Gold Dredging Is Hard Work
By Dave McCracken
Gold dredging consists mostly of physical activity. Heavy gear has to be
carried around from place to place. Much of your time is spent wrestling
with a suction hose, picking up and tossing cobbles as fast as you can,
shoving against boulders, fighting to hold your position against the
water's current, packing 60-plus pounds of lead around your waste,
swimming back and forth across the river, and pulling dredges around on
ropes. There just never seems to be an end to the physical work! This is
not bad. Unless you don’t like hard work.
 If
you have a distaste for hard, strenuous work, if you don't enjoy it and
are generally looking for ways to avoid it, you need to find some line
of work other than gold dredging. To succeed at gold dredging, you
should be willing to take a rather athletic approach toward work,
especially during the
sampling stages.
Some people are physically-inclined by nature, and they enjoy hard work.
Other people are not so physically inclined, but they are willing to
work hard and do whatever it takes to succeed. Such people can be very
successful at gold dredging. But, no matter what your inclination, gold
dredging requires hard work. There is no getting around it.
 I have found, to be most effective, it is best to attack a gold-dredging
operation with a rigid work schedule, just like any other job or
business-activity. I personally prefer to “pour on the steam” for three
straight days. Then, I take one day off from dredging to allow my body
to recuperate. The work is physically exhausting on the body if you
really pour out the energy. You need to find the appropriate
rest-interval that works best for you. Otherwise, your body will get
overworked and start breaking down. I use my day-off to perform gear
maintenance and the many other miscellaneous chores that are needed to
keep the operation running smoothly. I try to get some much-needed free
time out of it, as well.
My approach is not the only way. I know successful gold dredgers who
prefer to work fewer hours each day, or work at a less-intense level of
physical activity; but they put in five or six straight days at a time.
If we could add up the total units of energy expended on dredging, it
would probably come out about the same, either way. It is just a matter
of preference and what pace you are most comfortable with. The main
point here is that no matter how you cut it, you’ve got to put in the
dredging hours if you want to succeed at underwater mining.
When people ask me about gold dredging as a profession, I always answer
as follows: "Given the knowledge of how to do it, and the willingness to
apply the knowledge, gold dredging is an easy way to make a living, if
you are willing to work hard at it." And, this is the simple truth.
Suction Dredging
for Gold
Fast Water Dredging
Production Gold
Dredging
Tuning Into the Wavelength of
Success
Never Give Up!
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