Monday, November 26, 2012

Jungle gold 11/16/2012 review and thoughts

   Well you've got to hand it to Scott and George. They are consistent. They move a whole lot of dirt for an embarrassingly small amount of gold.  Things are not going well for these guys just as we predicted early on in these posts. Their claim is not producing anything worth digging and their equipment is failing. Their mechanic got sent home to save some money. He was the wrong kind of mechanic anyhow. They need to find a good bush mechanic to even have a chance out there in the jungle. Gear heads from the United states like the one George and Scott brought in are used to finding the stuff they need on Ebay and what not. I know this because I am one of those gear heads. The culture shock is to great. Speaking of culture shock. If you watched this episode you got to see the village witch doctor sacrifice a goat or something to help George and Scott with their bad ju ju. I hate to say it but they should have probably used something bigger because their luck isn't changing.  This is going to be a short post as I have found that watching Jungle gold and then blogging about it makes my head hurt.

  Thanks for reading. The Thanksgiving weekend gold show reviews coming soon. Don't forget to subscribe or follow my blog.

Gold rush Alaska 11/16/2012 review and thoughts

   They called this episode of Gold rush Alaska the battle of the bridge. It is my opinion that in order to keep things interesting they introduce drama into the show weekly. Now I understand what Discovery channel is trying to do but to be honest I don't want to see made up reality television. The drama I am interested in is created when these guys try to dodge the many pit falls of mining and then getting to see the gold at the end.Moving on then. I don't have a whole lot to say about the Parker Schnabel Dakota Fred bridge fight. Parker needs money for payroll. He had a contract to replace the bridge to Porcupine creek for X amount of dollars. Fred is lucky Parkers dad made his son give them access. All I know is neither of them were running paydirt so I am not interested in Dustin and Parkers spat or Fred playing with his knife. Give me a break.

   The Hoffman drama continues as well. Dave Turrin and crew are muscling through their first cut but one of the bulldozers went down so they had to put on the night shift to finish it. Not much more to say about Indian river. looks like they will be mining next week. Todd on the other hand is still dead in the water. He went east into Canada to where his turbo trommel is being built to try to hurry things along. Todd should have made this trip weeks ago but I don't think it would have made a difference. He did bring one of his mechanics to help so that was a little smart I guess. I know from personal experience as a maintenance man at my own shop that when you have a machine built from scratch it ALWAYS takes longer than projected. An eight week lead time on a machine that size is ridiculously short. I'm not sure it can even be done. So that's it. No gold. A lot of useless drama. Hope the next episode is better than this one.

Here is the gold tally from last week with nothing new to add. Sigh....

The Big Nugget 25 oz =$43,150


  What do you think? Comments are welcome below. Please subscribe/follow and feel free to pass along my PaystreakTV gold blog link http://paystreaktv.blogspot.com/  to any one who enjoys this kind of stuff. Thanks for reading.

Friday, November 16, 2012

Gold rush Alaska 11/9/2012 review and thoughts

   I am finding that keeping up with the blog is a lot harder than I anticipated. Hats off to bloggers who do this for a living. I am a bit behind on my "Gold rush Alaska" reviews. With winter looming here in Ohio my PaystreakTV youtube channel will be tapering off giving me the extra time I need to do things here. I am going to prospect this weekend. It's supposed to be nice but that can change pretty quick here. This very well could be the last time I get out for the season. I am kind of bummed about that. Hurry up spring!

   Enough of that. I had plenty of time to think about my review for the last Gold rush Alaska which aired 11/9/2012 so here's my take. The Hoffmans have solved all of their land issues with the help of Greg Mcneil, the land owner at quartz creek. Dave Turrin got his was plant up and running on Indian river. They had to weld a few spots up to fix some vibration problems but other than that it looks like a real honey. The quartz creek claim is having some problems now. Todd is still waiting for his "turbo trommel" which is still weeks out. Then they found a bit of gold in the tailings. Todd shut the operation down and proceeded to rip out old blue. I have two issues with this. First. An inefficient wash plant still finds more gold than NO wash plant. Second. Don't these guys have the mining expert of their payroll? I would think you would have him at least look at the plant before throwing in the towel and dragging it out of there. Todd Hoffman you amaze me every week.

   Over at Porcupine creek the Dakota boys are getting started. Fred bought another loader and brought in some help. Well sort of. He hired a woman and a guy. The guy as it turned out had a back injury that he was taking pain killers for. He was fired soon after that came to light. We will talk about the woman operator later on as we get to know her better. Not much dirt moving going on but the Hurts did get their de-rocker working. We will see what happens to them next week.

   At the Big nugget mine Parker is mining! He hit a speed bump with some trust issues. He suspects some gold came up missing.  It's a hard pill to swallow when you realize for the first time in your life that dishonest people are everywhere and you have to be aware of them. I bet he does not leave any more pans of gold laying around. Parker had an awesome clean out after his first week of running the upgraded wash plant. I was very happy for him. I like that kid. What do you think? Comments are welcome below. Don't forget to follow or subscribe.Thanks for reading. Only one gold tally so far so here it is..

The Big Nugget 25 oz =$43,150








  Real quick while I'm blogging. Here is a picture of my prospectors coat rack. I would like to think the guy up on the hill is wishing he had one. In reality he is probably wondering if I lost my mind.
 



  

Wednesday, November 14, 2012

Jungle gold reviews and thoughts 11/2/2012, 11/9/2012

I decided to smash my reviews of the last two episodes of Jungle gold into this one post. you have to believe me when I say that blogging about this show is almost as painful as watching it. That being said here we go.
On the 11/2/2012 episode Scott and George go to see if they can get their trommel. Guess what. It's surrounded by water. They drop the last of their investors money on a new one. I posed the question in the last Jungle gold review. If your in a country that has a rainy season. Why are you mining during it? This episode just proved my point. Moving on now. It seems that the land owner of the claim they are on now did not let everyone in their family know about the land deal he had struck with Scott and George. A domestic dispute with the machete wielding brother in law comes soon after. Now I can understand wanting to protect your security guy but putting the skinny native dude into the death crippler flying chicken wing hold was probably not the best decision. Important safety tip coming up........DON"T MAKE ENEMIES IN A THIRD WORLD COUNTRY. They did do one thing right though. They got a maintenance man out there. Now if they where smart they would have had one there from the get go but whatever.

Now for the 11/9/2012 episode. It's really more of the same. The investor is getting impatient,they are having logistics and mechanical problems and to top it off they have to sleep in the Jungle now to protect their equipment because off all the friends they have made in Ghana so far. They ran a bit of dirt now and got like five grams or something like that. That struck me as funny. If they wanted those kind of clean outs they could have just come here to Ohio to mine. The other thing I wanted to touch on in this episode was the logistics problems. They have to haul all of their fuel in to their claim. To do that they have to trespass on a Chinese claim a little bit. Now that's all good but you can't turn around and beat your chest like a gorilla when they wander on to yours. Those Chinese miners were sending a pretty clear message as far as I am concerned and Scott and George need to start paying attention before they get killed out there.  My suggestion to them........Make friends with your Chinese neighbors and do it quick.  Okay that's all I can stand. Comments are appreciated below. Don't forget to follow or subscribe. The Gold rush Alaska 11/9/2012 episode review is coming soon. Thanks for reading

Wednesday, November 7, 2012

My gold from recent prospecting


 Hurricane Sandy put a literal damper on my gold prospecting escapades over the last week. I do however have some pics of the gold I found right before it blew through. Sorry about the focus. Ohio gold is very small and my camera has a hard time focusing on it.

Gold rush Alaska review 11/2/2012 The wrong claim

   So it looks like the miners are ready. Their equipment runs and they are all good to go but it looks like the Hoffman crew at quartz creek are the only ones moving dirt. The Indian river claim is having some issues right now though. Right off the bat Dave and Todd noticed drill hole markers. I know that it is easy to pick things apart sitting in my comfy office in Ohio but I am thinking that I definitely would have gotten the claim owner Greg Mcneil on the phone to figure that out. Instead they decide to pay a lot of money to drill their test holes and figure out the other stuff later. That came back to bite them when they found out that they were drilling on the wrong claim. Dave Turrin most likely entered the gps coordinates wrong. Todd said he didn't want to look like idiots this year. Sorry Todd there is always next season though. On the bright side, at least you didn't start mining it. New test holes on the right claim yielded lack luster results so they are in a pickle now. I don't know why they didn't show what was happening at Quartz creek this episode but oh well.

   Down at Porcupine creek there are flooding problems for both Parker Schnable and the Dakota boys. Parker worked all winter getting Smith creek dug down and now that the years record snow is melting  it is making access to Smith creek dangerous. I am glad he listened to his grandpa about this when he voiced his concern. It was a valuable life lesson. Lucky for Parker he has good neighbors. Earl Foster is one of them. He owns some claims right next to the Big Nugget and he agreed to lease one to Parker. Now at least he can run dirt until Smith creek dries out a bit.

   The Dakota boys are not faring as well. Could it be karma from the electrical panel thing? Fred went on a helicopter ride with a geo survey dude. After seeing the snow pack up the valley he realized that they can't drain the glory hole with out risking the whole operation and their lives. They are going to try to get at it from the other end for now so we will see how that works out for them. I want to see what's at the bottom more than ever now. What is your take on the show? Feel free to comment below. If you enjoy my blog please subscribe,follow or back link to me. Thanks for reading.


Monday, November 5, 2012

Jungle gold review 10/26/12 episode

  Jungle gold is about two guys from Utah. George Wright and Scott Lomu used to make a living in the housing market. When the bottom dropped out they where out of work. Now they are in Ghana Africa during a modern day gold rush and making a show about it. From what I have seen so far they are going to have a rough time. First off I have to say this. You are in a country that has a rainy season. Why would you mine during the rainy season? Duh.. I don't get it and that just seems really stupid to me. Flooding will be an ongoing problem for them. Another serious problem they had right away was with their claim.  They had paid to lease a claim and arrived to find armed Chinese miners all over it. When they went to the village chief to complain they got a "there's nothing we can do".  They managed to get another claim lined up and got their excavator to the only high ground on it. After all that the wives are needing money so George and Scott do a back alley gold deal. This seems really dangerous. Large amounts of money are involved. There is always a chance you will get robbed or worse. Ghana is indeed in the middle of a modern day gold rush but it's a third world country so there is a bit of lawlessness going on. Anyhow they buy low and sell high and make just under a grand. To tell you the truth I'd like to see a show about the back alley gold deals. It is to early to tell whether or not I like the show but I will say the first episode was a bit painful to watch. What's your opinion on the Jungle gold show? Comments are welcome. Thanks for reading. don't forget to follow or subscribe.

Thursday, November 1, 2012

Gold rush Alaska season 3. Million dollar season review 10/26/2012

  We are back to blog our brains out about the gold shows. The first episode of "Gold rush Alaska" season 3 is in the books so here is my review and my thoughts on it. I guess we will start with the Hoffman operation since they are the biggest. They actually got to their claim early this year which amazed me for a second. That was a short lived amazement however due to the fact that the "Turbo trommel" Todd was having built was behind schedule and still two weeks out. They did have the back up this time. Jim Thurber breathed life into old blue. The gremlin filled wash plant from last season. Someone correct me if I am wrong but I think the rookie who took the high pressure hose ride was Logan Pierce. Being a maintenance man at a machine shop I know for a fact that flipping hoses hurt but they are funny as well. I am sorry to say that I was laughing.

   The Dakota boys showed up at Porcupine creek to find themselves buried in snow. Fred asks for help from the Big nugget and young Parker Schnabel goes above and beyond plowing their drive and helping jump start their equipment. I'm curious to find out what is at the bottom of Jack's glory hole so we will have to keep watching to find out I guess.

   The big nugget mine got a face lift this season or should we call it a trommel lift. Parker replaced all of his supports and re-leveled his wash plant. He also installed longer sluice boxes and upgraded the power. This should triple the amount of dirt they can process. I hope he can get it dialed in. I know from experience at my shop when you modify equipment new bugs always show up. I wish him luck with that.

   There is no gold tally yet but the Hoffman crew is on the board with what I am guessing to be few grams. It is hard to tell when it's laying in the pan. Feel free to comment below and don't forget to follow or subscribe to my feed. Thanks for reading. See you next time.