Gold Prospecting Tellico Plains Tn.:
Dredging on the Tellico River
The Tellico river is a gold baring river in eastern Tn.
However, many people that go to it to prospect get skunked.
Why?
Simple... Gold travels in a main path in a river. There are many gold baring creeks that feed into it, and people often go to where they meet and dredge just down stream.
Well, if you keep dredging where everyone else has been,, then your likely not going to have much luck.
With this in mind here, as well as any other place you prospect,,, go to where people are finding gold,, but go to a different location.
Look for places that look harder to get to. If less people can access it, then the chances are good that you may find that virgin stream bottom you dream of.
You know the one... where the gold is just laying around on top of more gold.
Well, I haven't found that place either, but I keep trying.
That is the important thing. Keep trying.
When you find a creek or river to prospect in, don't set up and dredge all day in a spot.
Test the area out. Look for gold every 2 or 3 hours, in your cleanup.
I have been dredging some test holes on the Tellico River last year.
I found several real bad places, and a few real good places, and one place that is well... what I am hoping to be my little piece of the mother load. Time will tell.
As I made my test holes over a period of 6 weeks, I found decent gold in Turkey creek. I found many areas of the Tellico river that have smooth bottoms and all the gold and over bourdon slide away during high waters. I also found places that it stopped sliding at... n-i-c-e...
It isn't a place you can go with a sluice or pan..
It is deep water, and my little 3 inch dredge barely gets the rocks up the hose due to the depth.
I did get a lot of plug ups, near the dredge when the hose turned flat to go into the dredge, because by the time it got there, it was really moving slow.
However... it had some fantastic gold in it.
No huge nuggets,, but really really big flakes.
I am going back as soon as I can get my permit renewed, and hit that hole again, from a different angle to see how big it is.
It is a boil hole. Water swirling around, and carved out a hole in the bedrock about 6 feet deep. This is under 3 feet or so of water, so about 9 to 10 feet to the bottom. The gold fell in, and I think it got stuck there.
I will be testing the down stream side of it next. I figure if the upstream side was that good, then the down stream side should be excellent!
Ok, I did go back there the moment I could get my dredge permit renewed. There was several ounces of gold in that hole total. 3.5 or so. A lot of good sized flakes, and a whole lot of pickers. There were a bunch of penny weight nuggets too.
So far, this is the only good hole I have found on the Tellico river. It is not an easy place to dredge, and without a good partner, you shouldn't go there. Always dredge in pairs for safety.
TiM L
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