It's July in 1980, I don't remember the exact week but John, his wife Sue and I are headed to Jackson, CA. and Electra road. We are headed out for a week of camping and gold prospecting. Mom and Dad are coming along. This is about the third time we've used our 3" dredge since we've bought it. We have been planning this trip for a month and we are leaving from work at noon. We got the early time off so we could get there and set up camp before it got dark. It's about a 2 hour drive to the Mokelumne River and Electra Rd. So we'll be able to set up well before it gets dark. So after picking up mom and dad and Sue, off we go.
We have been going to this spot for about 7 or 8 years and we can only hope that the spot we want is not taken. After our uneventful drive we get to the river and the spot we want is available. After pitching our tent and setting up camp we tackle the dredge. We have to put the frame together and then blow up the tire innertubes. After getting these together then it's time to put the sluice box on and the motor that has the water pump to pump the water thru the suction hose that creates a vacuum in the hose and that sucks up the gravel and gold and deposits it through the sluice box. Also on the motor is a pump that pumps air into a holding tank for whomever is in the water. John was the one that was underwater and operating the hose. He has his scuba license so he is familiar with being underwater. I tried it but I did not do very well. Had trouble seeing and staying down. I wanted to float up and not stay on the bottom.
Now that we have the dredge set up we put it down by the water and tie it to a tree. We have to tie it to something because the river we're on and where we are it can rise if the power plant upstream kicks in and it starts running a lot of water from the holding pond through the power plant the river can rise. We always camp back far enough that we're not in danger of having the river rise so far that our camp would get flooded. Mom and Dad really don't have to do anything except relax and enjoy themselves. Their health has been declining and we didn't want them to have to exert themselves. They did some little things and helped when they could.
After a good nights sleep and a large breakfast it's time to hit the water and get the dredge working. Now as I said, John's job is to operate the dredge's hose underwater. My job is to stand by the sluice box and keep the larger rocks from stopping in the sluice box. If rocks that are between 2 and 3 inches get in the sluice and stop they can block other rocks and this could build up and that could cause us to loose gold. What happens is, the rocks stop and cause a riffle and the gold will accumulate behind the riffle and then it's dislodged, then any gold that was accumulating behind the rock could get washed down the sluice box and out the end and we would lose it. So my job is to prevent this from happening As John is putting on his wet suit I am filling the gas tank and getting things ready to put the dredge in the water. When John is ready we pick a spot we want to dredge and we put the dredge in the water and tie it to a tree and we also have an anchor and we set that in the river away from the land side of the dredge and we put the hoses in the water and make sure they're full of water so that when we start the pump it doesn't suck some air and won't make the pump bring up water.
Susie doesn't have much to do during the day. She does most of the cooking. John does a lot of the cooking at night. But Sue makes sandwiches during the day and takes care of John and me. This gives her time to nap during the day. Now the nice part about doing what I have to do is that Sue will make me a sandwich and bring it out to me. I am standing in waist deep water in this river and I don't have to stop to get a bite to eat. Now when John gets hungry we have to stop and let him come out of the water and get a sandwich or something else if he wants it.
Unless John has seen a lot of gold in the river as the dredge has been moving sand and gravel we will wait until the end of the day to do a clean up. This is where I have more to do. First we have to shut down the pump and bring the dredge to the edge of the river. The we have to clean out the sluice and to do this we put a large bucket at the end of the sluice and we lift up the metal riffles and slide what they call miners moss, which is very similar to indoor/outdoor carpet, out and into the large bucket. Then we wash down any rocks, sand, or black sand and gold into the bucket. If we have what is called pickers ,any gold that is big enough to pick up with your fingers, we pick those up before clean up and putting all this into the bucket.
Now that the clean up of the dredge is done it's my job and John gets to relax a little. It's time to pan down our tailings. Tailings have small rocks, sand, black sand and gold if we're lucky. Now I grab the bucket, a gold pan and a metal cup to scoop the tailings out of the bucket. I find a nice rock that's close or even partly in the water for me to sit on and pan the gravel down and see if there's any gold. First I get a cup full of gravel and put it in my pan. Then I put the pan in the water and keeping the pan parallel with the surface of the water I take the pan and shake it vigorously so that the gravel and the water mixes together and the gravel becomes liquified and this allows the gold to settle to the bottom of the pan and then you start panning out the rocks and sand until you get down to gold and black sand. When you get down to black sand and gold you get a snuffer bottler and you can collect the small gold. A snuffer bottle is a small plastic bottle that you can squeeze and when you let go it will act like a vacuum and will suck up the small pieces of gold. For the VERY fine pieces of gold that's mixed in with the black sand you save in a plastic or glass jar to work on at home where it's easier and you can use other methods. We always avoided glass so if we dropped it it wouldn't break.
I had bought my first wet suit and I was planning on helping John with some of the work under water. Well after the first day I have what's called divers ear, divers ear is an inflammation of the ear canal from water that is between the ear and your wet suits head piece. Not serious but painful. By Wednesday I couldn't stand the pain any more and off to Jackson and the emergency room. The doctor said, "Yes, you have divers ear." He gave me some meds and sent me on my way and told me to stay out of the water. Now my ear is burning and I figure some air blown in the ear would help. So I am back at camp and I am fanning my ear with my hand and blowing in the air with my mouth. I didn't realize what I was doing until everyone was laughing at me and my mom asked me, "what are you doing." I then realized I was blowing out in front of me and it wasn't doing any good for my ear. What an idiot.
The next day I am still having ear problems, mostly pain. But I can work with the sluice box and John will have to work under water and he really didn't mind. Especially on Thursday, he was underwater in the morning at about 10:30 and he came up and over to the sluice box and said, "Hold out your hand." I put out my hand and John put a nugget of about 1/2 an ounce in it. I was so excited, this was our first real nugget. We had found some other nuggets that where only a few grams but this was something. I didn't want to drop it and since John went back down and I had to watch the dredge so I stuck it in my mouth. I knew it was safe there I wouldn't swallow it and I wasn't going to drop it. Sue had seen John come up and she yelled at me, "What is it?" I answered, "It's a big nugget and held it up so she could see it. When she saw that I was holding something that she could see from about 30 feet away she knew it must be big. She got excited and ran to the edge of the river and then she started wading out to me. When she got close enough to really see it and see how large it was she was like a kid in a candy store and she was so excited. Mom and dad come to the edge of the water to see our nugget and then said they would see it later. So back in my mouth it went and it stayed there until we finished dredging for the day and then it went in a bottle.
We have been going to this spot for about 7 or 8 years and we can only hope that the spot we want is not taken. After our uneventful drive we get to the river and the spot we want is available. After pitching our tent and setting up camp we tackle the dredge. We have to put the frame together and then blow up the tire innertubes. After getting these together then it's time to put the sluice box on and the motor that has the water pump to pump the water thru the suction hose that creates a vacuum in the hose and that sucks up the gravel and gold and deposits it through the sluice box. Also on the motor is a pump that pumps air into a holding tank for whomever is in the water. John was the one that was underwater and operating the hose. He has his scuba license so he is familiar with being underwater. I tried it but I did not do very well. Had trouble seeing and staying down. I wanted to float up and not stay on the bottom.
Now that we have the dredge set up we put it down by the water and tie it to a tree. We have to tie it to something because the river we're on and where we are it can rise if the power plant upstream kicks in and it starts running a lot of water from the holding pond through the power plant the river can rise. We always camp back far enough that we're not in danger of having the river rise so far that our camp would get flooded. Mom and Dad really don't have to do anything except relax and enjoy themselves. Their health has been declining and we didn't want them to have to exert themselves. They did some little things and helped when they could.
After a good nights sleep and a large breakfast it's time to hit the water and get the dredge working. Now as I said, John's job is to operate the dredge's hose underwater. My job is to stand by the sluice box and keep the larger rocks from stopping in the sluice box. If rocks that are between 2 and 3 inches get in the sluice and stop they can block other rocks and this could build up and that could cause us to loose gold. What happens is, the rocks stop and cause a riffle and the gold will accumulate behind the riffle and then it's dislodged, then any gold that was accumulating behind the rock could get washed down the sluice box and out the end and we would lose it. So my job is to prevent this from happening As John is putting on his wet suit I am filling the gas tank and getting things ready to put the dredge in the water. When John is ready we pick a spot we want to dredge and we put the dredge in the water and tie it to a tree and we also have an anchor and we set that in the river away from the land side of the dredge and we put the hoses in the water and make sure they're full of water so that when we start the pump it doesn't suck some air and won't make the pump bring up water.
Susie doesn't have much to do during the day. She does most of the cooking. John does a lot of the cooking at night. But Sue makes sandwiches during the day and takes care of John and me. This gives her time to nap during the day. Now the nice part about doing what I have to do is that Sue will make me a sandwich and bring it out to me. I am standing in waist deep water in this river and I don't have to stop to get a bite to eat. Now when John gets hungry we have to stop and let him come out of the water and get a sandwich or something else if he wants it.
Unless John has seen a lot of gold in the river as the dredge has been moving sand and gravel we will wait until the end of the day to do a clean up. This is where I have more to do. First we have to shut down the pump and bring the dredge to the edge of the river. The we have to clean out the sluice and to do this we put a large bucket at the end of the sluice and we lift up the metal riffles and slide what they call miners moss, which is very similar to indoor/outdoor carpet, out and into the large bucket. Then we wash down any rocks, sand, or black sand and gold into the bucket. If we have what is called pickers ,any gold that is big enough to pick up with your fingers, we pick those up before clean up and putting all this into the bucket.
Now that the clean up of the dredge is done it's my job and John gets to relax a little. It's time to pan down our tailings. Tailings have small rocks, sand, black sand and gold if we're lucky. Now I grab the bucket, a gold pan and a metal cup to scoop the tailings out of the bucket. I find a nice rock that's close or even partly in the water for me to sit on and pan the gravel down and see if there's any gold. First I get a cup full of gravel and put it in my pan. Then I put the pan in the water and keeping the pan parallel with the surface of the water I take the pan and shake it vigorously so that the gravel and the water mixes together and the gravel becomes liquified and this allows the gold to settle to the bottom of the pan and then you start panning out the rocks and sand until you get down to gold and black sand. When you get down to black sand and gold you get a snuffer bottler and you can collect the small gold. A snuffer bottle is a small plastic bottle that you can squeeze and when you let go it will act like a vacuum and will suck up the small pieces of gold. For the VERY fine pieces of gold that's mixed in with the black sand you save in a plastic or glass jar to work on at home where it's easier and you can use other methods. We always avoided glass so if we dropped it it wouldn't break.
I had bought my first wet suit and I was planning on helping John with some of the work under water. Well after the first day I have what's called divers ear, divers ear is an inflammation of the ear canal from water that is between the ear and your wet suits head piece. Not serious but painful. By Wednesday I couldn't stand the pain any more and off to Jackson and the emergency room. The doctor said, "Yes, you have divers ear." He gave me some meds and sent me on my way and told me to stay out of the water. Now my ear is burning and I figure some air blown in the ear would help. So I am back at camp and I am fanning my ear with my hand and blowing in the air with my mouth. I didn't realize what I was doing until everyone was laughing at me and my mom asked me, "what are you doing." I then realized I was blowing out in front of me and it wasn't doing any good for my ear. What an idiot.
The next day I am still having ear problems, mostly pain. But I can work with the sluice box and John will have to work under water and he really didn't mind. Especially on Thursday, he was underwater in the morning at about 10:30 and he came up and over to the sluice box and said, "Hold out your hand." I put out my hand and John put a nugget of about 1/2 an ounce in it. I was so excited, this was our first real nugget. We had found some other nuggets that where only a few grams but this was something. I didn't want to drop it and since John went back down and I had to watch the dredge so I stuck it in my mouth. I knew it was safe there I wouldn't swallow it and I wasn't going to drop it. Sue had seen John come up and she yelled at me, "What is it?" I answered, "It's a big nugget and held it up so she could see it. When she saw that I was holding something that she could see from about 30 feet away she knew it must be big. She got excited and ran to the edge of the river and then she started wading out to me. When she got close enough to really see it and see how large it was she was like a kid in a candy store and she was so excited. Mom and dad come to the edge of the water to see our nugget and then said they would see it later. So back in my mouth it went and it stayed there until we finished dredging for the day and then it went in a bottle.
The rest of the week we didn't find any nuggets as big as the one we found on Thursday. Come Sunday and it was time to pack up and go home. We had about 1/2 an ounce of gold collected in our little bottle and this was not counting the gold in the black sand that we had to process. Our trip home was uneventful just as our trip there was. Mom and Dad had a good time and very relaxing. Sue enjoyed herself as did John and I. We worked hard but we had a great time and the gold was a nice reward.
