Prospecting & Detecting
River Dredging vs. Creek Dredging—Part I
December 2011 by Ron Kliewer
As I started walking down to the river one chilly morning, the mist was hanging over the calm portions of the water like a white cotton blanket. This scene got me to thinking about why the river was like that—the deep pools, boulder fields, gravel bars, the effects of how much water was moving at any given time along the watercourse—and most of all the relationship all these things have on where I will be able to find gold.Just Another Ordinary Weekend
There was no evidence that anyone else had ever worked this gully with the exception of some old sample piles near the foot of the ravine.Rattler's Gold
Rick donned a pair of fiberglass shin guards that he normally wore dredging, just in case he uncovered the rattlesnake during his digging and rock moving. I wasn’t convinced they were going to provide enough protection.
The Gold Of Horseshoe Bend
And we eventually reached gold. It was a winding crevice of beautiful white quartz lined with small nuggets and loaded with fine gold. There were flakes and small granular pieces—there had to be a hundred or more.
A Return to Silver City, Idaho
...we were able to pull out close to another 3+ ounces of small, angular Silver City gold. This also included several more small nuggets, pieces of wire gold and some quartz-gold pieces—not bad for 4 days with a small sluice.
Q&A With Detector Designer Dave Johnson
...it’s been a little known secret that one man was involved in designing many of the most respected very low frequency (VLF) nugget detectors on the market. Dave Johnson has designed gold-oriented detectors for Tesoro, Whites, Fisher and others for more than 25 years.
Ask the Experts
• Drones for the independent prospector
Tips for Cleaning Gold Nuggets
I pulled out the nuggets I had worked on previously and looked at the size of the wire basket that the items to be cleaned are placed into. It looks much like a miniature french fry deep fryer.
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