Tuesday, September 25, 2012

Gold prospecting. Back to the story and part 2 of video

I sure was glad that I had decided to stay out this day. The new spot I had found was everything I had been looking for. Good flow. Easy access. It was just perfect. We still had to go through the motions and prospect it. I have found out during my still short prospecting career that just because a spot looks good it doesn't necessarily mean that gold is being deposited there. You still have to dig. It turned out that gold was present there and we were only five minutes away from home. So we finally had a better than average gold spot.Enjoy the video and I will see you next post.

Gold prospecting.Back to the story

Now that the reviews and pictures are up I think we will go back to the story. So we are going to fast forward a bit. I kept on recording PaystreakTV episodes while I learned how to use my plankin-snail. Yes I named my mini sluice the plankin-snail. Doesn't everyone name their sluices? Anyhow back to the story. My engineer buddy from work had invited me to a property he had access to that was right on the Tuscarawas river. It was a bit south of where I live but it wasn't to far. He had built a custom sluice box and we needed to test it so it worked out well for both of us. This two part video is from that day. In part one I was with my buddy and we had fun. We found a little gold but not a lot. My buddy had to cut out early so with a half a day still to myself I decided to keep going. I had found a spot on the same river but north of where I live. It looked good on Google earth so we decided to get a closer look. Part two of the video will be at the new spot we found that day. I will upload it shortly to finish this post.

Monday, September 24, 2012

Ohio gold from a new spot on the river.

a lot of gold flakes
I have found a new gold spot on the Tuscarawas river. It is actually closer to my house than my first spot. I have just started to prospect it and so far I am very pleased with what I am finding. I took about 50 flakes out of 15 gallons of material split up over three days. This picture is from one of my clean outs during that time. Gotta love it!

Bering sea gold:under the ice 9/21/12 review and thoughts

In the blink of an eye the season is over for the Bering sea ice dredgers. I have to say bravo. It is a great show and I for one am hooked. Now for the review and commentary. Lazy Gator. They owned it the whole season and fought hard until the end. Add a bit of good luck and there you have it. They are winning and you gotta love it. The Shamrock continued it's lack luster season. At this point Shawn Pomrenke is so far in the red it would have taken a miracle to save the season. It's okay though. He can always blame it on the new guy and with the ice melting it's time to dust off the Christine Rose anyhow. The Clark barely limped across the finish line after a dismal season. I was shocked at first that Zeke was having so many problems but then you have to remember. These guys are kind of making up the ice dredging thing as they go. It has never been really done before so we need to give them some credit. Chalk it up as a loss. Get some dowsing rods and make up for it this summer. I know what Zeke was feeling at the end only on a much smaller scale. I have dug for hours for just a couple of flakes and it gets frustrating. Gold mining is the hardest easy money there is for sure. Our next reviews will be on whatever gold show starts next. See you then. Here is the Bering sea gold:Under the ice final tally. Lazy Gator--95.95 oz = $157,501.93 Shamrock--69.45 oz = $114,002.18 The Clark--7.7 oz = $12,638.55

Thursday, September 20, 2012

Ohio gold pics from recent prospecting

gold from Ohio
gold from Ohio
gold from Ohio
gold from Ohio
I have been wanting to post these so here they are. This is the gold we have found our last few times out. If you squint real hard you can see it. Enjoy!

Bering sea gold:under the ice review 9/14/2012

My apologies for my tardiness on this weeks review. I was in Chicago for IMTS (international machine tool show) all last week. Totally work related and couldn't be avoided. I finally had a chance to watch the last episode of Bering sea gold:under the ice so here is my take on it. The Lazy gator can do no wrong in my book. The only thing that looks to be a problem for them is the fact that the whole crew is exhausted. I don't know about you all but I wouldn't be to excited if my spotters were dozing off when I was under the ice. Just saying. Gold mining is hard enough as it is. Even my small scale prospecting I do here in Ohio is not easy so I understand some of what they are going through. Just remember though they are in a different league than I am. The only way I can think of to solve the Lazy Gator's exhausted crew problem is conditioning. I think for serious gold mining you should do something similar to a football mini camp a couple of months before. Eat the right stuff and get your body into shape. It is that simple. It will translate to being able to mine longer with less pain. On to the Shamrock. So they take a guy that has never dived before. Never dredged before. In other words he has no idea what he is doing. Then Shawn gets mad when he sucks. Actually he gets mad because he is not sucking but whatever. That whole situation rests solely on Shawn's shoulders. It is my opinion that under the ice in the Bering sea is not the ideal place for on the job training. I did like how Shawn Pomrenke decided to suit up and went down to show Phil (I think that's his name)the ropes. He should have done that from the get go though. Bottom line is if you hire noobs you have to train them. Oh well live and learn. At least they are getting a bit of gold now. Last but not least the Clark. After the blow out with his crew Zeke had only Emily Riedel still by his side at the start of this episode. A mishap with the weight belt had Zeke bouncing off of the bottom of the ice which I thought was hilarious. I hope I wasn't the only one laughing at that. Steve Riedel showed back up to help and I have to say his "pushing Zeke down with a 2 x 4" idea was comical as well. It pains me to say that Steve did eventually save the day with his bag-o-rocks idea. Zeke and Steve kissed and made up afterwards and they are finally getting some gold so it's all good now. By the way Zeke. Get an extra weight belt dude. Thanks for reading. I hope you visit us again. Here is the Bering sea gold:under the ice gold tally so far. #1 Lazy Gator 48.52 oz =$78,645 #2 Shamrock 15.5 oz =$25,443 #3 The Clark 2 oz =$3283

Saturday, September 8, 2012

Bering sea gold: under the ice 9/8/2012 review and thoughts

Last post I gave my take on the first episodes of Bering sea gold:under the ice. I have proven that my blogging and reviewing abilities mirror my prospecting abilities and I have made a mistake. This will happen from time to time as I make a lot of them. In my last review I was spouting off about why they don't they put cameras down first. In this latest episode I found that they do indeed send a camera down to scope the terrain. I had missed it in the first episode somehow. Maybe I was on a snack break who knows. I am correcting it now however. My bad. Moving on now so I can get the focus off of me. How about them Lazy gators! Holy cow! They have over 40 grand in gold now and just seem unstoppable. That just goes to show you that a good team can indeed move mountains. I am interested to see what happens when they need to find a new spot though. Drama is the word of the day for the Clark. After singing praises for Zeke's decision to bring people in. I am second guessing myself. As soon as the night shift realized they were on a sand bar they should have sounded off. The Clark had forgotten that no camera was sent down on that spot. It happens get over it. Move on. What I find hard to believe is that Steve Riedel would chastise Zeke for the camera misstep. If he is so smart why didn't he call Zeke out about it before the big hole was cut. He can't seem to shut up any other time when he notices a mistake.Why was he silent this time? During that spat Steve called Zeke a "monster" and now Zeke wants an apology letter or their through. Seriously guys if you turn one of my favorite gold shows into "Real housewives of Nome" I will have to back another horse. Sticks and stones Zeke. Sticks and Stones. Last but not least the Shamrock. Shawn Pomrenke seems to have finally put his dredge on a gold spot. His only real problem is his crew now. Between the busted eardrums and the hose hugging they seem to be dropping like flies. I said last time bigger isn't always better. The bottom line is the amount of gold going in the box does not cover the fuel of that giant operation so they might as well burn hundred dollar bills. What a shame. Hope it gets better for them. What's your take on this? Comments welcome below.

Tuesday, September 4, 2012

Bering sea gold:under the ice. Review and thoughts.



The first two episodes of Bering Sea Gold: under the ice are in the books. I am going to review what I have seen so far and give you my take on it.  Now as a gold junkie I watch every gold show on t.v . DVR is a wonderful thing. This next comment is directed to The Discovery Channel. The disclaimer you run at the beginning and end of the show saying "this is dangerous and blah blah gobbledygook yada yada" goes in my brain and then goes right back out when I see the good old boys from the Lazy Gator pulling more gold aka money out of a hole in two days than I make in a year working  9 to 5. Just saying. With that out of the way we move to the crews that are having a rough start. The Clark...... Wow...I am in shock that Zeke has not found anything yet. Well no i'm not. I think Zeke's biggest  handicap right now is the Riedel circus he is trying to work with. Poor guy. He is one of my favorites and I hope he gets it together. He made a good decision bringing in  friends that add value to the operation. Not sure what he should do with the cirque de Riedel.  Maybe keep them around for entertainment purposes or something.  Next in the hot seat is the Shamrock with Shawn Pomrenke at the wheel. The Shamrock is a super mega dredge with bells whistles and everything else a gold miner would want or need. Heck you could live on the thing, it's that big.  Now don't get me wrong I like the Pomrenke's. The father son team is great but after watching the Christine Rose dredge just destroy the competition last summer I am kind of glad to see them struggle a bit. Bigger is not always better. Moving on. What I am struggling with is why no one is drilling a small hole first and sending a camera down to look for gold before committing to a spot. Better yet. Why aren't the summer dredgers logging gps coordinates for good gold spots to work after the ice comes in? Well you all know what they say about opinions. You should take mine with a grain of salt. It is easy to critique everything they are doing in Nome when I am sitting in a comfy office in Ohio. Here at the PaystreakTV blog we want to wish all of them luck and hope they stay safe. I will anxiously wait for the next episode to review and over think what their problems are. 
Comments? Feel free to put your 2 cents in by commenting below.


Monday, September 3, 2012

Prospecting made easy. Well almost.

After some experimentation with the snail I found that with enough current it worked well for trapping heavies. The problem was getting enough current. So I found myself back in the shop with my engineer buddy. After a few hours of brainstorming we decided to buy a 500 gph bilge pump and a 12 volt lawn and tractor battery. I spent about 35 bucks. So now I had about just under 50 bucks in my mobile mini wash plant. We welded up some legs for it and made them about 2 foot long. Poked them through the top and called it done. I had flow. I had angle. I had high hopes. Now we needed to get the power snail out in the field to see what she would do. Our maiden run was at Sippo park at the south end. We started with about a half a bucket. I ran what would have taken me an hour to pan in about 25 minutes. I was thrilled to say the least. I was worried that my angle was set to high so we lowered it down a bit and ran another half a bucket of material. After the adjustment I was catching a lot more heavies so I was a bit high. I found three small pieces of gold that day so the power snail was a success in my book. It worked exactly like we imagined it would. Have you ever been really excited about something and when you try to tell people about it they just don't get it? That is where I found myself for the next couple of weeks after this day. On a lighter note the PaystreakTV channel on Youtube was doing ok. Slow but sure wins the race as far as Youtube goes. Now I had a better show with the addition of the power snail. I still needed new gold spots but at least now I could prospect them quicker when I did find them. That's freakin awesome!