finding a gold lead

Finding a gold lead in a creek, in which manner would you approach the said creek for the purpose of prospecting it? What would you do? How would you do it? And why would you do it?
Let’s look at the very first question {what would you do} For me that’s easy I would have a cup of tea and while I was doing that I would look at the creek from above the 100 year flood line. Which would be high? Now why would I do that well I would be looking for the high water mark also for any high benches. At times the best gold may not be in the creek but placed high up on a bench. It would depend if the creek had a lot of fall which would make the water belt down it, and would place the gold high if not it is to the creek I would look but where.
I would sample all the recommended places such as rock bars if any crevices if any but I would also find a bend in the creek and do a 40cm trench from the high water mark to the same point on the other side of the bank down to bedrock. Testing as I went taking note of how much gold I got per pan. By doing this I would then find out where the best gold or lead is within the creek system. How I would do this is by pan it may take a few days but it would be time well spent. By this stage I would have a sketch of the area I am working and keeping a record of what I found and where. You can use this information at a later date if need be but it is good to have. Research helps you can look up the mining history, what may have been rich could now be very poor. But it will tell you how they worked the area, which can be very important. Also look at the old Newspaper clippings they will also tell you a lot about the area you are looking at.

That is the hard way you can take a short cut depending on the time you have at your disposal. You could step out from the high water line on one side of the bank across to the other side then half the distance. Pothole every few feet and take note of what you are getting. A lead may only be around 2 inches wide you may miss it by doing this you got to be sharp. But you will get an indication if you are close by the amount of gold in your pan as you approach the run the specks will increase as you pass the run they will get less work the area you missed in-between.
By the time you have finished sampling you will have a very good idea of the indicators for that area. Which can and will lead you to good gold. Other people may go about it in a different manner but for me this works.
JB 9/3/2011

Im posting this for James101 as his computer has been hacked and severely compromised

Thanks mate I am about 80% up and running now still a bit left to sort out. cheers

G'day James and Murachu,

Excellent work - what I find to be really top thinking was the sentence: "You can use this information at a later date if need be but it is good to have. "

Gully washers move mostly smaller Gold. Flood waters move more and larger Gold. 100 Year Floods move even the largest Gold and 1,000 Year Floods change entire landscapes. Since most of my Golding is done in 50 to 100 year flood terrain with annual high water washouts due to snow melt, I don't often see great terrain altering events. What I do see is reoccuring terrain.

To illustrate, one year I worked a small, no fish, high mountain 'melt' stream that in late summer almost completely dries up. That summer I worked a 30+ meter stretch of this stream with a pitch like a house roof that had a flow of 40 cm wide and 10 cm deep. At the end of the summer I had worked down to bedrock and returned the football (yours, not mine) sized rocks as well as gravel, sand and clay to the old streambed. It was hard to tell I had ever been there. The next summer I had to go elsewhere and during that summer a fierce thunderstorm pounded the mountainside for 20 or 30 minutes, the steep streambed had washed out substantially. By the next summer, spring snow runoff had redeposited Gold and all the washed out material from upstream into the exact same locations as before. I had sketched the streambed and the exact same concentration areas were, once again, producers.

Work a gravel bar concentration or a stream bend and very possibly the next year, given heavy water, everything, including the Gold, will be right back there.

"You can use this information at a later date if need be but it is good to have. " Now how true is that.

G'day Diggers,

So I have found my lead. Now what is the best way to approach it? I have about eight days work in this lead, with only two to three days at a time. Each time, a three hour drive and a bush camp with no ammenities at all.
Do I start at the head of the lead which is generally the richest part of a lead and work along it? Or do I work into the lead from where the prospects taper off? Either way I cover old ground with tailings , I prefer to work into a lead but was wondering how others approach things.

The reason I ask is that after doing a fair amount of prospecting, you finally find a good lead, then as soon as you open up new ground, (unless you get to finish the lead) others will just take up where you have left off.
From experience I have 'advertised' weekend trips on other fossicking forums only to have forum members(known by others, not myself. But know who I am. Bl#@dy photos) turn up (not introduce themselves), observe where I have been working from a hill overlooking the river, then return and work my areas at a later date(this has been verified by mates whom have happened to be in the area on following weekends,and guarantee 'the' mates didn't work my leads).

About photos I have pesonally seen people turn up with A4 photos from the internet searching for a distinctive looking tree where a mate of mine had been working and had mistakingly posted photos on a fossicking forum.

I know this comes up a lot, it is not my ground, it is not my gold until I dig it.

cheers prospekta

James 101 wrote:"You can use this information at a later date if need be but it is good to have. " Now how true is that.

Knowledge is no burden to carry!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! but I do get pissed off when im asked for information, " put me on to the gold" , and then for that info to be dismissed or ignored just because the first couple of pans didnt have gold dripping over the edges !! well now a days im getting a lot older and father time is marching on so I never repeat myself to any questions asked !! so much gold to get so little time !

Gee's Murachu fancy sending someone to a spot like that?
P.s. I'm still trying to get my fishó mate to tell me the spot he did, didn't pan 24 grams of yellow stuff! I think at the end of the day, One must just go on about their own business! It appears to do no good by trying to help out, infact the opposite seems to apply?
Cheers Chris.

Someday you are almost right --these days I just love helping the kids find all the gold! as they say nothing puts a bigger smile on my face than the unmitigated joy of the kids when they get yellow stuff in their pans ! James and I have some wonderful stories about family's in recent years who were blown away that we would spend so much time to get gold for them but little did they know that the true gold was found by James and myself

someday wrote:It appears to do no good by trying to help out, infact the opposite seems to apply?
Cheers Chris.

Mate how true is that, I have been down that road one I will never follow again. You get sucked for information and when deemed enough you get sh*t on big time.
cheers
James 101

prospekta wrote:G'day Diggers,

So I have found my lead. Now what is the best way to approach it? I have about eight days work in this lead, with only two to three days at a time. Each time, a three hour drive and a bush camp with no ammenities at all.
Do I start at the head of the lead which is generally the richest part of a lead and work along it? Or do I work into the lead from where the prospects taper off? Either way I cover old ground with tailings , I prefer to work into a lead but was wondering how others approach things.

The reason I ask is that after doing a fair amount of prospecting, you finally find a good lead, then as soon as you open up new ground, (unless you get to finish the lead) others will just take up where you have left off.
From experience I have 'advertised' weekend trips on other fossicking forums only to have forum members(known by others, not myself. But know who I am. Bl#@dy photos) turn up (not introduce themselves), observe where I have been working from a hill overlooking the river, then return and work my areas at a later date(this has been verified by mates whom have happened to be in the area on following weekends,and guarantee 'the' mates didn't work my leads).

About photos I have pesonally seen people turn up with A4 photos from the internet searching for a distinctive looking tree where a mate of mine had been working and had mistakingly posted photos on a fossicking forum.

I know this comes up a lot, it is not my ground, it is not my gold until I dig it.

cheers prospekta

Prospekta what you are experiencing is the "I cant be bothered to find my own gold lead so Ill let this bloke show me the way" I myself have seen it over and over not much you can do about it but its no wonder so many prospectors are out there on their own or with a couple of true mates they can trust.
Now if you see or hear of me on a creek in the next few months with a4 photos in my hand !! its because when the creek was in full flood I spent hours taking pics of all the eddy's and flows up and down the creek for nearly its whole length ,time consuming for sure but it does give me an insight into how the gold behaves with certain logs and boulders in the stream.
So as always let me know where you are digging and until YOU say you are finished with that spot it will not be touched by myself or anyone that's with me

Guys, some great advice re; searching for the lead.
I'm a 'visual' kind of bloke, so I took the liberty of producing your advice into a picture. Whilst it may not be 100% accurate, it does give a representation.
It has helped me understand leads better and I hope others find it helpful also.

The red lines represent the test pan lines across the creek.
The black crosses represent the test pans
Yellow numbers = specks per pan
Blue lines = wet-work everything between these lines.

Robbo wrote:Guys, some great advice re; searching for the lead.
I'm a 'visual' kind of bloke, so I took the liberty of producing your advice into a picture. Whilst it may not be 100% accurate, it does give a representation.
It has helped me understand leads better and I hope others find it helpful also.

The red lines represent the test pan lines across the creek.
The black crosses represent the test pans
Yellow numbers = specks per pan
Blue lines = wet-work everything between these lines.

good post mate easy to see like that hey. You can also see the the richest part of the wash is the lead in and lead out on the sand bar. Yep good post indeed. cheers

an excellent post robbo !! I wish I was as competent with the lines and stuff!1 as they say a picture is worth a thousand words !!

Well done Robbo. The picture, is that an example of what to look for and how to go about it, or was this an area that you actually tried and this was the results. The picture is a fine example of how to go about finding the run.
Wombat

Murachu wrote:an excellent post robbo !! I wish I was as competent with the lines and stuff!1 as they say a picture is worth a thousand words !!

Yes mate, moved on from crayons to photoshop.

Wombat wrote:Well done Robbo. The picture, is that an example of what to look for and how to go about it, or was this an area that you actually tried and this was the results. The picture is a fine example of how to go about finding the run.
Wombat

Thanks Wombat!
I wish this photo was an area I had worked.
I just googled an image that best fit the purpose.

That may be so mate, but that is one hell of a way to show what your talking about. well done. cheers

 

Thanks James, and Robbo, that picture does help immensly.

For all you guys that do spend multiple weekends working a creek with potholing, then working the lead to completion, is 'claim jumping' much of an issue or are you getting into areas that most avoid due to having to walk more than 50m from the car ?

 

Man this topic and the 'how deep do you dig' thread are excellent reads (https://golddetecting.forumotion.net/t4212-how-deep-do-i-dig-when-panning)
Thanks very much for sharing peoples.

You are very welcome jc84 ! Any questions please ask ! " the only silly question is the one not asked"

 

Awesome thread! That pic is great. When I first started looking I had never thought gold would lie on an inside line to the bends (similar to a car racing line?) I was panning and prodding all the deep corners wide in the river bed finding bugger all then after researching alittle suddenly found gold around the spots I had been walking past while thinking I knew where it was.
Bit wiser now but not by much
I don't ask for specific spots just a general area with good reports in areas I've never been. Once someone gives me the idea I then consult my vast resources to locate an exact spot to explore. My resources tell me my new selection in Castlemaine has been mined front to back

 

No matter who you are ,when you are a younger prospector you can read volumes about everything ! But I would encourage you to concentrate on one or two areas like panning and reading a creek ,they are covered in here , hone your skills on those till you are confident with your skills ! Then move on to other areas to enhance your prospecting skills ! I keep saying it! But there are no short cuts