As you all know I and a few others have been looking around the Barstow are for a claim or two for our club rt66gm. I do not like to dig to much anymore but when prospecting, “well” you kind a have too..

OK that’s fine but I started using my Dry Vac or Shop Vac, not the gas powered one. I bring out a small generator to run it and it works great! The suction is much better than any gas powered Vac and the best part is you just have to sit there and vacuum up the dirt. lately I come to the conclusion that the area we are looking really hard at the Gold as everyone tells you lies on top of the bed rock or on any had pack surface and in this case there is this white clay alongside the bed rock.

Vacuuming is like dry dredging and as you work your way along the hard pack surface you can see Gold and black sand flows that’s really gets you excited as you Vacuum. One Guy when out one weekend drove up to me as he saw me vacuuming and was excited to see what I was doing. A month later that same person came along and told me that he started to Vac some of the old areas that he work before and as he pulled up a baseball size rock to Vac under he found 23 pea size nuggets, WOW that got me more excite. He was defiantly great full for that first encounter and now all he does is Vacuum.

Vacuuming the cracks in the Bedrock is much easier to suck clean. If the bed rock is breaking apart the dirt in between from the old flooding season come right out and you actually get more and better material for your time spent working in the dirt.

I also us the Vacuum to punch down into any area I am testing to see if I hit bed rock and I run that material to do a quick test to see if it is going to pay off. Vac and Move I always say till you find your spot. It work best in all tributary stream and side walls where you can see bed rock or any hard pack surfaces.

I still have to from time to time us a shovel, but only to remove the overburden to about one inch above the area I want to Vacuum. I have tested the overburden and found little to no gold in it, but if you can get down to close to bed rock then fire up the Vacuum your chance of getting Gold greatly improves.

Like they say it’s not just the quantity of the dirt you run it is the quality of the dirt you run and vacuuming truly helps you with that!!

Hope this excite you guys…

Mike B.
I got my shop vac all ready plus I also have a portable generator..So when you go out again and I have the Sat.off,I will be ready..

very cool Tim. When the weather cools a bit or we get our paper work back for the claim then I will let you know for sure. You seen first hand how that Vacuum works!!

Mike, looking forward to getting out to the desert so you can teach me some of your tricks. Maybe we could go out on a "moonlight prospecting trip" to beat the heat.

It is very nice in the evenings in the desert that's for shure.. Will have to keep that in mind Goldfish.. What were you thinking in regaurds of time our days??

I was thinking on a Sat. afternoon we could all meet somewhere in Barstow have an early dinner. Then get out to the site a couple of hours before sundown. If we could work in a somewhat close area to were we park I could bring plenty of light stands from work. A few generators and we are in business,that is until the sun comes up. At that time you go back to Barstow for a 44oz coffee and head for home. Shower,nap and then pan out your concentrates. Now you can sit back and admire your gold and think to yourself "how crazy am I". Just a thought.

Goldfish,
Last time out Mike and I were thinking of doing the same as you are discussing above. Night and with the lights. Sounds like a fun outing and yes you are crazy. With all the generators and lights we have we could light up the desert, might even attrack some of thse "shadow people" or space aliens for sure, last time out I was relaxing at about 8:30 with a cool beverage and a cigar just sitting back admiring the sunset wondering "where are they"

We will have to ask Brian to bring extra tin foil. Heavy Duty Reynolds, not that cheap,flimsy generic crap.

When is the next trip to the claims spot? anyone?

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