First shovel of sand.

By Patti aka anglerp

Father’s day 2006 I awake in the beauty of the Willamette national forest
Oregon on Quartzville creek for my first ever gold prospecting and camping
fishing trip as a GPAA member. My boyfriend Steve and my eight year old
daughter Kinzie Are so excited to get to the creek and try there luck. Hair
uncombed and bellies empty they head down with bucket, shovel and gold pan in
hand while I, My name is Patti, get the grub going on the fire. Before I can
even get the fire started I hear, Mom, Mom, I found gold. At first I am
thinking, no way. She runs up to me saying see, see Mom. Sure enough to my
amazement there are 3 flakes in her pan... Forgetting all about breakfast the
fever is on and I head down to the creek to join them. There was a big rock at
the bottom of the path at the high water mark that Steve thought would be a good
place to start .The sand from Kinzie’s pan came right off the top from behind the
rock; I was so excited for her that she made the first find. We spent so
me time panning getting a few flakes out of each pan when we decide to take a
bucket full up to our spiral machine which we have never used before. Feeling
like kids in a candy store we get set up and start running sand. Right away we
are seeing flakes run up the spiral pan and into the container. I just can’t
believe it; in the first few hours of being here we already have enough flakes
to about cover the bottom of our vile. What a great start to our first ever 3
day prospecting trip.

Being avid fisher men and woman we are also excited about
getting some fishing in while the morning bite is still good. At the same time
we are locating the GPAA claims on the creek called Angie M. and Momentary Lapse
of Reason to do some more panning. We spot this really nice fishing hole at the
top of the Angie M Claim on the creek. Can you believe it we forgot to bring worms, something we have never forgotten before? We tried using
power eggs for awhile and didn’t even get a nibble. We are starving by now so as
a last resort I put on a rooster tail before we head off to eat. First cast and
a hit. I saw this fish belly roll and it was huge. It was father’s day and I
wanted it to be the best for Steve so I yelled to him, that fish was huge here
take my pole they are biting spinners. First cast and fish on, he catches a
bright beautiful 18 inch landlocked Chinook salmon. It had to of been one of the
happiest most exciting moments I have seen him have aside from fin
ding gold. Second cast and another one same size. We tried a bit longer without
luck so we headed to town for worms and food.

Over the next three days we spent time on both GPAA
claims and the recreational area where we continued to find color and some nice
flakes, but nothing like that first shovel of sand fathers day morning. We all
caught our limit in trout. , Steve caught his two salmon and we had the greatest time learning, exploring and
spending quality time together in some of the most beautiful country we have
ever seen. Learning about and practicing the art of panning gold. We are hooked
for life! Our trip was so filled with fun and good times I could probably write
a book telling what all we saw and did but instead of going on and on we would
like to say thank you to Gold fever, GPAA, LDMA, Prospecting America and the
Massies for giving us great tools in your shows and the opportunities to spend
our time together out in the beauty of nature and the excitement of adrenalin
running through our veins when we find our earths most precious metal, Gold!
 

My hubby and I got to fish a tounament together for the first time in about 2 yrs. My tournament fishing really took the back burner for the sake of having our two beautiful children, so I was excited to say the least. Anyway, it was a nasty weekend on Lake Conroe for the Big Bass Classic. We knew that Sat. would be our best day w/ the front coming through like it was and that Sunday the fish would probably shut down.... so we had our game plan in mind. Wes had gone and prefished some coves up north that he knew would be protected from the winds we were going to be having. .. ..We got on the water at 6AM Sat morning and headed to the northern part of the lake only to turn off into a cove about 4 miles early due to the nasty water conditions. We had planned on fishing that cove but had another (better one) in mind to start off with. I guess Weslay has a great gut feeling cause we placed w/ 2 fish caught from this cove. We starting catching 3 and 4 lbers right off the bat. I hung around a 7 lber but it got off at the boat and my hubby was a little upset w/ me. After the bass kept stealing my bait (only biting the tails) I swithed to a tube and hung my 8.98 lber, redeeming myself. She took 1st in the 3rd hour and my hubby's 4.09 lber luckily won 5th in the 2nd hour. After leaving the weigh-in and trying to get back to the north, we faced 5 and 6 foot waves. When Wes started to get worried..... I really started to worry. We ended up making it back to where we launched and fished close til it 3pm. Sunday proved to be tuffer fishing and we had to try a lot of different techniques and places. We finally ended up backing off the bedding areas and fished a channel that we knew curved by a big stump. An area know for big heads. We started catching more 3 and 4 lbers. They were biting so lightly that it was hard to tell when we were getting a bite but eventually, Wes hung a 6.79 lber getting him 5th place int he last hr of the tournament. My 8.98 ended up 5th over all. A fellow fishing friend, Mike, took 1st over all w/ his 10.93 lber. It was a really tuff weekend to be on the water but what a way to go!! We're looking forward to starting our couples series this weekend.
 

OOPS.... my 8.98 lber took 6th over all, not 5th. TYPE-O ..