Labor day prospecting?

[COArgonaut]

Well, the labor Day digging's were again successful, although the people pickin's was a bit sparse.
Doc Sluice and I showed up on Friday, I just a bit late due to work. Randy from Nebraska was there waiting for us (actually, he started without us). He brought his lovely bride, and she is a cook of the finest kind.
Mike, the Kraut was at his usual campground, and made the trip to High Hopes almost everyday. John and Jenni showed up Tuesday afternoon to check up on us.
The weather was outstanding (sorry about last year Trevor). About 80 for a high, maybe 40's for a low. Got a few sprinkles a couple of days, enough to settle the road dust.
No final pictures from me or the Doc- we were tearing up. But, I will snap a few photos when cleanup is underway.

ed

[polekaat]

I didn't mind the weather that much last year. It was a bit chilly putting on the wetsuit in the mornings, but it sure beat the hell outta the 100 plus degree temps that we endured this year. We permitted 6000' of the Guadalupe river (where I-10 crosses in Comfort, TX) and 5500' of the Llano river (southwest of Mason, TX at Whites Crossing). I've gotten gold out of the Llano river before but had heard rumors about the Guadalupe. I actually got more gold out of the Guadalupe even though I never even hit any hardpack, much less bedrock. We hit the Guadalupe first, since it was closest, and we needed to get the dredge dialed in. After having a hell of a time with the engine and pump(everything about the carburator was clogged up, and the pump seal is bad), we started moving lots of loose material just below a shallow riffle. I tried to do a cleanup with the dredge idling, bad choice. Way to much water flow and it washed most of my concentrates back into the river along with one of my carpets. I was frustrated and told Christina that I was just going to dump the rest, pack up, and go to the Llano. Well....she wouldn't have any of that. So she panned what was left and found a small smile of color in the pan (sorry no pictures). So we packed up the tents, dredge, and us, then headed to Mason. There we found a "road"(couple of 4wd ruts) that I had seen from google earth, about 9:30 p.m. I had the dredge on a 6x10 trailer behind my truck. I got out and walked the trail before I would even attempt to drive it. Ended up finding a great camping spot, beneath a very large pecan tree, right beside the river. We made camp, finishing up just after midnight. The next day we assembled the dredge and found a spot to "float" it, but didn't even start it up. We just enjoyed the campsite and playing in the river. The following day I started cleaning out a crack in the bedrock that was just inches below the surface of the water. I spent all day cleaning out just a short 25' of that crack. I had to move when I couldn't get any more material with a spoon and my arm as far as I could reach. I had great hopes for that night's cleanup, as alot of the crack material had to be blasted loose with my hose. I got about half a bucket of concentrates (manual cleanup no engine this time). I was sorely disappointed when I only found one small flake out of that entire cleanup. I found lots of lead shot, even some antique barbed wire, but no gold to speak of.
Friday rolled around and we were all coughing and hacking, so we packed up and headed back home to see a Dr. We all had upper respiratory infections and sinus infections.
The dredge has some problems that Micropedes has graciously offered to help me alleviate. Now that I'm feeling a little better, I plan to take him up on it soon.

I sure miss the mountains of Colorado and hope to be able to do some dredging with ya'll again soon.

If anyone gets a wild hair and wants to get a little Texas gold, just let me know, and I'll give written permission to access either of my two permitted areas.

Texas is a strange animal when it comes to prospecting. In order to legally prospect, you must first get a permit and stay within the boundaries of that permit. I could end up permitting an entire river just to find one area that has a good concentration of gold. Just doesn't make sense to me. The good news is, it's only $1 per acre and a $50 filing fee.

Trevor

[russau]

Trev that might be a great winter project!

[KevinInColorado]

So I bet next time you will go to the guadaloupe and stay there!

Get well soon!!

[COArgonaut]

Well, I still haven't gotten into my cons yet.
But, there are always dredge treasures, on the Arkansas or any river.

[russau]

Ed,maybe you and Marc (urbanminer) could work together!:) he is in the scrap metal biz!:)

[COArgonaut]

Yea it wa pretty obvious I was in an area where railroad bed was just pushed over the side into the creek. There were lots of broken/angular rocks and a few nails, but had not been touched for over a 100 years. Not a lot of depth, but more than enough acreage to last through next year.

ed

[gremlin]

if you have some good rr spikes you can make knifes out of them. go on youtube and look them up. there are some nice ones.

[rocketsngold]

Early Trip report from our trip...

Randy, sorry we missed you, I didn't have much computer access while up there so I didn't see your msg. Did I hear correctly you're living in the BV area now? My claim is just north of town.

Here's how the week went... Jenni and I arrived Sunday afternoon, got everything packed in then, and got in about an hour of dredging.

We dredged Mon, Tues, part of Wed (had to test out the trigger job on my AR-10), all day Thursday. I used Friday morning while Jenni was headed up to Denver to fly back to Houston to dredge my tailings to see what/if I was loosing gold.

All in all the gold was showing up well in most runs during the week. Found a little in the tailings run, but not enough to freak out about. I could probably tweak my set-up a bit to improve things, so I'll have to think about that for next year.

Went up to high hopes Tuesday afternoon to see the gang... I didn't see much of Ed's gold, but saw all his iron!

Got about 200lbs of cons to go through during the nice warm Houston winter!

John and Jenni Etgen