Rouge River Oregon gold dredging

[Glass]

Bearkat - worked the deposit with Handegard but took it over
1Oz day.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9WtVwVqwVXo

2Oz day

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EOGtgtEyesk

the Handegard.15Oz season

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5SLHRY4RUoM

[madfranks]

That is so cool. A buddy of mine and I had tossed around some ideas of building a dredge, but here's what else you need to know, it's a ton of work to get that much. Yes, that guy got 1 oz in a day, but he was probably working 14 hours and you don't get that every day.

[Dogman]

but in good pay, the return per hour is amazing tho you may need to bust your ass to get it..

Now compare that to a salary or hourly drone ?

Location is everything, most I suspect lose their ass off, but if done as a hobby with a real job as backup, ....

Anything gained is on the + side of life and living + escaping from 4 walls + a floor and ceiling or even worse a cubical...

Sweat equity sometimes does pay off...!

;D

[madfranks]

Location is everything, most I suspect lose their ass off, but if done as a hobby with a real job as backup, ....

Location is everything. For this one guy who found the sweet spot there are probably over a dozen others who work a full day for a couple grams. There's a science to it, to find the best spots for panning/sluicing/dredging.

I live up near the Rocky Mountains, and have found what I bet would be a sweet spot, but haven't invested the time yet into seeing if we can hit it or not.

[Dogman]

Location is everything. For this one guy who found the sweet spot there are probably over a dozen others who work a full day for a couple grams. There's a science to it, to find the best spots for panning/sluicing/dredging.

I live up near the Rocky Mountains, and have found what I bet would be a sweet spot, but haven't invested the time yet into seeing if we can hit it or not.

No one knows by human sciences of that can not be seen, and finding the cracks and low spots is more luck than any science in many ways, tho intuition may play into it.

Or being high tech and use ground penetrating help..

[madfranks]

No one knows by human sciences of that can not be seen, and finding the cracks and low spots is more luck than any science in many ways, tho intuition may play into it.

Or being high tech and use ground penetrating help..Not necessarily, consider this: we know gold is a heavy element, and will tend to sink before other lighter pebbles, stones, etc. So one way to identify a sweet spot is to look for a location where a river widens. A narrow river moves faster, and slows down as it widens, and as the water slows down, any gold will tend to settle. At these areas where the river widens, look for the quiet patches of water and focus there. Yes, you still need luck, but science helps too.

[Glass]

That is so cool. A buddy of mine and I had tossed around some ideas of building a dredge, but here's what else you need to know, it's a ton of work to get that much. Yes, that guy got 1 oz in a day, but he was probably working 14 hours and you don't get that every day.

The first video showed a pretty outstanding days result. Within a few days that result dropped to fractions of an ounce and I think within a weeks or so they decided it was done. They did have the rights to go all the way across river but didn't. I think they might have started on the other side.

I think that spot paid out about 40 or so ounces over a couple years. The guy in the first video took over the spot. At the end he was getting a few small nuggets but none of the fines. How the water flows and where is slows determines where the gold will settle out. They found a good spot and lucked out for a couple years.

And yes, hard work. It's either wet or dusty, hot or cold but it's always hard work.

Was cool to see so much gold coming out though.

[palani]

I was on a 300 foot ex-Army Corp of Engineers dredge (that used to work the Missouri River) a few days ago. Awesome ship. Had they only had the foresight to add a barge at the discharge end with a trommel I expect they might still be in business with the gold they dredged up and discharged.

Watching the Corp of Engineers dredge the Mississippi River channel these days is fascinating. The operation takes much less people. They drive a mobile track type backhoe onto a barge and tow it to where they want to deepen the channel. The material they drag up with the hoe is dumped on a barge with an end loader. When that service barge is full they tow it to an island to dump the sand/mud/(gold?) on and the end loader transfers the solids to shore. They keep several of these service barges working for each back hoe.

The old method took more people, more pipe, more barges and moved many times more material in a day.

However, you are always free to pan some sand for the gold.

[mamboni]

Not necessarily, consider this: we know gold is a heavy element, and will tend to sink before other lighter pebbles, stones, etc. So one way to identify a sweet spot is to look for a location where a river widens. A narrow river moves faster, and slows down as it widens, and as the water slows down, any gold will tend to settle. At these areas where the river widens, look for the quiet patches of water and focus there. Yes, you still need luck, but science helps too.

Bernoulli applauds you from the hereafter.

I think this is appropos:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EQyqvFVe4Y4

[Glass]

I was on a 300 foot ex-Army Corp of Engineers dredge (that used to work the Missouri River) a few days ago. Awesome ship. Had they only had the foresight to add a barge at the discharge end with a trommel I expect they might still be in business with the gold they dredged up and discharged.

Watching the Corp of Engineers dredge the Mississippi River channel these days is fascinating. The operation takes much less people. They drive a mobile track type backhoe onto a barge and tow it to where they want to deepen the channel. The material they drag up with the hoe is dumped on a barge with an end loader. When that service barge is full they tow it to an island to dump the sand/mud/(gold?) on and the end loader transfers the solids to shore. They keep several of these service barges working for each back hoe.

The old method took more people, more pipe, more barges and moved many times more material in a day.

However, you are always free to pan some sand for the gold.

I remember seeing a story, which might have been on one of those Alaskan gold diggers shows. There was an old school guy there with his big machinery digging the crap out of the wilderness looking for sounding gold - stuff that would set the detectors off. Some young whipper snapper came through and said, put a sluice over there and sluice your piles. Guy was all nah, nothing round here but the big stuff.

Anyway young turk hauls in a sluice anyway and cranks it up. Within two days the operation changed from scraping new dirt to processing the "tailings" and scooping out from the rivers edge. A heap of fine gold just sitting there and the guy didn't know it. Went from broke to rolling in it over night.

[palani]

Anyway young turk hauls in a sluice anyway and cranks it up.

Pretty sure I watched the same show. Gold Prospectors Association. Another one where the guy goes underneath glaciers that are melting just to reach virgin crevices. Another where he buys a couple bags of builders sands in downtown LA and processes it. Something like six bux in cost and nets forty bux in gold.

[Glass]

I think I have the story a bit mixed up. I think he was digging river pebbles for landscaping supplies and washing them on site. The dirt he washed off had gold in it.

[osoab]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YN26aQey7Fg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YN26aQey7Fg