The dredge had a stout frame with a lever handle leveling system, far superior to the later slide the box back and forth nonsense. The jet and flare assembled was about six feet long but I could just toss it over my shoulder and carry it in one piece it was so light. This model was made with a molded marlex powerjet in two pieces - the jet and the flare. This was my favorite dredge, my old Keene 6' with twin Honda 6HP pumps. My best day in there working a 6' by myself was over 8 ounces of gold. I took a lot of gold out of Crow Creek even after paying a percentage to the owners it was good. Why suffer this you ask? I was seeing multi-ounce days working by myself. Ice crystals floating in the water build like snow drifts of slush behind rocks on the bottom, and giant balls of slush form on the pump intakes, eventually plugging them. I resorted to subsurface dredges for the coldest spells as the box being underwater did not freeze up. Below that, and the water literally froze in the sluice box while it was running. I could operate well down to about 15 degrees. Usually.įunny how some days I really was cozy and others it was just plain cold. It also made for some very cold dredging at times, but properly outfitted with a good drysuit you can stay surprisingly comfortable. The best time to dredge is in the winter months when freezing temps bring the water levels down by over 50% and the water starts running crystal clear. It runs very high and fast in the summer when the glacier is melting.

I worked a lot at Crow Creek Mine, which is glacial fed. This photo is from 1996 and was taken by my friend Rich Lampright.

I was really heavy into very late fall and very early spring dredging in the late 90's time frame.

Gold mining dredges for sale