Very good indeed! I learned more in the winter/spring than anytime I was actually working. With a cellphone you could photo & mark all those spots where the river boils and swirls gold into the bank, etc. You're a professional - most never do what you're doing at all. Good good good!!!
@@mattmattsongoldwe moved a boulder with a couple of bottle jacks and emptied the crack behind it, but haven’t been able to run it yet. Looked it over with a loop and it’s got gobs of fine gold in it. Thanks again for all your help Matt, really appreciate you. John
@@jharper9899 - Good going! Where the river takes the sharp bend under I-5 we used to put the "old guys" down there to work the spider cracks in the exposed bedrock. They didn't get wet that way and the footing was good for them so we weren't worried they'd drown. One of them (Norm Hill) was breaking those cracks out with a bar and we couldn't believe the gold coming out of those little cracks. I'm convinced any will have gold. BTW - I'm now older than Norm was . . .
Thank you sir. I'm new to this and would love to go out and learn. Here's how I think if someone's already been finding gold that's who I want teaching me.
Thank you Milan - Connie and I are humbled by how many prospectors have learned from us and used the techniques to make their own strikes and found their own channels here on RUclips. Hopefully you'll be another one of them! Good luck!
Good morning Matt. Is there a way to show me what the zibra stripes would look like from Google maps? I have been looking for those stripes you were talking about and I have had no luck. I'm in a gold bearing district up in Northeastern WA. I can't wait for the next video you make on prospecting your information is so valuable!
Jason - they look exactly like what you see in the (made from Google Maps) video - if the bar is totally grey this doesn't work as it is pulling massive sands from somewhere and altering the color of the whole bar - the bar itself then is pointing towards the source upstream. Might be awhile for another video - Connie broke her leg and a rib so we're dealing with all that right now. Good luck to you out there!
Great video thanks! I prospect in the SW washington ( Skamania County/ Gifford Pinchot )area and always seem to find enough gold to make me keep coming back but never enough to cover the gas. The geology is complex up here and I've been struggling for years to get on to anything good. Any tips you may have (beyond the great stuff you already posted) would be greatly appreciated! St Helens really shook things up here when she popped but she didnt bury everything...
You're quite welcome for the video. I've been looking at the Lewis River and am sure you've read all the same things: "About 6 miles southeast of Yacolt along the East Fork Lewis River was the McMunn placer mine. Early reports indicate that both gold and platinum were found here (one of the relatively few places where platinum occurs in Washington), but production was minimal and only sporadic work was done at the mine. - There’s a lot of nice looking bedrock along the East Fork. A gold pan and a few crevicing tools is all you need to be successful here. Remember, a lot of that gold will be way up on the banks, since the water levels change so drastically from season to season." -- We know crevicing works best to find concentrated gold so that might be the best strategy of all. -- I have much of the same problems described in your area - the Chatahoochie transports tons of gold - but by the time it gets to us it has been ground to nothing. If I want to find anything - I'll have to travel far upriver.
The upper portion on the east fork lewis is interesting because to my knowledge there has never been a lode mine in the headwaters. A lot of the other streams in the area have low producing copper mines that put some silver and gold in the stream beds. The east fork seems to have a large area of glacial till that is uncommon for that area. There are some very round peaks up there too where the lodes could have eroded off I suppose. I have explored the channels a lot and there seems to be no upper benches. Thanks again!
@@MrLeadghost : that's interesting. The area around Helena down to Phillipsburg has glacial till as well (that cut the corundum veins). Could be the reason small gold is found - ground. There is another possibility and that would be the Lewis River is cutting small veinlets and not a major vein of gold (yet). Those micro veins give off that small ground gold. I hadn't thought of that previously. Thanks.
Yes the lewis has lots of small quartz stringers in the bedrock. From my time on the river I'm yet to see one that is mineralized to any degree. I suspect the gold originates from a deep glacial cut that is now buried under massive overburdon. The mystery goes on...but lucky for me I enjoy playing the detective!
@@MrLeadghost :small quartz stringers in the bedrock - that explains it to me. If you can find some good cracks across the river to work, they at least will concentrate gold and it might be enough to stay on track pennyweight wise to amass a good amount. You would want to be extremely organized to do this - and keep records so you would know if running into gold or out of it along the crack length - the next crack down or up (if close) should produce in the same rough line. Others are doing this so it can certainly be done and gold amassed from even a poor producer. It certainly beats buying it.
Matt where is the best place for a greenhorn to go prospect for gold in public ground/non claimed in northern Jackson county and southern Douglas County? I don’t swim so can’t get down and snipe. Are there old gold bearing channels in Douglas county? A place to detect or scratch around?
The area between Myrtle Creek to the I-5 bridge on the Umpqua R. is all gold bearing with benches going up to the I-5 highway. There is so much gold we trained the general public here for year after year (thousands of them). Metal detecting - that's hard - since it's heavy black sands, lots of gold, and even platinum so a lot of detectors simply get overwhelmed.
Fantastic video. I wish I could be back on my rivers in Washington. I have moved down to Arizona and have been mining here for around 5 years now. Most of the time I have been up near Stanton Arizona. Really struggling to find paying amounts of gold to dig. I know it's largely a big alluvial fan, but I just can't find good enough samples worth digging. Any chance you could do a real detailed video on desert mining. My typical day would be 0.20 of a gram for 40 buckets of dirt. Not to good. Thanks for any advise you can give me. I have a really good vlf detector and also a really good drywasher.
I'm assuming you have a Gold Bug or equivalent (GMT) - I was in the same area you are in at one time: ruclips.net/video/f8VpW14My9E/видео.html This was back in 2009 - I'm not even sure what you can get out of that, but that's how we worked then. More recent and general: metal detecting - areas to look for (no matter what detector): ruclips.net/video/jOWZTqfadVg/видео.html Washington/Oregon was the place to be for running dirt I agree. Along the sides of some of those big washes - where you can find cracks and run along them with the detector, or the bottom sides of those washes where the round rock is would be another tactic. I'd do the cracks first though - that works anywhere. Let us know how you progress and if anything works - we're interested since we struggled too but finally settled down and found some small nuggets with the detector. A buddy of mine took my old Gold Bug to the same area (Stanton) and did find a fingernail sized nugget digging out a crack in on of the wash areas (there's many washes in the desert plain below Stanton).
Its 6:27pm here in central california as I type this and I would like to ask you what the meaning of DEF is? Also on the guitar jam are you in standard tuning or are one of the chords using dissonense to create that impression. I know much of what you include in this video...but would like to ask if you are familiar with the san joaquin river from herndon to friant...and if you think the cement plant areas a few miles downstream from the dam would be viable search areas as they took out $196,000 from the general area when they dug the sand & gravel for the dam from there abouts? I find it interesting that you have found much more gold than the stuffed shirts with degrees from mackey school of mines could ever dream of. I always knew it. Thanks.
Returned2Forever: thanks for asking - yes, standard tuning (all I know - I'm from the "whop it like this boy" - Burnside school of guitar). I'll look at that location when we get home - no - not familiar with that location. Anytime you can get to gravel below a dam it's worthwhile in the main. My advice would to gain access to the river - and ID what you think is your best spot and start working some buckets out - let it tell you how rich it is. At least you'll know for sure and we both hope it works out!
I forgot to tell you what DEF was: "Dredge Earth First!" an organization to teach the public about gold - had rallies were all facets of gold prospecting were taught.
@@mattmattsongold This area is friant, ca in fresno county at lake millerton...121,000 ounces along the river from pollasky gold camp before the friant dam was constructed to the area of herndon where freeway 99 now sets. When you get a chance check (phone & google maps) a bit up river from the herndon area and see what you think about the rectangular pond like shapes...played out smaller dredge fields maybe? I hope to give it a go in the near future on that area. Thanks I really appreciate it.
@@Returned2Forever : yes - those very much look like old dredge pits. They are on the inside bend of the river - that could very well have been an ancient gold bar. From the intersection of W. Nees & N. Palm Avenue it looks like you might have access to a gravel bar by continuing on W. Nees to it (36.851519, -119.812346) (careful - that's a Bing Map Number & might put you in China). That bar might be material that is already run (through a dredge) - but dig low as shown and see if you can pan & spot gold with a pocket microscope or loupe. The gold will be running smaller & smaller as you go toward the Pacific, but there could be a real load of it judging by the size of those pits. I agree that taking a hard look at those bars is warranted. Over time, quite a nest egg in gold could be produced just quietly working it out.
@@mattmattsongold But how could it be done? Water is green and full of algie...can't see well or at all, several feet of mud, difficult to move around, etc. It would need to be drained, dried out, etc. Right? Am I missing something? If it was tried while full of water what would it take...a hooka or scuba setup? And you would still need a metal detector, buckets, pans, and a sluice relocated to the river to run everything. Its like once you get past basic ideas it falls apart or it gets bogged down. Sure is tempting to dream of though.
Thank you for your informative video presentations..... A lot to take in.
You're welcome, Alan, very best of luck in the field!
Man I would sure love to sit around the camp fire and learn. Love The videos. Thank you.
You're welcome - best of luck to you.
Great info fam. Keep up the great work. Gold Squad Out 🤠
Thanks for that - appreciate it a lot.
Thank you sir again for another great video! You're awesome!
And thank you.
Great to see you again Matt.
Thanks Dan!
I just enjoyed this video!!! Thanks for sharing! Kirk from secret creek shared this and I’ll have to thank him! ✌🏻⛏️✨
That is wonderful - we're glad you liked it - and certainly grateful Kirk shared it with you!
C’mon down to Lawson bar tomorrow. I’d love to shake yer hand. Thanks a bunch for all the knowledge sir.
You're welcome, Kevin - hope you come back with a lot of buckets!
Thanks for the video Matt
So the lightest material at the bank then black sand then the gold?
You're welcome and that is exactly right. Hope you're having a great time out in the field!
Hey Matt hope you and Connie had a Merry Christmas and a great new year. Still here on the Umpqua seeing how it looks at high water.
Very good indeed! I learned more in the winter/spring than anytime I was actually working. With a cellphone you could photo & mark all those spots where the river boils and swirls gold into the bank, etc. You're a professional - most never do what you're doing at all. Good good good!!!
@@mattmattsongoldwe moved a boulder with a couple of bottle jacks and emptied the crack behind it, but haven’t been able to run it yet. Looked it over with a loop and it’s got gobs of fine gold in it. Thanks again for all your help Matt, really appreciate you. John
@@jharper9899 - Good going! Where the river takes the sharp bend under I-5 we used to put the "old guys" down there to work the spider cracks in the exposed bedrock. They didn't get wet that way and the footing was good for them so we weren't worried they'd drown. One of them (Norm Hill) was breaking those cracks out with a bar and we couldn't believe the gold coming out of those little cracks. I'm convinced any will have gold. BTW - I'm now older than Norm was . . .
Thank you sir. I'm new to this and would love to go out and learn. Here's how I think if someone's already been finding gold that's who I want teaching me.
Thank you Milan - Connie and I are humbled by how many prospectors have learned from us and used the techniques to make their own strikes and found their own channels here on RUclips. Hopefully you'll be another one of them! Good luck!
Good morning Matt. Is there a way to show me what the zibra stripes would look like from Google maps? I have been looking for those stripes you were talking about and I have had no luck. I'm in a gold bearing district up in Northeastern WA. I can't wait for the next video you make on prospecting your information is so valuable!
Jason - they look exactly like what you see in the (made from Google Maps) video - if the bar is totally grey this doesn't work as it is pulling massive sands from somewhere and altering the color of the whole bar - the bar itself then is pointing towards the source upstream. Might be awhile for another video - Connie broke her leg and a rib so we're dealing with all that right now. Good luck to you out there!
@@mattmattsongold Thanks Matt. I'm sorry about Connie! I hope she heals quickly! Prayers for you and Connie.
THANK YOU RITE ON!
You are welcome and I wish you many happy adventures in the gold fields!
I enjoyed the presentation and was happy and surprised to learn all the way through it. You get a big thumbs up and subscriber, enjoyed the chicken 2.
Thanks for that Jeffrey - hope you can put it to good use in the field someday! Glad to have you with us!
@@mattmattsongold I will. Gold seems to find me, I also like that fellow Jeff Williams the prospector, you both know your geology. Thank you.
@@Jeffreymart : yes - he puts out good information. Have fun out there!
@@mattmattsongold U2 amigo 😀
Great video thanks! I prospect in the SW washington ( Skamania County/ Gifford Pinchot )area and always seem to find enough gold to make me keep coming back but never enough to cover the gas. The geology is complex up here and I've been struggling for years to get on to anything good. Any tips you may have (beyond the great stuff you already posted) would be greatly appreciated! St Helens really shook things up here when she popped but she didnt bury everything...
You're quite welcome for the video. I've been looking at the Lewis River and am sure you've read all the same things: "About 6 miles southeast of Yacolt along the East Fork Lewis River was the McMunn placer mine. Early reports indicate that both gold and platinum were found here (one of the relatively few places where platinum occurs in Washington), but production was minimal and only sporadic work was done at the mine. - There’s a lot of nice looking bedrock along the East Fork. A gold pan and a few crevicing tools is all you need to be successful here. Remember, a lot of that gold will be way up on the banks, since the water levels change so drastically from season to season." -- We know crevicing works best to find concentrated gold so that might be the best strategy of all. -- I have much of the same problems described in your area - the Chatahoochie transports tons of gold - but by the time it gets to us it has been ground to nothing. If I want to find anything - I'll have to travel far upriver.
The upper portion on the east fork lewis is interesting because to my knowledge there has never been a lode mine in the headwaters. A lot of the other streams in the area have low producing copper mines that put some silver and gold in the stream beds. The east fork seems to have a large area of glacial till that is uncommon for that area. There are some very round peaks up there too where the lodes could have eroded off I suppose. I have explored the channels a lot and there seems to be no upper benches. Thanks again!
@@MrLeadghost : that's interesting. The area around Helena down to Phillipsburg has glacial till as well (that cut the corundum veins). Could be the reason small gold is found - ground. There is another possibility and that would be the Lewis River is cutting small veinlets and not a major vein of gold (yet). Those micro veins give off that small ground gold. I hadn't thought of that previously. Thanks.
Yes the lewis has lots of small quartz stringers in the bedrock. From my time on the river I'm yet to see one that is mineralized to any degree. I suspect the gold originates from a deep glacial cut that is now buried under massive overburdon. The mystery goes on...but lucky for me I enjoy playing the detective!
@@MrLeadghost :small quartz stringers in the bedrock - that explains it to me. If you can find some good cracks across the river to work, they at least will concentrate gold and it might be enough to stay on track pennyweight wise to amass a good amount. You would want to be extremely organized to do this - and keep records so you would know if running into gold or out of it along the crack length - the next crack down or up (if close) should produce in the same rough line. Others are doing this so it can certainly be done and gold amassed from even a poor producer. It certainly beats buying it.
Matt where is the best place for a greenhorn to go prospect for gold in public ground/non claimed in northern Jackson county and southern Douglas County?
I don’t swim so can’t get down and snipe.
Are there old gold bearing channels in Douglas county? A place to detect or scratch around?
The area between Myrtle Creek to the I-5 bridge on the Umpqua R. is all gold bearing with benches going up to the I-5 highway. There is so much gold we trained the general public here for year after year (thousands of them). Metal detecting - that's hard - since it's heavy black sands, lots of gold, and even platinum so a lot of detectors simply get overwhelmed.
Fantastic video. I wish I could be back on my rivers in Washington. I have moved down to Arizona and have been mining here for around 5 years now. Most of the time I have been up near Stanton Arizona. Really struggling to find paying amounts of gold to dig. I know it's largely a big alluvial fan, but I just can't find good enough samples worth digging. Any chance you could do a real detailed video on desert mining. My typical day would be 0.20 of a gram for 40 buckets of dirt. Not to good. Thanks for any advise you can give me. I have a really good vlf detector and also a really good drywasher.
I'm assuming you have a Gold Bug or equivalent (GMT) - I was in the same area you are in at one time: ruclips.net/video/f8VpW14My9E/видео.html This was back in 2009 - I'm not even sure what you can get out of that, but that's how we worked then. More recent and general: metal detecting - areas to look for (no matter what detector): ruclips.net/video/jOWZTqfadVg/видео.html Washington/Oregon was the place to be for running dirt I agree. Along the sides of some of those big washes - where you can find cracks and run along them with the detector, or the bottom sides of those washes where the round rock is would be another tactic. I'd do the cracks first though - that works anywhere. Let us know how you progress and if anything works - we're interested since we struggled too but finally settled down and found some small nuggets with the detector. A buddy of mine took my old Gold Bug to the same area (Stanton) and did find a fingernail sized nugget digging out a crack in on of the wash areas (there's many washes in the desert plain below Stanton).
Masterful overlook with enough detail to provide heavy pans to anyone. Thank you my Friend.
You are most welcome!
Its 6:27pm here in central california as I type this and I would like to ask you what the meaning of DEF is? Also on the guitar jam are you in standard tuning or are one of the chords using dissonense to create that impression. I know much of what you include in this video...but would like to ask if you are familiar with the san joaquin river from herndon to friant...and if you think the cement plant areas a few miles downstream from the dam would be viable search areas as they took out $196,000 from the general area when they dug the sand & gravel for the dam from there abouts? I find it interesting that you have found much more gold than the stuffed shirts with degrees from mackey school of mines could ever dream of. I always knew it. Thanks.
Returned2Forever: thanks for asking - yes, standard tuning (all I know - I'm from the "whop it like this boy" - Burnside school of guitar). I'll look at that location when we get home - no - not familiar with that location. Anytime you can get to gravel below a dam it's worthwhile in the main. My advice would to gain access to the river - and ID what you think is your best spot and start working some buckets out - let it tell you how rich it is. At least you'll know for sure and we both hope it works out!
I forgot to tell you what DEF was: "Dredge Earth First!" an organization to teach the public about gold - had rallies were all facets of gold prospecting were taught.
@@mattmattsongold This area is friant, ca in fresno county at lake millerton...121,000 ounces along the river from pollasky gold camp before the friant dam was constructed to the area of herndon where freeway 99 now sets. When you get a chance check (phone & google maps) a bit up river from the herndon area and see what you think about the rectangular pond like shapes...played out smaller dredge fields maybe? I hope to give it a go in the near future on that area. Thanks I really appreciate it.
@@Returned2Forever : yes - those very much look like old dredge pits. They are on the inside bend of the river - that could very well have been an ancient gold bar. From the intersection of W. Nees & N. Palm Avenue it looks like you might have access to a gravel bar by continuing on W. Nees to it (36.851519, -119.812346) (careful - that's a Bing Map Number & might put you in China). That bar might be material that is already run (through a dredge) - but dig low as shown and see if you can pan & spot gold with a pocket microscope or loupe. The gold will be running smaller & smaller as you go toward the Pacific, but there could be a real load of it judging by the size of those pits. I agree that taking a hard look at those bars is warranted. Over time, quite a nest egg in gold could be produced just quietly working it out.
@@mattmattsongold But how could it be done? Water is green and full of algie...can't see well or at all, several feet of mud, difficult to move around, etc. It would need to be drained, dried out, etc. Right? Am I missing something? If it was tried while full of water what would it take...a hooka or scuba setup? And you would still need a metal detector, buckets, pans, and a sluice relocated to the river to run everything. Its like once you get past basic ideas it falls apart or it gets bogged down. Sure is tempting to dream of though.
Gold & fried chicken don’t mix, you probably taught me that! Hope to meet you someday.
Thanks Kevin - maybe we will.
Hey Matt video will not load.......
It's still uploading the 4K - might want to try it again (takes 90 minutes). Give it a shot tomorrow.
Thank you for the fried chicken.
My goodness - you watched the whole thing! You're welcome - nothing like fried chicken.