Rappahannock River, Virginia
It hasn't rained in weeks, and all the local rivers are very low. Sempr (Steve) and My69Pickup (John) gave me a buzz early in the week to see if I wanted to try prospecting on the Rappahannock River. They were going to camp out at the Rappahannock River Campground, which is just 15 minutes from my house. I took them up on the prospecting, but passed on the camping as I had just 6 days earlier returned from a 2 week campout... The river wasn't as low as I had expected, but there was zero current. It looked like a lazy creek, not the mighty Rapp. 
We met at the campground around 1100 am. We got their camp all set up and then made our way down to the river. We had two dredges, and neither one is light. They each redefine the term "man-portable". After about an hour of turning wrenches, we had them both floating and ready to roll. We walked downstream about 300 meters from the campground as to not disturb the campers with the growl of the Proline's powerplants. We picked a nice shady spot near the bank to stow our gear and started dredging in the middle of the river. We instantly hit bedrock through only about a foot of very loose overburden. We decided to head towards the shady spot as the air temp was well over 95 without factoring in the humidity. The water felt like it was 80 degrees. Moving into the shade definitely helped save the backs of our heads from getting fried. Since there were three of us with two dredges, we each took turns at the nozzles. This helped us move a little faster because the snorkle man was able to become the rock and dredge tender man as well. Here's a shot of Sempr clearing a jam, moving material up the hose, and then a shot of some side-by-side dredging. This was John's first time on a regulator, and he took to it like a fish takes to water. A natural. 
A young couple (I think their names were Jason and Holly) came by around 5:00 pm on a Quad. Jason's folks owned the property on that side of the river, and they were curious how were were doing. He mentioned that they allow one gentlemen to prospect on a creek that goes into their property. They hung around until we finished our cleanup. If lead were valuable, the three of us would be rich. I've never seen so much lead in a pan. Jason said that this was one of their favorite locations to go shooting at. Go figure... The cleanup on Saturday was modest to say the least. A couple of fines and one very small flake. We packed up the equipment and called it quits while planning to move to a different spot for Sunday. I rolled into their campsite around 8:30 am Sunday morning. They were already packing up. We won't discuss who lost truck keys, who spent a hour looking for them, and who had them in their pocket the entire time... We hit the river around 10am with plans to quit around noon. This time, we moved upstream about 200 meters and tied off behind a large piece of exposed bedrock. The water was very shallow. We didn't even need air for this hole. We put John on the nozzle while Steve and I moved rocks. John was more than comfortable using just a mask and snorkle. 
 We only had about an hour and a half of nozzle time before calling it quits. Again, the cleanup was less than admirable and we expected to do a little better than we did. We had a good amount of black sand and a nice compacted layer of clay and cobbles under the overburden, but very little gold to show for our efforts.  We spoke with the owner of the campground. In the past, he has had no problems letting prospectors (pan and hand sluice) use his facilities. The owner knows that he cannot control what happens on the river, but he stated that he will not permit his ramp to be used to launch dredges. Apparently this is not a new rule with him or the campground. He was polite and friendly. I've camped there many times with my family and had a great time, it's a super place to go and a top-notch campground on a great stretch of river. We will definitely be back there camping this fall. Just know that you can't launch a dredge from there...  Even though the pan wasn't littered with gold, we had a good time lying around in the water, moving material, and talking about future prospecting adventures. Steve and John had a great time camping Saturday night, and nobody got seriously hurt (minus one truck side-view mirror). Steve and John, thanks for the invite. Next time, we'll leave John's truck at home, his keys in a safety deposit box, and avoid places where folks like to "shoot at anything that moves". A weekend hanging out in a river with friends is about as good as it gets, gold or no gold. |
