crickets...

[CaptainBill]

That's all I'm hearing...where is everyone? There's no one shooting at me, it's a good day! Smile, your face won't break.

[Joe.S.AK]

Bill -

I hear crickets every second I'm awake thanks to the miracle of Tinnitus.

Usually the forums do get a bit quiet this time of year - however THIS year the stupidity about the virus has really compounded the quiet, AND, adding to that of course, there is the wet blanket (I say water boarding) by the anti-mining fanatics as well as the ever present enviro-nuts. Sort of a perfect storm at the moment but I would imagine traffic here on the forum should pick up a bit when spring gets closer.

Bill, how about you? Anything new? Anybody getting out hiking with their pan?

Have you seen any good videos on mining pop up on youtube?

All the best ....

- Joe -

[Jim_Alaska]

Joe. speaking of YouTube videos about mining, I have been watching some on a very popular channel by Kyle Thiemann. It becomes obvious really fast that these videos are made solely for profit, judging by the sheer number of them.

It is easy to see that, although they are supposed to be instructional, they are anything but that. The guy obviously doesn't know anything about mining, or dredges. He raves over some ridiculously small amount of gold in his cleanup, like he hit the mother load. Watching him run a new 4" Proline dredge is a riot. First he "long arms" it working into a grave bar above the water. Then instead of letting the nozzle do the work he pulls the material out of the gravel bar with his hands and into the nozzle. All he ever does is work the surface, never goes for bedrock. he pulls the oversize rocks out of the hole and puts them a foot away where they constantly roll back into the hole. An excellent recipe ofr doubling the work.

He runs the dredge motor full bore with massive amounts of water going through the box, and all of this for micro gold. It pains me to watch him even pan the concentrates, he does no classifying at all and has to be losing a lot of small gold due to large rocks in his pan. He doesn't even know enough to use a clean up sluice, he just pans whatever is in the dredge sluice. It is also interesting that the dredge is sparkling new, the nozzle has never even seen water before. I am thinking the whole point is revenue from manufacturers and ads. I don't know why any manufacturer would sponsor this nonsense.

All you ever get to see for results is a few micro specks of cold in the cleanup. It's a real joke, and makes me wonder why his videos are so popular. Perhaps they appeal to people that know nothing about mining. The titles of his videos always make it sound like they are really raking in the gold, which is never the case.

This Video is entitled "Massive Gold Cleanout", and he says it is his biggest ever cleanout. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=72E1HEA7-Tk

[Joe.S.AK]

Jeez Jim,

His idea of a lot of Gold' is certainly a lot different than most folks I know.

I will say that her "mining costume" is a little less than practical. Every one of the girls that go mining with me all wear lots of clothes - and find lots more Gold than they were recovering in that shallow bedrock stream.

Big old birthmark there as well - you rarely see them that size. Cosmetic surgery would probably help, although she seems to show it off at every opportunity.

- Joe -

[Jim_Alaska]

I just found that I posted the wrong link. What I posted has nothing to do with what I wrote. I must have had that link in my selection and didn't check it.

I tried to find the right video for a long time, but came up empty. Sorry for the mistake.

[Jim_Alaska]

I finally found the right video. You will be amazed. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V1Hurq10uyY

Doing this stuff must be a money maker; this guy has over 45.000 subscribers. And the ads are horrendous. I guess sponsors like him because he gets a lot of exposure, therefore more people to see the ads. I guess people like to see stuff like this, but what they are seeing is not what we do in reality. This guy comes across like he knows zero about mining at all. Makes you wonder why he chose mining for his video channel.