Blind Dredging
on the North Fork of the American River
By 1987, my wife, Charlotte, and I had spent 7 seasons dredging in Shirt Tail Creek and the North Fork of the American River in Placer County, California as well as 3 seasons in the high country. We had some 1 & 2 ounce days in Shirt Tail and we averaged an ounce per week in the high country by using a very large grip hoist. This hoist and its 5/16 inch stainless steel cable probably weighed at least 150 lbs. and could pull 6 tons straight or double that with a large pulley! Believe me, I know as I have packed that thing down into and out of some steep canyons. We were able to pull and roll very large boulders with it, uncovering some really nice gold.
Over the years, we had made friends with many miners, week-enders and full timers all. We had witnessed their various successes and failures and so we were fairly familiar with areas that hadn’t been worked too hard. In 1987, my friend, Ron, and I decided to dredge around an enormous boulder just up from Yankee Jim Bridge near Shirttail Creek on the North Fork of the American River. We knew no one had been under this particular boulder with a dredge and we thought with some heavy terminal gear and pullys we might be able to move it.
Lazy summer days on the river..... warm rocks and cold beer..... what a life!
Moving big boulders on the North Fork - We never did manage to move this brute. Lots of friends came down to help figure out how to move this one but it never budged.
Dredging blind under the big boulder.
After about a week of dredging and clearing the bedrock around the boulder, we were only left with about a 5 in. space below the boulder and no way to get under it other than to just stick the dredge nozzle as far as we could and blindly suck up material. We didn't really know what to expect. Ron and I were both diving and when we came up and shut off the motor Charlotte came walking over to check things out. The box was YELLOW with gold. All three of us had to contain our excitement since there were other miners around but you could certainly see it on our faces. We cleaned up 32 pwt for the day. That’s a little over an ounce and a half boys and girls. You can see a picture of that day’s gold below.
In retrospect, I realize now that we should have come up with a small 2-3 in. diameter by 6 ft. or so add-on to our 4 in. nozzle and continued our blind dredging. But our egos took over and we thought we could at least roll that bad boy out of the way. Many broken chains and cables later, we admitted defeat. However, that was a fine project that left us with many happy memories. A side note: we uncovered another huge boulder that still had wooden blocks under it that the old timers had used to get under it. How the heck did they manage to lift that sucker?
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