f13.net

We really should discuss this series.  linky (http://dsc.discovery.com/tv/gold-rush-alaska/)   I really don't know whether to keep laughing or cry as season 2 starts.  Fawk.   :uhrr:

If I was in that group of guys, and there had been no camera, "Dakota" Fred's body would never have been found. 

The Soup's take on this show is hilarious.

Onwards towards the glory hole!  :awesome_for_real:

They are the biggest bunch of stooges ever. Seriously he has to know that dakota douche wants to screw him over and he lets a lease payment slip. He gets a second claim and does not bother to get the water rights squared away till the last second. Sad thing is they spent all last year getting their crap together found the gold and now the other guy can just move right in and take it from them.

If there is indeed a sucker born ever minute these guys are those suckers.

Yeah, it's an amazingly amateurish attempt. I like the show and I hope they do well, but they only have themselves to blame for their problems. The whole last season was a train wreck of unprofessionalism and ignorance.

Bringing in the quarry guy is the best move they've made. Unfortunately for him, he's signed on with a bunch of bumblers. Kaid, you forgot losing the big investors, too.

Honestly its probably better for them to have lost the investors. Given how badly they keep getting screwed or screwing things up by inattention or bad business sense I have a feeling that any big time investor would take them to the cleaners and molest them badly.

I honestly have told family and friends who have been considering a start up to watch this show, plus any restaurant make over show, and Storage Wars on A&E.  Better than an MBA.  What-not-to-do.


I can not get over the incredible, death defying failure of these guys.  Even in s1 I was sympathetic, appalled,  :awesome_for_real:, and  :ye_gods: and  :drill: as the series went on.  Being in business is not about digging holes to effectively waste money.  Being in business is not about spending money.

That Dakota Fred guy I don't think was particularly unethical.  If the owner lead the Hoffmans on then there's fraud, lease payment missed or not (i.e. if he lead them on after the payment was missed).  But it was clear at the end of s1 there was no going back to that site.


Above anything else, I still can't get over WHERE THEY KNEW TO DIG!   It really seemed like the old guy just wandered around, took advice of another old guy and then spent their life savings making a mess.  Where's the geology?  Where are the test holes or anything to hedge against failure?  O.M.G. madness.

Finding gold is probably secondary at this point. These guys want to be the new Hilstrands/Sig Hansen.

The owner of the claim dug in that area and found gold years before, they just went after that.  That's why "Dakota" Fred also wanted the claim.  Even the area they were going to dig in the Klondike was someone else's claim. 

I keep telling my GF that no matter what happens, they will always have some funding from who knows where (Discovery) now that the series did well.

The ethical thing for Fred to do would have been to allow them to mine it one last season, with something like a 50/50 cut. But, hell I don't blame the guy. Todd fucked up. Again.

What I don't understand is selling off all your gear just to have to rebuy it, while helping your nemesis while you're at it. You know all that shit works. You have experience with it, something they did get out of a horrible first season.  Let's goto the Klondike with our 400 only and tear it up... WOOO

Discovery loves Dakota, how many of these shows truly have a villiain???

They have equipment already at the other site.  The thing I wonder is why they didn't divert that stuff to Porcupine Creek when they didn't get their water rights up in the Klondike.

Where Can I watch the episode I missed, any idea?

I love this show its comical how unprepared they were the first season. The first episode comments (http://dsc.discovery.com/videos/gold-rush-2011-twist-of-fate-videos/#icpgn=qtrx1) on facebook are glory hole waiting to be explored :drill:

Dakota Fred is the smartest person on the show. Interesting they've (successfully) poised him as a hero. Genius, actually. How many people do you guys know that continually screw things up and then blame the person not screwing things up for your problems? Everyone should hate Hoffman but they hate Fred instead. Amazing. Now that I think about it, I hope he gets their next claim out from under them, too.

I think the highlight of last season was giving the lynchpin shaker table project to an utter moron. If you can't even bring in someone who has the slightest clue of what to do, what do expect the results to be?

Storage Wars, we should have a thread about that.

Fred is a bit of a douche but frankly he seems to be smart and was dotting his I's and crossing his T's. I think he will probably do very well at PP creek. The guys have only Todd to blame for the state they found themselves in just horrible business sense and lack of attention to detail. Maybe they can get the quarry manager guy to ride shotgun on the new klondike deals to try to have somebody who maybe possesses a clue.

As for why they sold off the gear which helped out fred they had already purchased new gear which was I think at their klondike claim. The existing stuff was older and frankly probably would have cost a ton of money they did not have to move and bring up to the new location. This way they got rid of it got a pretty fair deal on it to give them more seed cash for the new claim they are trying to locate.

Hey, we bought this new linchpin for our operation..let's start it up for the first in time six years....ten days into the short mining season.

What a bunch of clowns. I do love the lame pep speeches, though.

Todd is a screwup. That pretty much sums up my feelings for season 1 and the beginning of season 2. Dakota Fred was fed up with their cluelessness early on last season, so it was no surprise he took it out from under them when given the opportunity. Unethical? Really i don't think so. The guys were morons and had every chance to make something of the claim. They missed a lease payment and then cry about it afterwards? I guess i have a different mentality than a lot of folks. I would not expect a hand-out, especially when my mismanagement of the operation was tied up in video footage. I actually think they are lucky no one lost a limb or turned over a heavy piece of equipment on themselves. I feel most sorry for the people that actually seem capable workers that are following Todd and his dad. The speech this season....priceless. I would not trust Todd to stencil my address on the burn without jacking it up, much less run a mining operation.

well said.  Particularly where they are so "RAWR CAPITALIZMS"


This week?  More fun.  1) let's sign a contract without any assays being done, so 1.1) we don't know if there is real gold on the property (there may have been once, but fuck we DONTHAVETHETIME to do socialist research, so we don't know how much was taken out), and of course 1.2) we don't know really where to dig, except where no one else did so that much work.  FAWK YA!


Very happy they included new format with Fred and Schnabel Jr.  I wouldn't want to work for Fred, but I like watching him get.shit.done.

Its fun to watch a 16 year old out-manage all of these guys.

Yep. Was kinda upset his guys were giving him a hard time, but looks like it paid off for them. Not sure how much long term viability he's got going on there, that pile of tailings is pretty finite. But I like the new format with some non-clusterfuck participants.

The Hoffman disaster continues to be simply atrocious. Jack continues to dick around and now he's guilt-tripping Todd with his little temper tantrum. If I was the guy about to lose my house, I'd wring Jack's neck for playing diva with my livelihood like that. But...the guys should know better.

Pretty enjoyable for the most part, but I could live without the constant 'either we make it or we don't' commentary. Yeah, we got it.

Yea, that stuff is lame particularly when you are BEING PAID TO BE ON A TV SHOW.

These guys Todd is bad enough to lose all the Discovery profit trying to mine. You know eventually they will start making money, though.

I, too, like the new dynamic because I don't think I could just watch Todd fuck up over and over for a whole season. Oh, wait. I did make it through season one....

I think the way we made it through the first season was that we didn't realize there was no end to the Hoffman fuckup train. I thought they knew what they were doing and the editors were maximizing the moronity to make the payoff bigger when the 'average joe' struck the big paydirt.

Nope, they're just dumbasses.

Let's clear off land that's ALREADY BEEN MINED.

How bout next time, call the old dude BEFORE you start pouring thousands in gas into your dozer....

That was hilarious. Guy shows them the virgin ground, they put someone who is not their new heavy machine expert on it and 'waah it's haaaard'. No shit, that's why it's still virgin ground during a gold rush.

Not to mention Schnabel is doing pretty good with tailings from that vintage.

But the best part was the clear indicator Jack isn't firing on all cylinders: turning around Fred's bet in the most juveniley retarded way possible "Oh yeah? I'll get more gold in ONE DAY than you'll get all season." Based on their extensive geological survey, I'm sure. When they left Fred with what they know is a producing mine. Derp.

Seems like the Schnabel kid is looking for easy gold instead of finding his own niche there.

I was very bored at the last episode. What happened? A flood, an entire episode to drill 12 holes, and the kid digging up some old buckets for no gain. ZZZZZzzzzzzz

It was nice seeing a real mining operation for a few seconds (the scandanavian or whatever he was). "Hey, you guys should probably dig exploratory holes."   :awesome_for_real:

Don't know what Parker's long-term strategy is or if he's just dicking around until he has to go back to school.

I don't care about Fred's damn house.

Gotta love how the concept of digging test holes was some big revelation to Todd. Der.

I seriously think with my current level of common sense and google fu, I could out-mine Todd any day of the fuckin' week. Though, that puts me up there with like 99.99999% of the population.......

I used to test drive heavy equipment back in the 80s, I could run the gear for you!  :uhrr:

"I gotta gut feeling there is gold here...."

"Yeah, that was mined 60 years ago. Dredged out, ain't shit there."

"I meant over there!!!"



The best is the old dude. "JUST KEEP FUCKIN' DIGGIN' !!! RAWRRRRR" or

"This is grade A, killer claim right here!" - Here's a clue, shithead: You don't know anything about gold mining. Everyone is done listening to you after last season.

Couple of things after watching some episodes this season. First off, i believe f13 could probably put together a better crew than the Hoffman crew. In fact, i'm starting to think this was just a random pug put together with the LFG(looking for gold) tool. The tank doesn't know shit and is wearing mismatched cloth gear(Todd), the healer doesn't know shit, but has decided he is being disrespected, so has to constantly have his ego stroked( Todd's dad), and what we are left with is a couple of middle of the road dps wondering if they should hit the recall button.

The last episode i saw was the flood of the house and the test drilling. I was also pretty amazed that Todd actually went through with it rather than using his mad instincts. This is like watching a car pile-up. I have to admit i am mainly watching this show for the episode where the old man either dumps a loader 50 feet into a ravine or somehow pins himself under a 20 ton piece of equipment. Other entertaining sideshows could be the "mechanic" torching off a finger(he has 9 more and lots of pain pills), or someone else taking over when Todd decides he is going back to managing at Burger King.

And how it took the serious miner guy had to tell him just drill it like 5 times before Todd stopped blathering his life story and just realized hey the money you spend drilling is a tiny amount compared to what it costs in fuel to clear off permafrost over ground with no gold in it.

I generally have a low tolerance for stupidity.
I watched last season and watched the first episode of this season.
Thats when I figured out, as many of you have, these guys dont have some knowledge and just very bad luck, they are simply fucking clueless.
I couldnt watch it anymore after that.

Gold Mining PUG LFM!!!  ya mine those free epix. 

lol they got to the ppcreek boss and wiped another guild took over the camp

Soo karma's a bitch isn't it Fred?   :oh_i_see:

Oh ffs, your mechanic walks off the job to get some nookie for a couple nights, making the entire crew sit around with thumbs planted, and Todd gives him the world's most spineless ass-chewing.

These dudes HAVE GOT to be trolling at this point. I find it hard to believe they can really be that bad.

I think the "wizard behind the curtain" is really starting to show.  These types of shows are highly orchestrated by the producers but usually it is a bit more subtle. I'm thinking the whole Machiavellian "Fred steals the claim" plot is a complete fabrication by the show and at this point the actual dollars from gold is completely irrelevant in light of the money being generated by the show.  If you look into the lawsuit that the Hilstrand's were involved with against Discovery you will see that there is significant money involved in the production of the show that dwarfs the money that is made from the purported activity that is being portrayed as "reality".

What, reality shows aren't real?  I'm shocked  :why_so_serious:

Wait. When and why did Todd sue Discovery?

I think he is talking about the Deadliest Catch people.  I don't think there have been any lawsuits between the Gold Rush people.

Yeah, they're the two brothers who captain the Time Bandit. Or captain and First Mate, whatever the fuck.

Those guys quit while on a contract.  They didn't think they'd get sued for it?

Well they did it. Kinda.

Interested to see if there was any theft on Todd's team, if Fred has everything squared with lease owner and what juicy CDN taxes ToddCo will owe.

It was odd how Dave snapped  but still hung around not contributing the last day.

Fred is primed to haul some serious money next year. I hope he gets the claim again and it's not something Discovery fiddles with to make the stupid Hoffman story. Also, at least there's a romantic plotline now that Fred has discovered Jack's glory hole and looks to plunder its riches next year.

And lol at Todd 'next year a thousand ounces'. Did they ever settle Jack's childish "oh yeah, I'll get more in a day than you'll get all season' nonsense?

If they get shit going properly they have the chance of bringing in alot of gold.  Not a 1000 oz.  but imagine what they would have got if they started there fresh, without all the time wasted with the Fred shit,  and didn't have problems with water etc.

 :Love_Letters:

Because of this thread, I got hooked into watching this show. It delivered.

Parker and his grandpa are my favorite miners; the Hoffman clowns give plenty of amusement, and Fred provides the mustache-twirling antagonist.

I want a third season.

I root for Parker.  I like to see a young kid willing to work nowadays. 

I root for the Hoffmans because they took a gamble and went after something that is basically to help them support their families.

Dakota Fred can diaf.

Sorta amused me that they played up getting a whole 5 ounces a piece as some big pay day.  It's 8 grand for months of work in the freezing cold. 

I watched the whole season but the show is starting wear on me. The narration is just too repetitive and stupid.  Thom Beers makes better shows in this genre as he is just more skilled at it. His Bering Sea Gold is already more interesting than Gold Rush.

Not sure about Bering Sea -- too much rage.  Second episode opened with a stabbing.  That's a side of the world filled with desperate, dead beat dads I don't need to watch.  Feel sorry for the Opera Student though, hope she survives (with an arsehole father).

This show is pretty contrived but I don't care -- I still root for Fred and Parker and ToddCo is funny to watch:  I love people who have hobby businesses but treat them as serious stuff.  As Ab said, 4-5 months of time spent + large overallocated labor + miserable conditions (no real time off?) for $8k is epic fail.  Pretty sure you can make far more than than in similar conditions tree planting.

The bearing sea gold stuff that one dredge that drags its ass around with its bucket is finding alarming amounts of gold. Pretty amazing a weird contraption like that can pull in like 98 ounces of gold in that period of time.

I've only watched one episode of Bering Sea, but the fact that the Guy and Opera Girl living in a beach Yurt found about the same ammount of gold in a day with a VW engine and a rubber hose as it took the Hoffmans all season to get should make them sad.

Ya that is pretty hilarious the cost of one of those machines the hoffmans use could buy you an epic dredge compared to what doof boy and opra girl are using.

After last week's postseason show (or whatever it's called) in my mind Todd went from buffoon to lovable buffoon.

I've watched some Bering Sea shows, and I just can't find anybody to root for. They're all too gnarly.

Ya but given what they do and where they do it gnarly is probably the type of person who can hack that job. That said even the bad dredges are making a pretty good amount of money. Shit the one that looks like its put together with spit and bailing wire seems to be making a couple grand worth of gold per week which is not bad for unskilled/semiskilled labor.  And that crazy dredge with the front loader on it is making disturbing amounts of cash every time they show their bank run. It by far has the most expenses due to the larger ship/crew but still those guys working that dredge are making a pretty damn good living doing it.

Anyone catch the After the Dredge show? Ole Scott Meisterheim or whatever brawls with Vern (the owner of the boat).

Hey, no such thing as a fair fight I say!

I really would have liked to see him getting into a cop car. Seems like a stunt to just get thrown into jail.

Well, discovery channel HAS to love the dude. Hard to find someone everyone hates (maybe that's why I kinda like em, tha tand he's from MI). 1000 to 1 says he'll find someone to dredge for next season....

Dredgers are right down there with trawlers in my book.

Family business was lobstering.

These dredges would not be much danger to lobster traps well other than maybe the big ass front end loader one. The rest they are all going down in dive suites so its pretty pin point dredging not the big normal river/channel dredgers that cause the havoc for lobsters traps.

/necro

Gold Rush: The Jungle starts tonight at 9pm ET/PT on Discovery.

I hope Parker is going to college instead.

Gold rush alaska this time with greater chance of malaria!

I eagerly await Gold Rush: Mars

They'll make a million in gold and in the last episode it's jacked by some para-military fucks with AKs. Did I just say they'd make a million in gold? HAHAHAHAHHAH

"Now, listen up guys. I know there's gold here. You just gotta believe, ya know?"

The master of the inspirational pep-talk, Todd Hoffman.

One reason I like Deadliest Catch: despite editorial manipulations, it's still a very real show about serious shit.

I would agree despite any editing manipulations there is no way to doubt that crab fishing is some serious shit and even filming it is serious as well. It is funny when you see the brand new green horns and the captains ask have you even watched the show before you came out here to try this job. Most just don't believe it is as bad as it looks here is a hint IT IS.

Mining is a serious business unless you are running it like the gold rush alaska people I can only imagine how bad it will be if they try to mine in a jungle bunch of clueless guys trying to find obscure ways to get them selves killed off I guess.

Re: crabbing; it's why I made the comment 'Thankfully WW2 happened' in another thread, as my family was lobstermen in Maine. Most died at sea, the Atlantic is pretty nasty. And oddly, it was even sadder seeing my great-grandpa who didn't; he'd sit huddled at the cb radio all day long talking to the guys out on the water because he was too old to join them.

If they are on form they will find nothing, waste all their backing, someone will get sick, and Jesus will be invoked.  And none of them will speak Spanish.

Next up:  Africa.  No problems there.

They speak English in Guyana.  But!  Odds of perishing in a poisoned generic Kool-Aid accident are non-zero.

I'd be surprised if they go back, but the lure of the money the other miners there were making will make it hard for them to decide. 

I just hated every single character though. At least Todd & crew are likeable in a goofy sort of way.

I started watching this today. I think Tawds (Todds) revelation of "Guys, if we run this for 24 hours rather than 6 hours a day, we will have a bigger pile at the end of the day" was, like, "Wow, Never would have thought of that!"

{edit} And after all that the came up with sod all becasue Tawd decided to keep going despite his wash plant getting clogged up with dirty water, meaning all the Gold got washed out and away. He gave the most lame ass inspiring speech ever and "I'll do better in future!" LAWL. Good god these guys are idiots.

Oh it gets worse.   

I still think the best part was the engineer going to a motel with his wife while the plant was broken, and then everyone was ok with him coming back instead of finding a competent engineer who also didn't need back surgeries just to work. The real mystery is why Dave is with them, I have to guess he likes being on tv and the show money is good.

Anyway, it's off the DVR list now.

No this is must watch TV.  We need to see new the engineer (it was a"girlfriend" BTW), new "investors" (lawl) and watch as they claw, scrape, rip&gouge the Alaskan landscape for.... 1000 OUUNCES OF GALD!

That's right -- Todd made a bet with ExecProducerBot on air in their pseudo-casual chat session that's how much they would fine.  If not, he would quit gold mining all together.   So I am for one am eager for the drama.

Let the grand overreactions and lack of planning commence!

I'm pretty sure they said last year that if they couldn't do better that this would be the last season.  So the bet is just a "we are gonna fail and this is it" kind of remark I think.

So, with the new Gold Rush promo it looks like someone hits it big this season.  Show starts Oct. 26.

You sure? Not the 20th? I have a new one that I haven't seen yet on my TiVo. Maybe it's a summary of last year.

I still like this show. It's the only 'reality TV' type show I watch. (If I didn't knit, I doubt I'd watch it, though.)

There was some special on yesterday, but it was just a recap show.

I'm weak, it's back on the DVR.

I admit I'm hoping it's the kid who hits it big. Good teaser, that one. The challenge will be to make it through all the Hoffman nonsense. The old lady did get a chuckle from some of Todd's, you know, frickin' speeches, guys.

Frickin sweet!   :awesome_for_real:

Let the failure begin!1!! Rawr !

Yup the kid seems like an all around good person loves his grandpa and is a hard worker. I can respect all of that. His failures are more just still learning the ropes type issues not willful stupidity of the rest of them. That said I fear I shall have to record the failure I don't know why but this is one train wreck I cannot look away from.

The Hoffman crew might actually pull something off now that Dave is running his own crew at the second claim.

Did anyone catch the little blurb about Todd's college education in the pre/post commercial pop-ups?  Made the whole "Yeah man, like I know that fricken' trommel thing doesn't make any sense to someone with an engineering background, but I can totally fricken feel that this is going to work, so I'm gonna give this guy 250k.  He said it would work, so he must be right." bit a whole lot easier to comprehend.

Ya gotta have faith.

No I think it was Dave who was actually a mining engineer and Todd is a self entitled laborer with delusions of grandeur.  Err imagine a gamer without productive skills who ran a very expensive game studio and you can see what Todd is. 

And doesn't $1700/oz by 1000 fantasy ounces only translate to $1700000?  That seems laughably low for everything theyre spending.  And claim guy demands 10% ?  Its lol time again.

cut away from show last week:



frickin awesome

Can't wait until Dakota Fred needs another favor from Parker.

I was actually thinking "uh yeah, parker helping him is well and good, but we all know that's not going to be reciprocated". Didn't take long to be proven right.

What a douche.

Also, Hoffman up to his typical idiocy. Guess the bible didn't talk about core testing.

Next year, guys, we're gonna get 10,000 ounces!!!! DUUURRRRRRRR

Go Parker!

I was terribly amused that Todd called the company making his new washing plant AFTER dismantling his old washing plant. While yes it was leaking gold at least they could run some gold through it and maybe I am wrong but there does not seem to be any reason why you could not dig up the tailings and rerun them through the new washer when it arrives. Sure your old one is leaking a bit of gold but you know damn well where the leak is winding up so I would think it would be pretty easy to rerun those tailings if you are worried. Better than losing all production for 3 weeks.

Notice how the show was cutting out all of his Jesusy shit so he named the company 3:16 Mining so it was impossible to completely remove it. What a tool.

This might a better show with only Dave, Parker and Fred.  Maybe not as much fun, but better.


Yeah, the woe-is-me-I-did-another-crippingly-stupid-thing-AGAIN is way too old with Todd.  The show is stale with him.  We know he's an idiot and was carried by Dave and 1-2 other good people there.  Why turn in next time?

The Facebook pages of Fred and Parker amuse me. Fred's says
"The Deal...."Move snow for one hour and I'll use my loader to load 300 yards of dirt you'll need for the bridge project."
If a friend loans you something with the expectation of something in return, that's not a friend, that's a business deal............"

Isn't Fred the guy who kept saying, when he bought the claim from under the Hoffmans "it's not personal, it's business."

Fred's friendships seem to be few. What a surprise. Why can't he move his own dirt for the temp bridge? What a crybaby.

I'm on team Parker all the way. Fred's such a dick. Dustin's acting like a dick too. Parker's a lot nicer than I am.

I didn't have an issue with Fred until the electrical panel nonsense. Actually he was probably my favorite person on the show outside of Dave 'why the hell is he with the Hoffmans' Turin.

Fred is an insecure dick. He just can't pick his battles.  He has to fight everything and everyone.   Including his own son.  He's a dick.  He has Insecure Irritable Old Man Syndrome and can't get on with anyone.   

John Schnable is my favorite person on the show. Then Nancy Schnable. Then Parker Schnable.

Then Dave Turin and some of the Hoffman crew, I think. Fred doesn't even make the list. He's a selfish prick who doesn't understand being a good neighbor or karma.

Oh, I forgot grandpa Schnabel. Yes, he is the most awesome of them all.

Don't forget the lunatic Dutch miner dude. He's practically Goldmember.

Nice.

He's a mining legend. Or so I hear.

Let's take some bets, because the trailers teased that someone was going to win teh MUTHERLOOD this season.I think it's going to be Fred.  

In order of making money:

Fred: a lot (500+ oz)
Parker: enough to scrape by (300+ oz)
Dave: enough to scrape by, but keeps having mechanical problems (250+ oz)
Todd:   :roflcopter:

I hope it would be Parker, but it will probably be Fred. Because he's a dick who would gutfuck his own mother with a knife for ten bucks. That's the type that always wins in real life.

I think Parker will do okay, if Todd gets his washplant up and running then he'll scrape by, Dave I think'll be the motherlode guy, and Fred I kind of hopes breaks a leg, precisely because he's a dickwad. A dickwad which fixed his digger on his own, granted, but still a dickwad.

I think it'll go Fred, Parker, Dave, Todd.

But really, Todd is on good dirt if he can get running and Dave came up with a real crap run. Parker had a decent run already, and it sounds like Fred found another pit to work down, maybe doubling the pay dirt from Jack's 'glory hole'.

Still gotta have some respect for Fred. When everyone else gets hobbled by gear breaking down, this ornery old coot welds a whole new piece of steel. That was pretty awesome. If it wasn't for the whole electrical panel thing, Fred would still be my favorite on the show. Reminds me of the adults I grew up with, really (except the panel thing).

Fred's a bastard. Resourceful bastard, sure, but he's still a grade A bastard.

He seeks favors without returning them, and he attempts to manipulate people to get what he wants by appealing to their better selves and pretending to be neighborly. Then when it's time for him to reciprocate, "screw you, this is business!".

Fuck him. I hope a flood comes down and washes his excavators away.

What happened at the very end? My TiVo missed the last minute or two. Did Dave get what he needed to get?

Dave got a bit over 30 oz of gold so they are in business and Parker got a bit over 50 oz so he is good to go as well. I think Daves crew is probably in very good shape the gold was a bit thinner at the top of the claims dirt than they expected but if going down 2 feet gets you 30 oz guessing as they get down farther towards bedrock they are going to be getting a pretty substantial amount of gold.

Basically everyone made a respectful amount, with Parker hitting it biggest.

Ya even fred made a good amount and he was working some old tailings on the way the actual paydirt so it sure beat them just having to throw it away. I think all the crews except todd are pretty well positioned to if not hit their dreams hit good quantities of gold to at least break a modest profit. I just don't see Todd doing anything but ride the clueless failwagon the rest of the season.

Well, honestly I don't see the big problem in stockpiling all that dirt. They made it out to be a big thing, but it's not like it's going anywhere. These guys couldn't possibly be efficient enough to be washing all the time.  Now you got your super-trommel in place and you better get 125-150oz minimum from the current stockpile.

Isn't it actually kind of smart by Todd to wait for the trommel? They might be smart to run their old tailings from Big Blue...

As much as people like to bash Todd, the guy that was building his new wash plant is the one that was fucking with their timeline.  I'm pretty sure that if Todd knew the guy was gonna be a month late delivering the trommel he may have went a different direction or worked on fixing the other wash plant. 

Stockpiling as they did is probably the best thing they could've done in the situation they were in at the time, however they could've been running dirt all this time and at least have something to show for their time investment. Then, once they got the jesus feature which the new trommel is, they've done away with a fucktonne of surplus material (the rocks etc) and can get to just running actual dirt through the new trommel for a second time just to see how much more efficient it actually is compared to the big blue.

Literally the only dumb thing they did was yank down big blue and sit there with their thumb up their ass dirt-wise for however many weeks it's been by now, because it was done on the assumption the new trommel would arrive "soon".

The reason that they stopped using big blue was because they were washing away gold... And let's be honest, by the time they got it fixed you know the trommel would have just arrived.  lol

I never quite understood why this was such a big deal washing out gold. You know where all the gold is being washed too into your tailing pile/holding area. I would think it would be pretty damn trivial to go back and redig up all that stuff and rerun it. Sure it may have been a bit less time efficient but it sure beats some consistent gold gain and some extra work later than sitting on your thumbs for a month. Frankly they should have sent almost all that crew to help indian river at daves claim and really knock that one out of the park because at least there they had everything in place to get to work may as well have your crew doing something productive if one claim cannot be run.

I think they were losing a significant amount of gold through the wash plant.  They are probably better off doing what they are now and just holding the dirt so they can just run and run.

I'm going to just assume that they're going to be running the old runoff through the new washplant as well, just to compare how much more efficient the new washplant actually is.

It will be interesting once the new trommel is hooked up how fast they can burn through the stock piled pay dirt. Really once its up and running they should just  have all hands feeding the beast full time at whatever max rate it can take. Nice to see dave seems to be doing good he at least seems competent and an overall good manager. Other than his one oops of surveying the wrong location which may have been more editing than oops he seems to run a much more sensible dig site in a more sensible manner.

Running the gold twice costs manpower and fuel. Stockpiling for when the new trommel gets there was the right thing to do. Todd should've sent that twitchy investor down to insert a boot into the trommel 'inventor's' anal canal, since that was the guy shitting away the season.

Todd should not have invested in a piece of machinery he knows nothing about, for a company that nobody seems to know about, for an industry he's not qualified to be in.  And in the end, it seems he bought something on spec that may be just a prototype for 250k (?).  He could've just got a better wash plant built like Dave did with an expert to run it, or you know, do it Todd's way.   

But honestly, if Todd wasn't Todd, would there even be a season 3 of Gold Rush? He's television gold.

He is like the honey boo boo of miners it is just hard to look away from him when he is failing in such spectacular ways.

I'm still wondering what the "technological revolution" is which this new washplant has.

I am not sure anybody knows. I find it interesting he contracted this thing with presumably the maker but the makers workshop is CLEARLY not setup to handle the construction of these things so I doubt it is something he has done more than once or twice before. I will be shocked if the thing actually works.

So the super trammel worked.. Go fig!

Nice trommel engine. Dave taking care of business, as expected...

It did? Seemed like it blew out its engine in pretty short order.

I think you just fell down the sarchasm.

Yes, at this point in the season everyone has gold except Todd. Frickin' surprise!

A veritable glory hole of snark!

Here is to Todd's sharp investor.  Any chance the moneybags has the balls to call Todd on his utter and complete incompetence? 

Well unless there is some total disaster, they should make that 100 oz goal the investor asked for.  The only good idea Todd came up with so far this season is having the second site at Indian River.

I'll laugh if it turns out Todd's cleanup (when he finally does get the trommel working) is actually bigger than Dave's combined cleanup.

I'm pretty sure he'll blunder into some pretty good money. They've been stockpiling dirt for quite a while so they can just run like crazy once they get a new motor.

And despite all the 'inventor' bullshit, trommels are tested tech (see Big Nugget Mine), so a new one should process at least as good as the beat up old piece of crap they used last year...if the 'inventor' didn't invent out all the critical elements of a trommel.

My favorite thing so far this season was Parker's dad's reaction to torching off that explosive charge. Awesome.

On my brother's recommendation, I started watching this.  So far, it's sort of like watching 'Whale Wars' in that the only moments to live for are the long, drawn out shots of Todd's face as he becomes the walking, talking embodiment of failure.

I hope the kid strikes it big.  The rest of the 'cast' are unlikable for one reason or another.

If I was the investory I may cut Todd lose but Dave is clearly on the gold getting over 90 ounces in a couple weeks of running and it looks like the gold is getting better the deeper he is getting. Baring the gold just petering out I see dave hitting at least 500 oz at the pace they are going. Hell if they can even just keep doing a consistent 30-40 oz a week they will likely hit 500 before they have to stop for the winter. And once fall hits he can start clearing off overburden on the rest of the indian river claim and be setup to do even better next year.

Hehe ya I have to say spending fathers day with your two sons blowing the living shit out of a mountain side has to be one of the best fathers days ever.

I enjoyed watching Parker's dad giggling like an 8 year old after blowing up that rock. That's my favorite clip from all the shows, I think.

Not a good episode if you like Parker.

And not a good episode if you dislike Dakota Fred.

I am afraid the big nugget mine may officially be played out unfortunately. I can see parker going to work for that crazy expert miner guy they bring in once in a while as he has some really serious gold mines in the klondike.

I think its pretty clear that dave is likely the one who hit the "mother load" When he is pulling around 20 oz after a day or two of running its pretty clear he is on the gold right now.

What I don't understand is why if Todd is down due to the trommel his guys did not go over and help out indian river. Better to have all hands on deck on the one claim thats producing and its obviously not that far away.

Freds gold is not to surprising. We know where the gold is on his claim and we know it is a healthy amount its just taking them a long time to get back down to it safely after the flooding danger past.

Really shitty episode for the Schnabels :(

Yes it sucks but I forsee parker either getting a new claim or going to work for that crazy swede guy who operates some huge gold mines in the klondike.

"Mining Legend" Wats Hiznuts.

I thought his name was Husis Fayse?

Well, looks like ole Todd failed miserably again. And now Dave and co. are going to haul in 500 more oz.s themselves. Parker.... this is my sad face :(

Dakota Fred, used his Discover(y) card and got him some new equipment. No more scrap metal and wood resin fixes for this guy!

My fiancee hates his son, Dustin. I don't think he's that bad. He's just a young Fred...without the skills or mining knowledge. So basically, he's just a dick.

They gotta fire Todd.  Holy shut.

They gotta fire Todd.  Holy shit.

kindle2 spell check hell

Dustin is just impatient and wants to get shit done.  He's right about all the bootleg fixes that Fred keeps cobbling together though.  It's taken them 2 seasons and they still don't seem to really have gotten much more done than Todd did his first season.

Are you nuts? Fred's kept them going and he found a whole new hole to dig, along with pay dirt all the way down to it (that Dustin wanted to toss aside). Dustin needs to shut his yap and listen to the old man. Fred may be a dick but he's tough and smart, two things that seem to be lacking in his kid.

Also, loltodd. The thing that sucks about Turin hauling all that gold is that it's under the Hoffman mining company.

Todd may be a nice guy but he is just so totally clueless and hapless I don't see dave staying with him baring huge cash incentives from the network. Todds utter haplessness makes compelling TV but really bad business. I loved the interview they had with Freddy DODGE and they asked him about the new trommel. He was pretty classy and not wanting to diss his friend but you can just see that twinkle in his eye thats  says I told you so to todd.

As much as we like to rag on Todd.  They are pulling in crazy gold since they merged teams. 

Seems like the operation is being run by Dave, Thurber, and the gold recovery guy (and their wizard mechanic) and Todd mostly waddles around to have scripted conversations and Jack is there to pull jars out of his pocket.

Todd has been a little nutty the last couple of episodes, but it seems to be working at this point.

It's pretty wild, but they could actually hit that 1000 oz. There is no chance in hell I ever in a million years would have seen that coming.

I watched the latest Gold Rush special thing as well, and it looks like Todd's antics were just made more dramatic they way it was all cut together.  I also think that if the trammel hadn't of been a disaster that they'd be well over their 1000 oz.

Also they start rumors about next season.  Parker saying stuff like he may not be mining in Alaska next year, Todd mentioning he has something big planned for next season, even Dakota Fred made it look like he wouldn't be back to Porcupine Creek.

hadn't have

Even if parker manages to find enough dirt to finish this year off since smith creek was a bust the big nugget mine is pretty much played out. It had a hell of a run and produced a lot of gold over its time but it pretty much is time to start the reclamation and move on to someplace else. I kinda hope parker gets in with Tony at a real gold mine although I don't think tony would want cameras around his operation.

OH SHIT FINALE TONIGHT

Baring one of the other mines having the best week gold mining EVER I don't see anybody catching up to the hoffmans who have about 7 times more gold already mined than any of the other miners.

I stopped watching and I can't get it on Hulu.


HoffCo also has 7x the gear and monkeys, and so 7x and more of cost.  Their success (?) will be a reality-TV success.  /golfclap

Guys, huddle up. I know we can do it, and I believe. If you believe, then we can hit ONE MILLION OUNCES next year guys. Dad, lead us in a prayer.

There, spoilered it for you!

I'm with Soln. The gold pulled out of the ground is only half the formula here.

They are 400 ounces over the break even point.  So they are making money this year.

The thousand ounces was a pull it out of his butt number that they are even closing in on it is pretty impressive for the stooges although dave getting most of it probably explains how they got this far. Todd trying to break the plant for the full season probably would have left them without any gold left to his own devices.

The last two clean outs, with everyone at Indian River, doubled the standing total from the whole season.  As much as we want to bash Todd he did increase the gold productivity when he finally got a working wash plant to work with. 

I'm not totally defending Todd he's had some derp moments, but I think the editing worked against him more this year than the last 2.  He's also smart enough to get all this shit together and get a TV show about it, and the highest rated one on Fridays no less.

This also got picked up for a fourth season.  Where and what they will be doing is going to be revealed on the show tonight.

Sounds like next season is going to be a little different.

You have Fred wanting to fly into a new area where there's literally lumps of gold in the rocks.

You have Parker hooking up with Tony Beets.

And you have a partial Hoffman crew going to South America.

The hell?

The Hoffman thing is an off-season summer spin-off.

Also, as far as Todd having a good season, that's utter bullshit. How much did Indian River produce? Because that's Dave Turin. How much tv money is there that Dave took a 48k cut of that rather than a Hoffman cut when he shouldered the burden?

My second favorite moment this season (after Parker's dad on father's day) was Tony making fun of Todd "But what does he do?"

current  (http://www.kitco.com/market/)price of gold:  $1582.50

HoffCo total gross 1400 ounces (?) = $2,215,500

cost for me to lease a bulldozer:  $2000/week (?)

cost for Todd:  ?? a lot less * a lot of other stuff

Discovery Channel I think made these guys and there's no real way this was break even from what they pulled out.  Who knows?  I don't care really, all reality TV is fixed/bullshit.

Todd's been to south america before, and unlike the jungle gold series guys they decided that it wasn't worth it and didn't get into a heap of shit.

Looks like they're going to avoid the jungle and go somewhere dryer instead (with a possible hilarity of "how do you run the sluices" this entails?). It'll probably be interesting to see what Todd's learned over the years, and how many mistakes he'll make from now on.

And personally I'm a lot less negative towards Todd, even though he has had a few derps. He's also made a few hard and right choices.

The parker move makes a lot of sense I figured with tony showing up a lot something like that would happen. He likes parker and parkers drive to succeed and I think there is some talk that tony beets daughter has the hots for parker and visa versa.

Freds new claim is interesting I just don't see how you get any equipment up there unless they are going super low end with picks and shovels I don't think you are going to be able to get any sort of heavy equipment up to that claim. And if the gold is in the rocks that requires a whole different sort of mining hope dustin likes wielding a sledge hammer.

At least Todd seems to be looking for less jungly and more sandy desert areas in south america. Less chance of death by unspeakable jungle plague at least. Sounds like that will be covered in some mid season break showing probably like the jungle thing they did probably with the same effect. Find they can find good gold deposits but to dangerous to work it.

Sooo this is back.  It's been a few episodes, and I have to say I am fucking astounded that Todd was able to find a place to dig in South America.  I can't wait to see the levels of fail this brings to the show.

The biggest fail will be watching those rich white-skinned Guyanese take those guys out to pasture; especially Todd.  (those folk won't respect that fool down there)

Hehe oh ya good luck with them getting equipment in supplies down there they are SOO going to be taken to the cleaners by the locals and rightfully so.

Yeah. Considering how they always seem to have problems getting all their equipment to the same place on time in locales which are MUCH easier to get to, I have no idea how they're going to pull this off.

Still no matter how goofy the hoffmans are they are still better business men and miners than the doofs from jungle gold. I seriously don't know how the jungle gold guys are not dead in some ditch in africa yet.

Those Jungle Gold guys would probably fail in the Klondike.

You guys see the operator try to kill the loud fighter guy? Just missed!

Oh, Parker.

Parker is looking like he's going to have some issues.  He was almost Todd-like in his actions last episode.  Speaking of Todd, I bet he's not gonna be happy that Parker stole a piece of equipment and almost had it go off a cliff.

I wish he had gone to work with Tony rather than blow his college fund to turn into Todd Jr.

This was his working for Tony thing.  It's just that Tony gave him land and said go to it.

At one point in the show Tony said he could come work for him (in a direct capacity).

What. He's not going to college?

He should have listened to his mother.

I don't know what college is parents planned on sending him to, but they gave him part of his college fund.   100 oz. of gold.

Oh ho ho! This season has been so awesome if you enjoy watching people fail over and over.  :grin:

Yeah pretty much everyone is failing. 

I stopped watching this as I got sick of the constant "if this doesn't work ITS THE END OF THE WORLD" narration. Must give it another watch.

Yeah, they still do that often. I dunno. It's definitely a guilty pleasure for me. Bunch of dudes diggin in the dirt, but I'm right there every Friday.

Parker has been doing pretty good but there is no way his washplant can run at the volumes tony wants so it failing was not unexpected. I think the porcupine creek deal they were finding bigger nuggets that a dredge probably would have had better luck slupring up but Fred made the wise call that pit was just STUPIDLY dangerous near the end better to give it up than have your son of friends killed by a collapse. Todd and co are just epic all around well rounded failure with a bow tied on it.

It doesn't help that Parker is on some crappy gold.  I think he's barely making 7 bucks a yard.  Also his age, attitude,  and inexperience is really killing him.

I can understand his attidude he is a teenager with all the normal baggage that entails and is trying to run a lot of older rougher guys in a hard job. Finding the right balance of toughness without going to overboard is hard enough for people of the same age and I can see it being a really nasty challange for somebody his age with much older underlings.

That is something that will just happen with time and experiance. Most of his issues are things that will fix themselves over time most of the other miners in question especially Todd and co have no such excuses.

While parker has his issues nobody involved not his workers not tony and not the film crew can doubt he probably has one of the best work ethics of anybody on that show which is a huge deal for a kid his age.

New season.

Hoffmans are back from their disaster, minus their team. Nobody will work for them anymore, to no one's surprise.

Dave Turin has his own claim this year.

Parker is back working the same claim he worked last year, in hopes of making enough to buy his own claim.

Tony Beets is now a regular, he purchased a huge old mining dredge.

(No Dakota Fred - he, Dustin and Melody are not on this year.)

Melody works for Tony Beets now.  I don't know if she'll be on the show or not though.  Dakota Fred and Dustin I heard were asking for more money or something and thought they were better off trying to get their own show.

So this season has started off kind of weird.  Parker is the same as last year, when he shows his age though is when shit tends to go south for him.  Tony Beets has his dredge but it looks like he bit off more than he can chew.  Todd should really just start a cult, I dunno how he does it.  Changes there though but at least they seem to have good land.

Still think this is the best reality show ever done.  Whatever these guys want moneywise, DC should just give it to 'em.  W/o Tony Beets though, the show is just merely good.  Cant wait to see if he actually pulls off this dredge miracle (it'll be the first working gold-dredge in many decades).  Something tells me he's not gonna get any gold out of it before the end of the season and may have to eat crow.  The Viking does not like eating crow.

I find Tony Beets extremely entertaining just as a character, but spending pretty much all season so far taking apart an old piece of equipment? Ehhhhh. Not so sure I'm enjoying watching that particular process all that much.

I liked in the last episode tony acknowledged his employees who help temper his fuck it just do it fast mentality with enough caution to try to do things right. I am really curious about if they actually can get the dredge up and running. Those things are made of some really basic really durable stuff so I think its pretty possible and they churn through enough materials that even marginal materials can give them pretty good production. I am just curious about the permits needed to run them as I thought that was the main reason the dredges got shut down was how badly they ground up creeks and rivers.