Ahhh yes gold mining days..

Terryl

Terryl

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Deep in the Boonies in the central Sierra Nevada mountains of California.
PaulR said:
The who of the what? You're going to have to tell us about that Terry. In another thread of course!
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Vipersan said:
I'm a big fan of the discovery series 'Gold Rush' ..
Don't suppose you have met 'The Viking' Tony Beets or any of the Newbs ..Parker ..the Hoffmans etc featured in the series, Terry..?
That Dredge Tony rebuilt was a work of art..labour of love ...call it what you will.

...now those guys know how to Macgyver...
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Ahhh yes the gold mining days, what fun we had.

Tony Beets, Parker and the Hoffmans are up in Alaska and the Yukon, my claims were down in Northern California, I sold out years ago before the price of gold went through the roof, I wish I still had them.

Yah that dredge what a piece of work, he should not have rushed it so, there is way too much stuff going on in something like that, all I had was a 10" dredge.

My 10"* sat on an old 12 foot pontoon boat all aluminum chassis and aluminum pontoons with a Volkswagen engine powering the pumps, generator and air compressor, it had twin 8 foot sluices, it kept one guy very busy tending it.


*10 inch eductor with a 100 foot long 10" suction hose with a 9" nozzle on it, the 9" nozzle kept the hose from being plugged with a 10" rock.
 
You guys want to see what it's like running an underwater operration then watch the show "Bering Sea Gold" they use suction dredges mounted on barges or pontoons.

My setup was like some of the smaller ones.

My problem was that the claim was 18 miles off the nearest road, we had to pack mule everything in, that's why my platform was all aluminum, in some places we had to float the pontoons up the river as they were too big to fit down the trail in some places, we had them on some special carts that were pulled by a mule.

I wish I had photos of all this, it was an adventure.
 
Terryl said:
You guys want to see what it's like running an underwater operration then watch the show "Bering Sea Gold" they use suction dredges mounted on barges or pontoons.

My setup was like some of the smaller ones.

My problem was that the claim was 18 miles off the nearest road, we had to pack mule everything in, that's why my platform was all aluminum, in some places we had to float the pontoons up the river as they were too big to fit down the trail in some places, we had them on some special carts that were pulled by a mule.

I wish I had photos of all this, it was an adventure.
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Yep ..I do watch that show as well ..
Along with Ice cold gold..
Fascinating and something I might well have gotten involved with myself if I lived the other side of the pond..
Not so much the underwater stuff mind you ..
I much prefer my feet on dry land ..and warmer temps ..
Very little hard rock mining these days ..
damned shame you dont have any photos Terry..
I would love to have seen 'em
rgds
VS
 
After reading the wiki, I thought then"gold rush" show was fixed or fake for the cameras?
 
statalite said:
After reading the wiki, I thought then"gold rush" show was fixed or fake for the cameras?
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If it is faked then there are some scary fake bits ..
Like for example when the Hoffman crew went to South America to find gold ..and ended up with diuamonds that were worth little ..
and a murder ocurred..involving a local guy who was helping them..
"What was not revealed before, was the Hoffman crew checked out a hot tip ... in South America, where he knew there were both gold and diamonds. ... was broken into and his wife was murdered and his gold was stolen"
Fake or not ...These guys work damned hard to get gold..
..and provide great entertainment in the process..
...some of these guys are living legends..
 
I'd find sapphires and diamonds on my claims, but so small you could only use them for sandpaper, if you put a grease trap in the dredge you can catch the diamonds, but again they were so small you were wasting time looking for them.

I did make some good money on the tons of black sand we would come up with, lots of the rare earth metals in that stuff, we would get about $25 a hundred pound bag. (2 bags per Mule)

And about a 10:1 ratio of gold to platinum, so for every 10 ounces of gold I would get about one ounce of platinum.

And there was a guy murdered for his gold up by me, he kept it in his tent buried under the floor, one day as he can out, BANG he was dead and $79,000 in gold was gone.

The next day I hired a high gun, that is a guy you can trust, with a long rifle and good shot, situated in a high spot with a good view of the claim, I also wore a stainless steel 357 magnum on my belt, even under water.

I bet you all didn't know that a pistol will fire under water, and you can even shoot it as soon as you pop up, the water does little to slow it down when you come up.

And it will shoot about 5 to 10 feet underwater, depending on the round used, I have tested this.
 
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Absolutely fascinating Terry ..
By all means hare some more of your prospecting with us ..
Damned shame you have no pics though..
Respect...
 
Yah,no picks, as this was back in the real film camera days, kind of hard to ride 18 miles to the road then drive 30 miles to town just to get photos developed, besides we tried to keep the weight down on what we had to pack in, as we also had to pack it out when winter set in. (except the dredge, we just hauled it out of the river and winterized it)

So food, gas, tools and what ever the guys needed to keep sane was packed in weekly, girl friends and wives could come up on the week ends, but if production went down they had to leave, unless they were good cooks.
 
So how many seasons did you do in total ?
and did you ever have a season where you thought you'd struck it rich..
I dont doubt you struck out on a few ...

another question that occurs ..
Did you ever find a sizeable nugget ?
or was it all just flakes and colours ..?
 
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I did three years at this, sold out at about 25K.

Biggest nugget was about the size of a walnut, sold it for about 3K, gold was around $40 an ounce back then, but it was worth more as it was so big.
 
I can only imagine the buzz of finding such a nugget ..
I guess the closest I will ever get to that feeling was back when I could wield a metal detector ..and found a Galo Belgic gold stater dated about 30BC ...
Nowhere near as valueable but the buzz was phenominal.
as already said Terry..
Much Respect for chasing a dream..
rgds
VS
 
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