Rod and I got out to check out a potential placer gold area on Sunday. An early start got us a head start on the heat of the day and we were able to spend several hours exploring before the heat of the day overtook us completely. We found a couple of nice bedrock washes in our intended area and went to work with our Minelabs.

The first wash had a real interesting look to it and having observed it from above, we knew that it split in two directions. I thought the left hand side looked best for gold nuggets but as fate would have it, it was pretty well choked with brush and although we could have navagated further, a swarm of bees halted us. We decided to check out the right trib and played leap frog to cover the bedrock. After digging a couple of trash targets, I got a really loud trash signal in a good spot. Even though it sounded trashy it looked like the best spot to dig for a nug that I had seen so far in this drainage. Sure enough, I popped a 4.7 gram copper nugget encased in host stone. No more nuggets came further upstream but by the end of the day I was able to grab a total of six copper nuggets.

Although we did not find any gold nuggets on this day, it was a good find all the same. Copper is an excellent indicator for gold and I always get excited when I see either copper mineralization or start finding copper nuggets. I know we will find gold either in this location or one nearby.

As always, we like to name the washes where we make finds and since copper is green and Rod and I both like Heavy Metal (both kinds, music and elemental), we dubbed it The Lost Green Manalishi wash.

Pictured below are the six nuggets totalling about 8 and a half grams.