Is There Good Gold 12 Miles West of Nome, Alaska?

[Music] all right cool we're uh we're doing a beach mining day today i'm here with gary uh vernon had to leave town do some business so um we couldn't go out on the big dredge today so me and gary decided let's go get some gold on the beach huh yeah cool so uh where are we going today uh we're going to uh i don't i don't even know what the river is called but anyway river but it's 12 miles down the beach but we found a good spot i think we found a good spot i mean it's showing a lot of good promise so uh we're gonna go down there and put a full day in and see what we can get yeah we did a couple pan couple test pins yesterday huh how do we do oh test pans i don't know probably at least 150 colors in them right yeah the test bin showed uh yeah really well it showed pretty good so uh enough to go uh what we're going to do right now is um where i have been beach mine and usually i go down a couple miles grab some dirt and then bring it back to the box but today me and gary we're going to uh grab that beach box put it in the back of the truck drive down 12 miles to the penny and then uh we're gonna shovel right next to the material so we don't have to drive back and forth and waste a lot of time so hopefully um that's gonna pay us out pretty good yeah should be a good day yeah yeah we're hoping for uh i don't know it's hard to set a goal here because it's a new area but the test pan showed pretty well if we don't have to drive i'm shooting for six to ten grams today is what i hope we can get yeah that would be great sound good yeah get more on the 10 or 15 sides it's it's very possible we could get 15 today if the spot's super hot and it stays that way but a lot of times um we'll be mining there's a good spot for like 10 square feet and then um and then it just fades away so uh just depending on the spot my expectations are always set i set them way too high yeah but all right so uh yeah we're gonna go grab that box and um head down to the penny today so this is the beach box we're going to use today i did have it kind of just set here and i would just drive down the beach get my material in the back of the truck come back and wash it here because there's a there's fresh water back there that's why we do that we need the water there's a pond um gary's up here right now grabbing the motor but yeah there's a pond so we just pump the water from the pond down here because it's super hard uh if you put a stinger uh you know the foot valve into the ocean it just rests on sand and it just sucks up sand the whole time so it's it's very hard to uh get water from the ocean so um if you have a freshwater pond nearby that's a way to do it so gary's over here now grabbing the parts hey do we have a foot valve on this no okay no i thought it might get stuck in the mud no i had it so it was over the bank so it was just like sitting in the water you didn't really need a foot valve so we're going today uh there's a river there so we're going to get our water from the river and mine right on the beach so this is where i get the water for the beach box here where where everyone there's a this is old dredge pond right here there's the old dredge in the back so they dredged all this and now it's filled up with water and everyone uses it to get their beach water dude that looks heavy yeah it is you need a hand you want to grab one in yeah i'll grab this in ready okay all right there we go whoa this thing's heavy man beautiful day out there i wish we were out but uh yeah vernon had to go back to uh his hometown he flew out for some business but we'll be back tomorrow night and we'll be hitting the ocean tomorrow oh look alex packed out he left uh probably yesterday starting to get cold here the beach miners are kind of all packing up going home i'll go roll up the hose from up here so we got uh probably like 100 feet a lay flat hose so we can go 100 feet away from that river which will be pretty cool well loaded up that was easy didn't take long that box is super light yeah we're ready to go there's a beach box we got in the truck we got some supports right here we'll put that under the legs so the legs don't wash out five minutes we're done okay so uh we're ready to go hit it huh yeah there you go penny river is calling our name pity river 12 mile drive that's a long way on the beach yeah yeah hey there's gold there yeah we'll see how much so we're going 12 miles down the beach hopefully we won't get stuck and there's no cell phone uh we had to ditch our spare tire because uh we got too much crap so yeah hopefully uh hopefully we'll make it all right let's go get some gold oh yeah we're about halfway down the beach so far we probably went about six miles huh yeah and check it out look look who's right in our area that's a christine rose and the myrtle and i think the christine rose is exactly where we're gonna be beach mine is pretty funny and uh we were here first uh we were here yesterday afternoon they just those guys just pulled out tonight so we're not following them around they're following us for sure yeah they're right uh they're right where we're gonna be on the beach i think we might we might be a little past them i don't know we'll find out actually i think they're exactly where we're gonna be right at the mouth of the river yeah they're pretty close we're gonna be within a few miles of where they are probably but uh yeah that's all the myrtles out there must be a good area out there in the ocean both the roads and myrtles out there so far the beach uh there's a couple sandy spots we almost got stuck a few times but pulled through and uh there's this is ken carr's place uh this big rig right here it's a big huge clam shell it's up on the on the beach i guess they had an accident and washed ashore or something like that i'm not sure but this is a ken cars compound and when we get closer i'll i'll show you all right there it is that's a mega mega huge clam shell dredge see that orange thing that orange thing goes uh straight through i don't know they must uh sorry i don't know if it goes through the boat no they must uh wing out and they'll go down and it drops straight down and they they grab and then and then they pull it up and just dump it right there's the chute yup okay there's the box okay so that thing must go over the side goes straight down and it takes a big huge chunk of the bottom and then it closes like a clam and then comes up and then drops it in the box and all that but look how big that thing is yeah i think the massive massive dredge living quarters and everything freaking double stacked connexes they got they got six connexes on that six months nothing's huge but yeah i i think something happened to it in a storm so there it is that's it's back end so yeah it's just that big clam shell goes down and just eats the bottom brings it up and uh i'm not sure if it's a good design you don't see any out here working at home right now so whether it was a good design or not i have no idea it's beach now that's for sure yeah so this is all ken carr's place uh he's got a bunch of beach crawlers over there i don't know what else is a bunch of toys back there well yeah the only way here too is uh to ride like six miles down the beach yeah and then uh ahead of us looks like there's someone on the beach here i don't know maybe that's ken i don't even know we'll find out but uh yeah they got the excavator right in the sand this is a rare situation because normally they don't let heavy equipment work on the beach so this must be owned by cancur because they're actually working heavy equipment on the beach and that's that's normally a no-no but this time yeah i'm sure if you own it i think it's okay i don't know what the rules are but maybe it's a patented claim or something i don't know must be we'll check it out though yeah look at that he's doing it right he knows that uh he's going wrong yeah that's how you beach mine right there we need one of those the only thing with that it gets a little dangerous if you dig your hole too deep sand kind of flows down into a cone like uh when your kid on the beach and you dig a hole in the beach you know it just kind of cones in on itself so the same thing on a bigger scale so that guy has to watch out that that whole machine doesn't go down into the hole he's dug i'd like to talk to him but he's kind of busy yeah see how he's got his buoy right there i wonder yeah that's how he gets his water yeah so he has a buoy like held up the buoy is holding up probably the foot valve or something i don't yeah he's busy working so yeah that's cool that's how you do it right there i'm sure he's getting a lot of freaking gold probably yeah yeah just a one-man operation oh man this is all soft sand right here we made it all right so there's the rose right there and we're probably gonna go a mile past them yeah they're not gonna be eyeballing us yeah there's the murder of the myrtles back there i'm gonna go over this way it looks like nice and soft oh yeah we can floor now let's see how fast we go 40. there's a big bump right here you hit this thing and all the tires will fly off yeah that boats pulled up a lot of gold right there what would happen boom's in the water they're not they're not digging right now probably a breakdown yeah the box is going see the water flowing through the mud oh there it goes fresh scoop off the bottom of the bering sea [Music] there it goes big money maker all right we're almost to the penny river we're going to make our fortune we're going to get rich at the benny river here we go we're going to be the christine rose of the beach there it is there's the penny we can't go any further yeah that's too too deep to cross with uh any vehicle i don't see any tracks four wheelers or anything uh yeah this is the end of the line we're gonna go check it out where this is we're gonna mine so yesterday uh gary got right here this is from us yesterday right so right here this little little area got a whole ton of colors and some bigger stuff and what it is it's just kind of clay it's just like a sandy clay-ish kind of stuff and uh down over here oh that was my hole this is where gary got his stuff over here yeah the best color was right here here it is so we might be able to come down here yeah see the clay so this is just clay regular like clay you would find on the bottom of the river so he's kind of scraped this and there's a bunch of gold in it you can see somebody's already been working yeah but now that we got our beach box right here we don't have to worry about you know just hydrating we could just take whatever and throw it in the box yeah so we're gonna pump water there's the river there so i think we have enough line to bring a beach box um we might just uh put the beach box at the end here so the tailings just go off the thing yeah we figured out first we got to do is just find out how much hose we got so i'll go grab the hose and see where we set up the box well cool so we got the motor set up we got the foot valve in and we got plenty of blue hose to run we even have way extra hose so we can actually move down the beach quite a ways but uh we found the good gold right here so we can set up the box there and get to work okay we got the box set up looks good we got it kind of roughly where it is though the front legs are still in the air but uh back leg going uh yeah let's get the water going put it all together i guess huh yeah so we got the box like roughly where it should be we're gonna fine tune it but we're gonna get the water going and then we can tell with the water what it what the box is doing so get the water going and take it from there [Applause] so this pump here this is one you need to prime yourself so there it goes there we go get some water for the pump this one you got to uh put water in it before you start it so we'll fill this bad boy up and give her a start i'm not really even sure what kind of pump this is it's got a honda motor it's a honda 160 just like a trash pump and we just got the line coming down we don't have a foot valve so we're going to make sure that it's off the gravel so it doesn't suck with that one i'm going to fill her up and get her running all right please start please start we're 12 miles down the beach if this don't start we're screwed turn the gas on choke's on full throttle that's on there we go come on baby come on baby got water oh cool so we got water flow so from here it's easier to adjust the box because we can see how the water's flowing so hopefully this board here will keep the water from eroding too much and taking our box down we'll see sand isn't very sturdy at all so all right so obviously the box is way too far to this side so we're gonna mess with it get it nice and level and we'll be ready to beach mine how's the flow now all right it looks good i mean sweet uh no uh i'm gonna lower mine looks like mine it's twisted like this a little bit okay so i think my side needs to come down and see if it's like twisted up my way oh yeah okay actually stay down there see if it looks uh how it looks oh just this one it'll come down a little bit [Music] a little bit what about like that yeah [Music] okay i think we got it nice even flow you can tell by the water it's kind of nice and level the bubbles are uh you know flowing just right everything looks good might be just a little bit too much water i can uh turn it down but uh we're ready to go okay shovel away first scoop let's see hopefully there's gold in the first one yeah that was the sweet spot he was doing really good there we're gonna have gold in every scoop which is cool let's take a look at the material flows uh it's flowing pretty good that looks good it cleared up really nice uh the ripples aren't overly cleared so i think we got it the angle right looks good too yeah we can travel fast so uh we're gonna be shoveling away all right we're going to shut it down and take a look run for sack slow her down all right hopefully hopefully when we shut it off it's not gonna push all the sand over on the ripple so we'll find out um it's all luck and how long it you know the gold stays there for i mean it might just be a small area we're in or it could be this whole area who knows let's see so far oh yeah there's just lines and lines and lines and lines of gold all over wow look at all that on that side jeez there's absolutely definitely a gram maybe more this i think we're running a little bit too much fast on the water because it's really cleared out so when we start back up i'll reduce the throttle a little bit but look at all these lines dude there's a ground in there look at all that down in there look at that line yeah that's 20 minutes man we haven't done nothing whole lines look at that just it's all it's all in these little riffles we yeah we're probably running a little too fast because it's some gold down down here but uh we'll slow it down when we start back up but 20 minutes man it's a gram this could be a good day at the end of the day so long as our hole holds up uh we're just we're just uh skimming the surface right there maybe the first three inches of uh material at this rate at this rate we're looking at 15 grams today if we could do five hours i mean we could push hard for five hours yeah hell yeah i'm sweet dude sweet all right yeah we just stopped take a look at the box we're gonna grab a quick drink and get right back to work yeah we're gonna go for the big money today whoo many grams cool we've been uh running for i don't know a little while at least an hour hour and a half uh we're gonna take like a five minute break and take a look at the box and if there's a lot of gold in there we're actually going to clean it out real quick it's super easy to clean these mats out so if they're kind of packed with gold we're going to just clean it out and start fresh won't take long probably like 10 minutes so what do you think you seen gold in there back here but see it's really lit up right oh yeah yeah you can see all the lines right there yeah maybe we should uh turn it down and clean it out it takes nothing to clean these mats yeah and then we can also when we clean it we'll swirl in one pan and let everybody see yeah yeah we'll see what we got okay all right yeah yeah shut it up i'll clean out uh lift your mat into this little blue bucket here but yeah no uh so far you know gary kind of did this little section here and i've been working in that little section there so we didn't move really much material i mean there's our tailings there we probably moved uh truck pickup truck load i would say um so yeah we're gonna uh take a quick look see how much gold we got so far all right take a look oh yeah there's lines of gold in there it's real fine gold but it's gold yeah lines and lines of it cool look at it nice that's cool i mean uh when you turned it off too the sand kind of fell over the lines yeah yeah so i think we're gonna get quite a bit back yeah yeah yeah we'll see what happens yeah these mats are super easy to clean out so yeah i might as well just take them out yeah and just give them a quick clean take a look and then uh we'll see if it's worth staying right in this particular area or move down the beach a little bit yeah we'll find out cool we'll just clean the box up so see what it is we're just gonna do a speed man we're saying we'll bring the cons back and you know do it really nice back of the boat okay he's just gonna do a speed pan right now and uh gold not rich i mean there's probably two grams yeah we got two grams probably about an hour and a half maybe so i mean you hit it hard all freaking day oh yeah a couple of rounds with what you lost and everything probably too yeah it's probably two grams so far i don't know what you think it's still worth going or i'm thinking down the couch a little bit i'm thinking we'll go down there do some more test pads yeah yeah go do it a little bit down there and see if we can find something better i mean i thought this would look better but yeah i think i think we got majority of it the test pins we did up top are fantastic but as we're digging down running out of materials getting a little yeah less gold so yeah i think i was getting really good right here on top of the slave yeah yeah we still have a lot of hoes maybe another 25 30 40 feet we can go down so yeah we'll go over here and do a couple test pans and test around for a little bit well cool we just uh we stopped we took a look at the boxes probably about two grams in there um a little bit less than what we're expecting for the time that we spent um we did a lot of work so after we split it you know it's only gram each so we kind of did the math and figure um it's probably the spot's not probably paying out um that good but uh it was fun we had a fun day um we're going to go back to the boat and clean this up and do a true measure but you know i don't think there's much more than two grams but maybe even a little bit less so it was fun great time we did find a super hot spot another 100 feet down but the problem is the box can't handle it and we can drive the truck back and forth and everything um you know fill up the dirt right where gary's standing uh we found a really really great spot uh gary's pacing it out right now maybe uh we can go get some some more lay flat hose and move the box down there but uh it's just too it would take too much time to shovel it into the truck and then bring it right here and then shovel it in there it's just that's when you waste your time you know for the amount of gold you get but if we can put the box over there we would do way way better we think it's a really great little uh area another 100 feet all right all right even so if we have to carry it a little bit it's right yeah so if we have another 100 feet of hose we can get down there and there there's a lot of area to keep us busy for a while yeah and uh you had to dig a little bit you know about six inches down but on the clay layer there that we were getting really big pieces it's well worth working there yeah yeah it's showing probably twice as much color yeah but they're bigger pieces too right yeah so yeah it's well worth it so yeah we're just gonna pack up we'll uh we'll go to the boat we'll uh we'll see what we got we'll put that dude little mini sluice and find out for for sure but we're not expecting much maybe a gram or two probably two two grams but whatever we'll see what it is so we're packing up and uh we're gonna maybe attack it um with some longer hoes and get to that new spot maybe come back tomorrow yeah again we gotta see um vern's coming back tomorrow uh later in the day so i don't think we're gonna go out on a big boat so if vern doesn't come back or our next bad weather day whenever that will be we'll we'll hit this and uh we're definitely coming back spot yeah yeah cool all right we'll see you back in the boat here we are back on the boat so i i took all of our cones and ran it through this little keen mini sluice here it's still kind of uh washing out i just finished so there's still a little bit of material in here sometimes i gotta push this flat down to get that little pool of water out of the header box there it goes so i'm just gonna let that clean up a little bit it's not looking great it's yeah maybe one or two grams out you know i'm not really sure all right she's been running for a little bit should be uh cleared out enough take a look there it is not very much but we'll paint it out see we get here it is this is the final result right here i'm just kind of trying to wash that black sand out but yeah probably a couple grams in there so far so i'm just gonna keep at it get that black sand out of there then lay it up oh my god [Laughter] all right well we finished cleaning it here's the results in the bottle here we'll cook it up lay it up see what we got there it is so excited well it started out great i mean the first couple pants we did were killer but still an hour and a half that's not terrible i'm sorry i've seen worse what do you think two two and a half two two and it's like two man we'll see get all the water out some water all right cook her up pick her up man cooking we'll get the scale ready we'll see what we got all right gold's all dried it's a little bit stuck in the corner there that's right we'll go over here get the scale ready uh that's two grams think let's see let's see one oh that's disappointment 165 165 okay well we thought we were going to do good the first couple test bands we did look fantastic so that's why we thought we're going to kill it but then after an hour and a half we stopped look at the box it wasn't as good as we thought so we test panned down the i don't know 100 feet away and there's really good gold but it's just on the clay yeah so plan is maybe we can get another 100 foot roll of uh yup uh lay flat and try it again yeah we went down like you said about 100 feet from this and we actually got probably twice the gold maybe yeah it was chunkier yeah and chunky gold it was all chunky so yeah we definitely got to move down this is not good yeah the gold that we got in that hole you can see it's really fine gold not many chunkies at all there's one chunky that i put in there but so one six six well i mean uh better than sleeping in and doing nothing all day right next time you make seventy dollars all right all right cool we'll see you next time

Channel: American Gold Prospectors

Views: 125,588

Keywords: sluiceing, keene, prospecting, gold, nuggets, pickers, flower gold, american gold prospectors, gold show, gold rush, panning, big nuggets, Gold prospecting, bering sea gold, nome alaska, nome beach gold mining, nome beach gold, Nome beach mining

Id: YHgwb7TA1iM

Length: 29min 2sec (1742 seconds)

Published: Fri May 20 2022