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Thread: Yuba Gold Nugget

  1. #1
    Join Date
    Sep 2010
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    san francisco
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    138

    Default Yuba Gold Nugget

    Got you looking! My mind tends to drift as I trudge along the Yuba river to the next hole. All that cobble. All that sand. One of these days a glint of gold will catch my eye. Anyone ever have such luck? I think I found a small fleck on the MFFR in the canyon one time but may have been wishful thinking.

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Jun 2010
    Location
    The OV
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    490

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    Years ago my wife and I were fishing Downie Creek and I found a cool looking chunk of quartz. Had some dark veins in it, but was REALLY heavy, so I tossed it. Years later, I saw a picture of a chunk of gold bearing quartz, looked just like that. Still wonder what I threw away.

  3. #3
    Join Date
    Feb 2019
    Location
    Lotus
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    60

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    Found this 1/8th oz. crystalline nugget on the Chili Bar section of the South Fork of the American river a couple years ago.

    Click image for larger version. 

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  4. #4
    Join Date
    Nov 2009
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    Rescue ,CA Cromberg, CA
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    1,857

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    What a cool find!!!

  5. #5
    Join Date
    Jan 2005
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    Sebastian, FL, USA, Earth
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    23,836

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    I guess why they call it the 'Yuba Gold Fields' is because they mined that lower river leaving all those piles of cobbles.

    I think they used large barges that they floated in the movable ponds as they mined the area.


    I guess the discovery of Gold in 1849 at Sutter's Mill on the South Fork of the American river is what got California started.

    __________________________________________________ _______

    One of my most interesting customers and good friends was Tom Hater, a retire US Airforce B-52 bomber pilot.

    After he retired from the military he became a CPA and a very active gold miner and fly fisher.

    He told me about how he went up in our Gold Country in the winter after the creeks frozen up.

    Tom told me that the flows were very low then and he wore a wet suit and picked gold nuggets out of the cracks in the bedrock.

    He use long stainless steel picks and forceps to dislodge nuggets that were forced in the cracks over the eons.

    I think Tom felt that I might not believe him so one day he brought in some of his finds in a pouch the size of a soup can.

    It was filled with hundreds of beautiful large gold nuggets and weighed a "ton".

    He also showed me his largest nugget he had hid on a gold chain inside his shirt and it was "huge".

    Tom told me that his nuggets are worth far more than melted down gold because the nuggets are highly prized for jewelry.

    I told Tom to get them out of of sight because they were so valuable.
    Bill Kiene (Boca Grande)

    567 Barber Street
    Sebastian, Florida 32958

    Fly Fishing Travel Consultant
    Certified FFF Casting Instructor

    Email: billkiene63@gmail.com
    Cell: 530/753-5267
    Web: www.billkiene.com

    Contact me for any reason........
    ______________________________________

  6. #6
    Join Date
    Apr 2019
    Location
    LINCOLN
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    17

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by Pupa View Post
    Got you looking! My mind tends to drift as I trudge along the Yuba to the next hole. All that cobble. All that sand. One of these days a glint of gold will catch my eye. Anyone ever have such luck? I think I found a small fleck on the MFFR in the canyon one time but may have been wishful thinking.
    The Yuba Gold Fields were heavily mined with huge dredges. My dad worked out there as a kid, one of his jobs was drilling test holes to help determine where they should dredge next.

    Several years ago a miner on the Middle Fork of the Feather river showed me a handful of nuggets. I think he was pretty lonely, not many people went into that section in those days. When dredging was legal there were lots of small mining claims on streams through the Sierras. Mining is a lot harder without a dredge so many of those mines were abandoned. I've always wondered how many pounds of gold I've stepped over though the years.

  7. #7
    Join Date
    Sep 2010
    Location
    san francisco
    Posts
    138

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    John R that is an amazing find! Great stories everyone. So cool to know some nuggets are still out there waiting to be discovered.

  8. #8
    Join Date
    Apr 2014
    Location
    el cerrito
    Posts
    338

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    There are some interesting videos on You Tube about the Yuba Gold Fields. The dredges were large scale bucket line dredges that moved enormous amounts of material. Several of them were dismantled during WW II, and the metal and iron in those dredges was put to use for the war effort. If memory serves me correct, I believe the last dredge was running in the early 60's. If you ever exit the Yuba below the the bridge by taking Hammonton-Smartville Road towards Olivehurst, you will see a derelict smaller bucket line dredge not far from Marysville. It is floating in one of the old ponds that it created.

  9. #9
    Join Date
    Feb 2015
    Location
    Sacramento, Driggs
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    1,204

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    I have seen people out at the Yuba sluicing along the side channel above the run formerly known as Rattlesnake (I guess that run is still there in theory, but in my mind it doesn't exist anymore as it doesn't hold fish the way it used to before the high water of 2017). I never talked to them to see if they had any success.

    There is still a bit of gold up in the NFYR drainage that I have seen, but it's all "claimed out".

    If you have ever driven Hammonton road out the "long way" toward Beale (not highly recommended, it's brutally rough, and there is some weird stuff back in there at times), you will see lots of evidence of all the past mining operation in the goldfields.

  10. #10
    Join Date
    Jan 2005
    Location
    Sebastian, FL, USA, Earth
    Posts
    23,836

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    I watched dozens of videos on panning gold on streams and this looks like one of the best ones:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y2z5ScWa3Vo
    Bill Kiene (Boca Grande)

    567 Barber Street
    Sebastian, Florida 32958

    Fly Fishing Travel Consultant
    Certified FFF Casting Instructor

    Email: billkiene63@gmail.com
    Cell: 530/753-5267
    Web: www.billkiene.com

    Contact me for any reason........
    ______________________________________

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