Time for a summary Trip Report of my gold dredging exploits for the last 9+ days in the beautiful Arkansas River here in High Colorado, just North of Buena Vista about 15 miles North of town. My prospecting buddies Bill & John were out for their big annual suction dredging trip and again invited me to join them on their claim that is permitted from the BLM for motorized ops/suction dredging...
Problem starting off this year is that last winter we had anywhere from 135% to 167% of average annual snowpack in the 14ers, soooooooooooo a LOT of snow melt and runoff this Spring and the Ark was still flowing higher and faster than average, so much so that when John got into town on 9 August we had to delay a day even getting our dredges into the river as the flow was too high/fast and dangerous to get our dredges across the river. The water level was dropping slowly over time, the question was going to be "when" would it be low enough to get into the river?
So, I took John sluicing local to a favorite spot of mine on 10 August and we spent about 3 hours 4-wheeling and sluicing and getting some fine gold. After lunch we headed back to the river and decided it was a bit lower and we suited up and unloaded out dredges off our trailers, assembled them and floated the from the parking lot area to the river and the 2 of us were just able to safely float our dredges to the far side of the river where we wanted to start working some gravel bars along the side of the river, out of the deep, fast current. I had not planned to do any dredging on this day, just get everything setup to start suction dredging come the next day, Monday the 11th of August.
I had a meeting with a friend that next day, but John got started on his dredging adventure and I joined him the following day, Tuesday the 12th of August. My first location was right along the side of the river bank, where there were large cobbles and rocks and the fast water was just a few feet away. Sample pans showed good color, so I dredged for aslmost 3 hours with my new Keene ultra mini 4 incher and upon my very first cleanup I quickly sample panned up some of my cons to see if in fact that single stage sluice box on my dredge could actually catch the fine flood gold we have here in the Ark. YEP! I was happy to see some nice flakes & fines in my black sand cons.
Randy's first dredged gold:
First day's cleanup....2.60 grams!
Second day cleanup was 1.73 grams...
I ended up working this area for 2 full days and decided to move down river into the fast water where Bill had been finding some very nice flakes and larger flood gold. That turned out to be a bit of a bad decision, as Bill had a air system and regulator and could get deep, under water and fight the strong current. I was long arming it with a mask & snorkel and the fast water kept pulling my mask down, I had water leaking in, and when I eventually got about 2 + feet down to get to the clay layer with the best gold, I simply couldn't keep the big rocks out of my nozzle and avoid rock jams. Anyone that's dredged knows getting out of a dredge hole in fast water wearing a weight belt and slip/slide back to your dredge to unjam a rock jam and get back to dredging knows it's EXHAUSTING! I took a lunch break, recouped my energy, went back to dredging for maybe 45 more minutes. I decided I'd do a cleanup, see how I was doing. Sadly, not very good. Maybe .25 of a gram. So, I decided to break my dredge down, move back over the channel and up to my previous spot and keep dredging that clay layer I'd worked the first 2 days.
My dredge on the river:
My best dredge hole along the river bank:
Once I moved John & I reclaimed this area by backfilling with logs and rocks... Looked great.
Day 3 at my dredge hole proved good, ended up with 1.65 grams, but I'd basically run out of material, so I broke the dredge down again and floated it WAY down river to the bottom of the claim to work a gravel bar that showed promise. NOT easy getting my dredge there, but I did it. Once there I basically started suction dredging a small channel chasing a rusty orangish layer of gravels full of black sand. I ran up the bar between the grass line and the cobbles towards the top of the bar on my first day at this spot, then on the second day worked the bottom of the bar and on the third day I punched several holes in the bar itself and ended up working the top of the bar out towards the fast water.
My dredge:
First day dredge hole chasing an orangish gravel layer:
My total take here was real good, averaging 2.28 grams a day!
BY the end of 3 days in this spot I'd run out of material to work that was worth working, based on my sample panning. So, John helped me break my dredge down and drag it up river, over the rocks and current to a spot below where Bill was working and where I'd left on Day 3. I hoped that since the river had now dropped and slowed dramatically, I'd be able to better dredge out deeper and work well with only a mask & snorkel. As it turned out, I was able to dredge better, with 2 runs of about 2 hours total, but in this spot I couldn't get down to the clay layer, so once again, on my cleanup I only got about .25 grams. Hmmmm.......
I only had one last day the next day to dredge, and so I went off sample panning... I finally came across a spot at the end of the BIG gravel bar/island that the bank material at the waters edge showed good color, although it was very fine stuff. Still, it was worth dredging. So, I broke my dredge down again and floated it back down the river a short distance and setup for my last 1/2 day of dredging on Wednesday 20 August.
Come that Wednesday morning I was up early, got to the river and got to dredging early, as the plan was to run until about noon, cleanup, break all our dredges down and drag them all over to the parking lot and load them back onto our trailers and call it done. I worked the gravels beside the bar and my buddy Bill decided to help me work that 30 foot section, as it was very overcast, dark and the water seemed colder than usual. I was warm, on my knees and no mask/snorkel required. So, Bill & I pitched rocks fed material down out little waterway into my dredge nozzle waiting at the bottom for about 3 good hours. Upon cleanup we gat a nice 1.65 grams of very fine flood gold for our "hard fun".
After this first & last cleanup, we were officially "done". We all drug our dredges up and across the river, loaded up and headed home. Man...............was I ever whipped! a 4 inch suction dredge on a fast moving river being operated my just 1 guy is a lot of effort. But, that said, once I did all my cons cleanups and totaled up all I got from 9 days dredging total, and 7 of those productive days, I ended up with a very nice 14.97 grams of fine Arkansas River flood gold!
May old camera was freaking out most of the time......wouldn't focus well, come on, take pictures at times or do video, so I only got 1 video made on Day 3, which was 14 August:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=52XJp9- ... e=youtu.be https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=52XJp9- ... load_owner
In summary, I had a blast with my good friends, Bill and John, got to put a lot of hours on my new Keene ultra mini 4 inch suction dredge and ended up with some good gold!
Hopefully, you'll get out soon too, before Fall arrives and create a "Gold Adventure" of your own...
Thanks again to John, Bill, Leonard, Ed and all the "gang" for adopting me into the "family"...
God bless,
Randy "C-17A"
http://www.goldadventures.biz
Great tag along and much appreciated. Looks like a fantastic time with good friends helping each other out. 1/2 oz looks nice in a pile and definately would make anyone smile-tons a au 2 u 2-John 