Where would you dig?

This photo is so classic… a beautiful Black Hills creek highlighted by a large boulder!  I'd buy this claim is it was advertised on the internet (which is isn't!).

Both a recreational and more experienced prospector would appreciate this scene, but where would you dig?

We’ve talked about this before… what all the handbooks say to look for before digging. But this photo is so perfect to represent what we have tried to portray verbally!

Before you sink a shovel, take a closer look and I hope it is visible enough for you to see! There’s a great sluicing spot here with enough drop to make setup a breeze!

There’s a huge boulder in the creek, right? Are you going to start there, like the handbook prompts?

Closer inspection shows a deeper “pond” behind the boulder. Now you can dig there and find a lot of silty material and if you dig deep enough, probably some gold! But the pond tells you a story that you need to listen to closely. Others have seen that boulder and commenced digging behind it. That’s why the pond is there! It’s several feet wide and stepping into it with boots you sink into the silt another 3-4 inches. That means you would muck out probably a foot of accumulation before you might encounter a layer dense enough to retain even a fleck.

It does, however, make an ideal panning spot below but close to the sluice box!

So you look to the inside of the bend, which in this case the photographer is standing on. Pretty little wildflowers (wild irises about now) decorate a small landing area perfect, we have found, for lawn chairs, lunch supplies and drinks! Why do we place our camp here instead of digging? It’s tailings, washed down the creek throughout the years! Again, a fleck might be found, but that would destroy the camp area!

So directly in front of you, on the far bank, would be a hillside digging site. Not unique in the Black Hills, this stream was worked commercially at one point in time. Everything that was ejected from that commercial venture lines the creek on that side! Again, a fleck or two for several hours of digging!

So we are again encouraging you to “think outside the box,” or in this case the creek!

We’ve spent 10 years on this claim. We’ve tried every classic approach… now I’m going to show you what we discovered!

Up over the bank from the creek about 30-40 feet is a large pile of overgrown material. Early in the years when we acquired this claim, Bob said, “Try digging here!”

It’s been our sluicing “stockpile” for 10 years. We think the historic claim ended about here because the stockpile was pushed up and never worked. Pushed up from where? A pit dug directly adjacent to it! We can usually count on a decent “picker” in a few buckets of material.

So we work the stockpile on lazy days, shaking out a little gold.

Not nearly as pretty
but that's where the gold is!

One last addition to this conversation that I think only the more experienced prospector would think about… the pit under the stockpile! It takes a little work, removing a foot of topsoil, digging down into gravels that sport everything from rounded rock to clay to boulders that take a bar and two men to move.

Eventually, though, a fine layer of reddish cemented gravel is reached and then, then I can reasonably expect a show in every pan!

If you’re an experienced Black Hills prospector, that’s a good pan!

So it’s your choice… a panful of discouragement or a panful of satisfaction!