Golden Grams of Goodness: Nugget Hunting Tales

[Lanny]

Old-Timer’s Did Not Get It All
(From my notes, May 25, 1998)

I wanted my son to have a good experience gold panning, to find gold big enough to see, and to hear it hit the pan when he dropped it back in. (There's something about that sound that never gets old.)

We drove up a logging road through thick stands of pine and spruce, then down a steep slope to a spot where the river cut through some black bedrock narrows. The old-timers worked this place hard and cleaned off the bedrock at river level, as well as high above the current stream which held an ancient channel. We picked a place far above the stream and started to snoop around. (In fairness, I’d snooped earlier in the week to know we wouldn’t get skunked.) There were hand-mined stacks of boulders and large cobbles all over. (Nearby lay the ruins of an old steam powered winch, one used to pull freight and ferry goods across the river in the 1800’s.)

At every ancient gulch and pinch point in the bedrock, all the rock was stacked to get at the coarse gold on and in the slate. This hard work made me think, what if some of the miners were tired, homesick, were in a rush to get to the next gold strike, hated their boss or were forced to work for someone else? If that was the case, they might have done a poor job cleaning the bedrock.

So, my son and I moved a bunch of rocks and began to look closer. We found places where the old-timers had left small patches of virgin dirt! This was the stuff that could produce good gold.

However, the spots were small, cup-sized and smaller. (But small volume can still hold coarse gold for exciting finds.) The missed dirt was easy to identify by the material it held. If we found a little depression or crevice in the rock and the material was tightly wedged in place (packed clay with sand, little rounded stones of various sizes and often accompanied by a red, orange or bluish or purplish stain) we carefully removed every bit of it. (Stuff that had already been worked was loose with numerous gaps, usually had lots of powdery clay with decayed vegetable matter, sharp broken pieces of bedrock, etc., as well as randomly placed rounded stones of all sizes.) We spent about an hour and a half gathering the material with small sniping tools. It partially filled three pans with material, then we made our way down to the river to pan.

We panned out nine chunky pieces that each made a sweet sound when dropped in the pan.

Did we get rich? If the only concern is a dollar value, then no. But who can put a value on one-on-one time spent with my seventeen-year-old son? Furthermore, searching for missed virgin ground taught us valuable lessons that paid off handsomely the next summer we went mining.

All the best,

Lanny

[Jim_Alaska]

Now that is quality time Lanny. It doesn't get much better than that. Beautiful wilderness, decent gold, and a son to share it with, including the experience.

Thanks for a look at history Lanny.

[Lanny]

As always, many thanks for your kind words Jim. Wish I could have had a chance to chase the gold with you, but I'm glad I got to meet you online, and you sure do a great job with your forum as well.

All the best,

Lanny

[Lanny]

Sniping Black Bedrock
(Taken from my notes, summer of 1997)

Prospecting has been a hobby of mine for many years. My son and I spent the past two summers working with some large-scale placer miners (we help them, they help us) on their claims in the far Boreal forests. Two summers ago, I located an ancient channel for them. In gratitude last summer, they left a small area of the mined Tertiary channel’s bedrock open for my son and I to snipe (the overburden of heavy, clay peppered with boulders, ran about 20 feet in depth).

Sniping virgin bedrock was new to both my son and I, and I’d only sniped existing stream bedrock before, with limited success. So, we tried to remember all the pointers we had read or heard from others about trying to find a virgin crack or crevice, one filled with tightly packed, intact material, often darkly stained (red/orange/purple) The intact crevice would then need to be cleaned out, then broken open for a deeper cleaning. Then, looking carefully, we saw a bedrock fold that ran perpendicular to the ancient stream’s flow.

I told my son to sample it, and he returned with material scraped from the fold and once panned, he had some nice, small, rounded pieces of gold. I told him to check the base of the fold to see if it hid a crevice. After some more scraping and cleaning, he called me over and showed me a narrow crack about half an inch wide, by about a foot long. That crack was filled with tightly packed material, little stones, clay etc., and it was hard to see because the covering surface material was black, just like the bedrock).

I told him to get the pry bars, a small sledge hammer, screwdrivers (one bent with an L-shaped end), and an old stainless-steel tablespoon to work the crevice, and a whisk broom and dust pan to use to carefully gather all of the material.

Leaving him to it, I worked the bedrock downslope, and about twenty minutes later, I heard someone hoofing it over the stones to where I was. I turned and saw my son, carefully carrying his green gold pan. To my surprise, his mouth moved, but the only sounds he made were like he was having trouble breathing, and every step closer, he kept pointing at his pan and breathing harder. So, I sprinted over to have a look.

There in the bottom of his pan were six nuggets (all multi-gram-nuggets), along with a pile of smaller chunks. No wonder he couldn't breathe!

My goodness was he happy, and boy was I proud! Needless to say, that electrified me to keep looking, and after a lot of hard searching, I found a crevice about half as long as his, and it held two smaller multi-gram nuggets along with some nice pickers.

What amazed my son and I about this gold experience was how little material came out of those cracks and yet how much gold they held (that’s the beauty of sniping). Moreover, we found two other nuggets with our detectors and added more chunks (close to half an ounce gold take for the day) by sweeping and cleaning the surface of the bedrock.

All the best,

Lanny

[Jim_Alaska]

Sniping Black Bedrock
(Taken from my notes, summer of 1997)

Prospecting has been a hobby of mine for many years. My son and I spent the past two summers working with some large-scale placer miners (we help them, they help us) on their claims in the far Boreal forests. Two summers ago, I located an ancient channel for them. In gratitude last summer, they left a small area of the mined Tertiary channel’s bedrock open for my son and I to snipe (the overburden of heavy, clay peppered with boulders, ran about 20 feet in depth).

Sniping virgin bedrock was new to both my son and I, and I’d only sniped existing stream bedrock before, with limited success. So, we tried to remember all the pointers we had read or heard from others about trying to find a virgin crack or crevice, one filled with tightly packed, intact material, often darkly stained (red/orange/purple) The intact crevice would then need to be cleaned out, then broken open for a deeper cleaning. Then, looking carefully, we saw a bedrock fold that ran perpendicular to the ancient stream’s flow.

I told my son to sample it, and he returned with material scraped from the fold and once panned, he had some nice, small, rounded pieces of gold. I told him to check the base of the fold to see if it hid a crevice. After some more scraping and cleaning, he called me over and showed me a narrow crack about half an inch wide, by about a foot long. That crack was filled with tightly packed material, little stones, clay etc., and it was hard to see because the covering surface material was black, just like the bedrock).

I told him to get the pry bars, a small sledge hammer, screwdrivers (one bent with an L-shaped end), and an old stainless-steel tablespoon to work the crevice, and a whisk broom and dust pan to use to carefully gather all of the material.

Leaving him to it, I worked the bedrock downslope, and about twenty minutes later, I heard someone hoofing it over the stones to where I was. I turned and saw my son, carefully carrying his green gold pan. To my surprise, his mouth moved, but the only sounds he made were like he was having trouble breathing, and every step closer, he kept pointing at his pan and breathing harder. So, I sprinted over to have a look.

There in the bottom of his pan were six nuggets (all multi-gram-nuggets), along with a pile of smaller chunks. No wonder he couldn't breathe!

My goodness was he happy, and boy was I proud! Needless to say, that electrified me to keep looking, and after a lot of hard searching, I found a crevice about half as long as his, and it held two smaller multi-gram nuggets along with some nice pickers.

What amazed my son and I about this gold experience was how little material came out of those cracks and yet how much gold they held (that’s the beauty of sniping). Moreover, we found two other nuggets with our detectors and added more chunks (close to half an ounce gold take for the day) by sweeping and cleaning the surface of the bedrock.

All the best,

Lanny

Wow!!! Just Wow!

[Lanny]

Bedrock Tips, Part 1

How many of you have had the chance to work virgin bedrock?

By virgin, I mean bedrock exposed by modern mining, bedrock not seen since the dinosaurs ruled the earth or perhaps even earlier.

Furthermore, a chance to detect bedrock like this is a rare one as it needs previous, special connections with the large-scale placer miners to get access to such bedrock and claims, or knowledge acquired of former placer mined areas that now lie abandoned.

Moreover, it's downright expensive to remove forty to sixty feet of overburden from bedrock which financial output stops some miners from granting access. In addition, some miners simply won’t allow others on their virgin bedrock. Added to this are insurance and mining regulations which might result in a hard no even if there’s a personal relationship with the miners.

This makes the chances quite slim to none for access, unless a nugget shooter is lucky enough to find abandoned sites through research or word-of -mouth. But if such an opportunity pops up, for either scenario, there's a few things that will help find that bedrock gold.

First and foremost, ask lots of questions.

Find out where the heaviest run of gold was in the excavation. For example, was the gold deposit heavier in a dip in the bedrock, on at the start of a rise in the rock, heavier on a shelf, or at the bottom of a long drop before a steep rise, etc. As well, find out if there were certain colors in the dirt that indicated better pay: oranges, reds, grays, purples, blacks, etc.

With the answers to a few questions like these, you can improve your odds of checking the most-likely places in an open-pit excavation. For instance, you'll find areas that were barren by asking the right questions (areas of loose wash, glacial striations where gold was gouged out, smooth bedrock, heavy sand, sloping rock, etc.), and you'll locate areas that were hot spots for nuggets by asking enough questions to get some tips.

All the best,

Lanny

[Jim_Alaska]

All good information Lanny, thanks for posting it. I have never had the opportunity to work virgin bedrock, but would like to. Unfortunately I am afraid my physical condition won't allow it any more. I guess I'll have to leave it up to you to provide me with all the glorious details.

[Lanny]

All good information Lanny, thanks for posting it. I have never had the opportunity to work virgin bedrock, but would like to. Unfortunately I am afraid my physical condition won't allow it any more. I guess I'll have to leave it up to you to provide me with all the glorious details.

Jim, I wish we'd have had the chance to meet in Alaska while you were there. I really think we'd have had some fun; moreover, it would have been and honour to have met your wonderful wife as well.

Don't feel too left out when it comes to working virgin bedrock, not a lot of nugget hunters get that opportunity from what I hear, and I consider myself very lucky indeed to have had the opportunity. Plus, by working virgin bedrock, I've had the chance to see how gold was directly deposited in the bedrock to learn better about where it goes to hide when given the chance to do so, as well as seeing first-hand where it also refuses to go. It's taught me a lot about the heavy and lazy nature of gold. (Having said that, there have been some exceptions of course. Isn't anything to do with Mother Nature like that?)

All the best,

Lanny

[Lanny]

Bedrock Tips, Part 2

If you’re lucky enough to detect truly virgin bedrock, you'll need to carefully analyze the suggested answers to your questions (Part 1), plus you'll need to pay close attention to what the detector is telling you about the temperature of the rock you're hunting as well as that of any accompanying hot rocks. For example, racing into a cut while swinging your coil like a madman, to quickly cover as much ground as possible, is a bad idea. Why? Virgin bedrock demands consideration and respect due to the exceptional possibility of hidden gold. Moreover, it demands a slow approach while listening to the ground minerals and scrubbing the surface to obtain every bit of depth while listening carefully to the tiniest alterations in the threshold.

Plus, paying close attention to the mineralization helps you learn which coils will work best, including which sizes (or shapes) to use. (A variety of sizes and types helps get the job done right, and in extreme ground, the wrong coil type, or size, will waste your time.) Paying attention to the mineralization will often give you visual clues in a variety of colors which also help identify zones of the heavies that run with gold.

While working bedrock, you might try a tiny detector like the Falcon to find streaks and runs of fine gold that will elude your bigger detector's coils. It's surprising how much fine gold can be left riding on bedrock or caught in cracks and crevices. Several summers ago, I had my eyes opened wide to just how much gold gets left behind and just how much fun it is to use a tiny detector to chase pockets and streaks of fine gold, which add up in a hurry! (And, any gold detector will see gold hidden in cemented crevices, a great plus.)

On a different note, I now always use a one-two punch of a dedicated VLF gold machine, in concert with a dedicated PI or equivalent (for depth and to counter extreme mineralization). Working a large excavation in the summer heat is taxing work, so the VLF is easy to swing all day, and the additional higher-end tech sniffs out the leftovers.

As for non-electronic sniping, it's very important to visually study the rock carefully. Often when working virgin bedrock, clay is ubiquitous (seems to be everywhere). And, that clay is a great hider, and, or, robber of gold. Moreover, look at what's riding on top of or within the clay. Are there little stones of various sorts? Is it just slick clay (no inclusions)? As well, be meticulous about examining the surface of the bedrock. Sometimes what looks like perfectly level bedrock with a solid surface may have cracks and crevices perfectly camouflaged by the minerals that are running with the clay and its surrounding material, minerals that match perfectly the color of the host bedrock. Use a variety of tools to scrape and scratch at the surface. I've been stunned while sniping non-electronically to uncover rich, small cracks and crevices in this manner.

All the best,

Lanny

[Lanny]

Bedrock Tips, Part 3

To add some last comments, if the bedrock is dry, get a good sledge hammer and hit the bedrock to see if any puffs of dust rise up in little fountains of fine particles. This signals a hidden crack or crevice somewhere in the bedrock. One of the wonders of bedrock is that a crack or crevice may be snapped shut tightly at the surface, but can widen below its mouth significantly. I remember the first time I found one of these: it had a pocket of small nuggets in it, and the nuggets were far too big to have found their way into the crevice opening left on the bedrock surface.

There are lots of theories as to how gold deposition in bedrock crevices and cracks happens, but the important thing to remember is that regardless of the specific process, it does happen.

Knowing some of the bedrock tips in the three parts of this write-up has helped me find sizeable nuggets when sniping without electronic backup as well.

What tools help with this process? For inexpensive alternatives, a blade screwdriver bent at a 90 degree angle; a wire brush; a stiff bristle brush; an awl; a pocket knife; a small metal gardening shovel; a variety of household spoons (teaspoon size to tablespoon--be sure to have sturdy ones that won't bend easily); a small sledge and a couple of cold chisels for widening cracks and crevices; if water is present, a suction gun of some kind; etc.

With virgin bedrock, you will have the chance of a lifetime to find gold in a place that no one else has ever looked, so take the time to do a thorough job, and the reward might be amazing.

To elaborate on the above comment, I've come behind others that have worked such places in a hurry and found some beautiful nuggets (larger than anything they found) because they tore across the bedrock in a mad rush to cover the entire area as quickly as possible. However, the sad truth is that if they'd have slowed down and paid that virgin bedrock the respect it deserved, they would have found the bigger gold they left for me.

All the best,

Lanny