A Rising River

My winter mining location is slowly drowning in the rising waters of the Clearwater river.
My blue clay spot is underwater and I believe the entire area will soon be hidden from everyone except the fish. I decided to try a new spot way down river before it too was lost to the spring runoff.

I stumbled upon what I call a pit. In an area of fairly level, though somewhat rough terrain, this spot seems to be lacking the usual high density of football and larger size cobble. The depth of the depression was about 18-24" and 10-12 feet in diameter. I found a likely spot to take a sample, loaded up my 12 mesh classifier and headed for the water's edge.

After a quick wash of the gravel, the pan revealed a pretty good showing of color. (click any pic for a larger view)

This picture shows a side view of the pit. This entire ¼ mile location is a giant natural riffle system and this particular spot could be classified as a 'drop riffle'. Before I left the truck I promised myself I would NOT carry any 5 gallon buckets of material from way down there and then way up here to the truck so I used the one and only bucket I did bring to carry gravel to the river's edge. I then sat down and panned about 4 pans to the bucket load. I did that 3 times until my wrists got a little crampy so I called it a day. It was still a long walk back to the truck but at least I wasn't carrying two 50 pound buckets with me.

Here's the pay from panning. No weight to it but there sure are a lot of tiny little pieces.

As the water rises, it creates isolated spots where a guy could set up a sluice box. I think next time down I'll carry the sluice box downriver and see if I can increase my tonnage of material processed.