Had the chance to both Gold Cube and run a 4 inch suction dredge on the Arkansas River recently...
I was after fine Colorado flood gold.....
Sunday 4 August: Met John & his son Aaron on his claim to watch them suction dredge with a pair of 4 inch Keene dredges and I was "play" for the day with my Gold Cube with Topper unit. I wanted to show John my Cube first hand...
I had sluiced here several times last Fall and wanted to return to the tail end of a big gravel bar and give it a go with my Cube. Today was that chance.
But, after floating my Gold Cube down the river from the parking lot in a big 100 gal plastic tub, like a barge and crossing the river, I was surprised by several things...One was the river was amazingly high & fast for this time of year. We've been having a really cool, wet July with lots of Monsoonal rains. Guess this has allowed the water authority to keep the river flow up at 600 CFS (or higher) for the rafters & kayakers. Normally, it would be half this flow. This made it hard/dangerous to wade across in all but one point near the upstream end of the claim. It also meant trying to dredge out in the channel was going to be a fast water/tiring event.
Another surprise was after floating my Cube to the downstream end of the big gravel bar....I saw most of the tail end was now totally washed away, compared to last Fall.
What was left was the older, more rocky/cobbley material. Hmmm....I sample panned around and found a few specks/flakes, but nothing like the colors per pan from last fall. Oh well. Why not try since I was there?
I set up my Gold Cube at the waters edge and started shoveling & washing... I found the diggin' pretty hard & slow with a shovel, as the big embedded cobbles stopped my shovel at every other scoop.
The day was beautiful, sunny, with the normal clouds building as the day warmed. After about 1 hour I was a bit disappointed with my spot, and decided to do a top tray cleanup and see if I was gettin' gold or wasting my time. After panning out the 1 cup of top tray cons I saw some color, maybe 1/4 gram at most and showed John.
He'd stopped dredging and was doing a cleanup. He wasn't really happy with his spot either, so I decided to do a bunch of sample panning around the claim and try to locate a better spot for both of us.
After about 30 minutes I found a spot on the far side of the big bar, behind some large grass mounds at the waters edge that seemed to have a goodly amount of colors per pan. So, I helped John drag/float his dredge from the one side to the other side of the big bar and get setup. I carried my Cube up and we were off running again...
I was digging my Cube material on the inside of a grass root ball area, and John dredged at the waterline in a small beach of sand/gravel.
I kept sample panning but just couldn't seem to find a good supply of material to wash that had enough colors to make it worth the effort. So, after about another hour I stopped, cleaned up for the day. I was tired, ready to see how I did. Ended up with .36 grams of fine flood gold:
John was into some good black sand material 18 to 24 inches down, and his cleanup, after we ran it thru the Cube, showed a nice amount of flood gold. So, overall the day was a success for all concerned. John invited me to run one of their 2 Keene dredges the next day if I wanted, so I said "Heck Yes!".
Monday 5 August:
I dug out my wetsuit, gloves & booties back at home and showed up at 9AM. John was already onsite, prepping his dredge for another day of gold gettin'... I serviced "my" dredge (thanks Leonard!
) and floated it downriver a little ways to the inside bend of the bar, hoping for a good gold day. There was a LOT of black sand in this bend material and that usually means good gold too. Only time would tell...
I ran for about 2 1/2 hours until the gas ran out and did a cleanup. Man, I got like 50 lbs of black sand cons in one cleanup alone! No problem however, as I had my Gold Cube onsite to quickly condense that down to 2 cups at the end of the day.
After a sandwich for lunch, watching John dredge, I went back to dredging my hole. My "hole" was the top 12 to 18 inches of the inside bend from the bank out about 6 to 8 feet. This material was just loaded with black sand. The day grew cloudy, darker, windy as the thunderstorms build, rumbled and even gave us a few light showers.
After about an hour of running John had quit for the day and run his cons thru my Cube already. He was very happy with his cleanup, so that was great to see/hear.
I decided to stop, cleanup and call it quits too...I was tired. A buddy of John's, Bill, had arrived too and was dredging above me out in the fast water, but it was a real challenge for him.
Bill & I ran our cons thru the Cube and some sample panning showed good color for us all. After I panned out my cons at home I ended up with 1.88 grams of nice fine flood gold. Not the bonanza of ounces that had been dancing in my mind all day, as I dredged, but I sure didn't get skunked for about 4 hrs of "hard fun."
Gold pic here:
Today is just straight rain. So, whenever it stops raining, hopefully tomorrow, I'll try to meet up with John and do it again, this time in a different spot...
Here's a short video of my dredge & spot on the river:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aEf2fHVT ... e=youtu.be
So, nothing but fun here in the High Colorado mountains on the Arkansas River. Hope you too get out soon, find some "wild" gold for yourself, before Summer slips into Fall all too soon.
Cheers,
Randy "C-17A"
www.goldadventures.biz
Rain rain go away Randies got some gold to get today!! Sure wish the rain was here as creeks dry as a popcorn fart 
with both at once and REALLY kick some butt???John