Happy with capture rate, just need to get on a good spot with shallow enough bedrock to reach. The dang creek gives no clues as to where bedrock might be reachable, so it's just a yearly crap shoot to try and reach the bottom before we have to pack up... 2 years ago we did a lot better gold wise in the hard pack, near the middle of the S canyons with no liquid mercury, just a little on some specks. Got thrown off by just hitting mercury there only a little bit upstream, and the boulders, so had to move up to the spot with good surface level gold, but it didn't increase as we wen't down as much as other spots.

Stay in touch. You can join us next year.

Yeah, missed a dredge outing in 2020 for reasons. Have more footage I'd like to put together eventually. A lot more diving later on when the main hole was the deepest.

I put my black sands in a tumbler for a few hrs then use leather or jean material hold under water a squeeze out the excess mercury. Then make sure there's no moisture in it use a retort to remove the mercury. I would imagine you guys are doing that? I use to get almost as much doing that as what we panned out! Great video!

@@patdexter9188 I saw some nice fish this year, but the GoPro on super wide angle made them not show up hardly. The mercury is so old and packed with gold it can't even pick up more gold, it just floats on the outside of it. Will finish up the final clean up and retort soon hopefully.

Well you guys deserve some good gold! That is a hell of a hike for sure! I'm working on getting 4 claims right now in idaho a ways above Boise. Good luck to ya!

@@patdexter9188 I have always wondered about how reliable the studies are claiming fish have mercury in their systems when in my experience with a science classroom mishap that involved a classmate slapping raw mercury into my eyes over 35 years ago they washed it out never have had issues. Then I'm novice to prospecting but since mercury isn't water soluble how do fish encounter or come in contact with something that settle on or with gold thus decreases it being shallow enough for a simple fish nest. If it truly does absorb in why doesn't it poison & kill the fish? Again I don't know alot about much but I know a little bit about something lol not trying to be a know it all or anything just an inquisitive conversation.

​@@phylxguy5547good post. Every few years the science cult says the tuna on the north carolina coast has mercury. All lies and deception. Mercury comes out of the earth it's natural. Dangerous in the vapor form .

I've found a few pickers in the middlefork up there covers in mercury

Yeah, we know, we do that. .

Background

We’re in the SW Idaho desert and I know the dredging season is longer than AK.

Jarvine Riffle up top and Dream Mat dredge mats down the rest of the sluice. The dredge mat cells will catch the up to 1" nuggets that get through your screen or past the JR's too. What width sluice box are you considering? I have 2 18" wide dredge mats I'm selling for $100 off of new price new never used.

Thanks 👍

It’s a Keene dredge with many modifications.

That's the mercury. It covers much of the gold

OTS Guardian. Awesome mask!

We did collect it. Who would put it back in the creek?

@@USAF33 Nice , never though you put it back into the creek , just sounded like you moved on from the hole because you found mercury ! We find a lot of mercury on my claim as well . The reason why is different, they use to build sluices right in the creek for there clean up and would use mercury to collect the gold . Pictures of them using old dust pans to scoop up the amalgamation out of the sluices in the creek , big Smiles on there faces and Arms covered in mercury.

@@americanadventureoutdoors4213 We stated in the video that we left that hole because of the danger of the boulders.

@@USAF33 Ah , I guess I missed that part . O well I won’t be losing any seep over it

We have a way in and out, but its on private property and completely at the will of the rancher, which changes year to year... So we have the backup trail down from the opposite side of the creek. They let us drive through right down to our dredge hole and pull the gear out... just crazy after getting it there piece by piece down the cliff/draw/trail. Next time I want advanced permission to drive in and camp on the creek. instead we drive as far as we can, camp there and ATV from camp to the top of the draw/trail down just a little further on from where we camp. It's hot and dry in the desert there, when it was pushing 95 F I just decided on underwear days. No A/C, can't run it on 500W solar panels even with 5 big deep cycle car batteries for storage. Driving down and having the camper on the gravel bars of the creek would be nice and cool, saves the massive amount of energy required to hike from the ATV parking down the draw, and then cross the river once or twice depending on where you want to work... It's fun, but I think we need more people to make it more manageable. we have to take physical breaks every couple days its so exhausting, and beats your body up so bad. We're throwing rocks from a ledge at about chest high water all the way far enough up the shore that they don't roll back in. A basket to haul rocks out with, and camping down in the creek level will help a lot I think. Also need boulder moving methods ready and we can go down in that mercury hole. It was the spot I expected to be the most ancient channel's gold line. We hit just liquid mercury and very little mercury covered gold/ amalgam, and didn't bring the retort like we always do. We never found any ever before this time. I'm curious if there are pools of rich ass mercury sitting in bedrock pockets...