bck. hoe. ( still better then a #2 shovel LOL !! ) Just wish I would have bought a real mini around a 10,000lb machine before I retired, the boulders I couldn't see before flood are freaking killing me, all hand winched into place by hand & wheeler. As always gold is on bedrock and in cracks so its not easy gold, but as I mentioned above its Beautiful Gold !!! And I do have on a bright note the option to dredge when everything is in place at right time and or I can clear some bedrock and metal detect, which I have been getting into more & more.

Best of Luck to You as well !!!

[Mac]

Absolutely love your operation! That trailer equipped mini excavator has me in lust mode ... did you design/ build that thing? Ingenious mate! Flood gold on the Kenai Pen to that extent is just great! Nothing better than having one's own claim. How often do the DNR folks drop in to check your system out? You sure do some seriously strenuous work moving those boulders. Thanks for the pics and the enjoyable read. 

[Dig It]

I bought the mini from Angus Mackirk Mining back when Angus owned the company, and shipped it up to AK. It's a Gans-So-Digger made by a man with mining inmind, simple to run, easy to maintain, easy to fix, Just after I bought mini the builder passed away and from what Angus told me this was the last one built.. Myself and a friend ( another miner ) built the stabilizers for it. I'll build a bigger bucket for it this winter, it will be easier & a bit quicker to clear dredge hole after dam flush. If I had the water to run bigger dredges I would just suck out the gravels that back fill my Dredge holes in, and recover the fine gold that comes dwn. with flush & occasional flood but with a 3" dredge it just eats up to much time. This particular hole is in middle of claim so I will get that gold later !!! ( I hope !!! LOL !!!!!!!!!! ) It's a Federal Claim, and those folks visit me all the time, I don't mind I run a responsible small scale commercial operation, sometimes they bring folks to show them that small scale commercial operations can be run correctly. We ( others with claims on creek ) get along pretty well with the folks in charge. The way it should BE !!!! I understand this site is more a detectorist site, But I do a lot of both on claim, sometimes just to sore to dredge / move more boulders, so I swing one of my detectors and enjoy reading information the pro- swingers post and learn something new all the time. ( I love one of this sights readers name because I can relate to it Foreverteachable ) And as soon as the weather chases me off mountain I return to what brought me to the area, fishing for Rainbow Legends !!!!!!!

Thanks for the kind words.....