New Zealand Gold Prospecting & Metal Detecting Forums Archive

got out to the shag river this weekend in an order to find a richer stream than my usual danseys spot, spent the better part of Saturday in a location that hasnt had any gold prospector in at least 2 decades, found very little colour at all, spent most of the day doing prospecting holes and some detecting, didnt find a good bit of the river till the end of the day, will spend a day or two at the top of the bedrock hills on another trip, im sure this will be a better river than the danseys may just take a few trips to sus it out as it seams to be geologically vastly different to the danseys, found some bedrock with 150mm wide broken quartz streaks in it also.

its half an hour longer to drive to and takes a 10min quad bike "taxi" over some steep hills to get to but is a magnicient site/place all the same.

nuggets have been found above this spot and im aware of a farm down the road closer to mcraes that is a regular spot for prospectors so all the signs are there just need to spend some more time and get down to some bed rock.

once i get my head round the lay of the land and find where to dig I'm sure it will be worth the extra time versus going to the danseys and getting a measly small amount.

havent found any thing yet so will be/is all hear say until i post other wise :) maybe its all porky pies ;)

besides its always been said their was gold in their, they dredged it early last century with not so bad results and it is part of the otago gold trail so its not so much a secret one would assume.

.. but i have no gold in my vial yet so its all just an urban myth till i get a good load more than I would in an outing to the danseys... (anything has to be more than the 0.1 of a gram id normally be getting from a part day there lol...)

Thats fairly closeish to home for me shoot me a text if ya ever want some company, have spent a few days up around there have only detected 2 small nuggets. sluiced a bit of fines and found a 9ct ring!
Ps. 0277771118

thanks for that mate, would be worth the trip for some nice garnets, did you know that saphires have been found up there? Was reading a short geological paper the other day, recons they get up to 7mm.

thanks LepreSean and 1864Hatter here is a pic of the hills near by to let you know what the terain is like

https://twitter.com/Stre...7164906496/photo/1/large

may have to take you up on the offer always good to head out with some one else keen.

And yeah river was still very high but had gone down... will be back up now!!

When you say cracks you mean in the bed rock in the river? their was heaps of cracks in the bedrock hill sides with massive quartz veins... be keen to camp out their and get a few days in when the weather is better

Yip hit the cracks in the bedrock river bed and also where the river may have abandoned it's channel, also the very bottom layer of a gravel bed, older the better, and the front of any banks as the river will concentrate Au in a line parallel to the gravel bank. When you are getting plenty of white/grey silt in your pan you are in the right zone.

Yes nuggets have been found, biggest I found there so far would be near 1/2 g, The basalt would make great Hangi stones and when you hit them with the wrecking bar they ring like a bell and hurt ya ears if too close, they are a very hot rock to the detector so make it a pain and they can be found nearly the whole length. Detecting the bedrock is the way to go and any raised shelves where the river has cut and abandoned.