It's been a struggle since we started.
Monsoon season is here.
We're getting shut down every day, just about, right now.
There is not a time in monsoon season
when we're not shut down because of lightning.
[George] Last year, the rivers were about flowing.
Everything was gone.
Oh, [bleep].
It was catastrophic for us,
completely had to start over.
It's dangerous out here and it's not adding up.
[George] Not running enough yardage, not catching the gold.
Our investors want at least 20 ounces
to show them this was not a complete failure.
We're on a ticking time clock.
[Freddy] Let's make some gold, guys.
[narrator] Freddy Dodge...
There's no guarantees in gold, buddy.
...and Juan Ibarra...
All right, well, let's do it, huh?
...have mastered the art of getting gold out of the ground...
Look at that.
...in the most rugged places on Earth.
[Freddy on radio] I'm feeling a little sick, buddy.
[narrator] Now they rescue struggling miners...
Ooh, that's not good.
...who risked it all to be rich...
Whoa, whoa, whoa! Shut it down!
...but are about to lose everything.
[man] Eyeballs.
[narrator] To revive these failing mines,
Freddy and Juan engineer the impossible...
[man] I've never heard of an under-sluice before.
...deliver some hard truths...
This material you're digging now is totally worthless.
...and track down the gold.
That's what dreams are made of right there.
[narrator] But if they don't at least double the miners' gold recovery,
they won't take a dime in return.
That's ten times the amount of gold. That's awesome.
[Freddy] That's pretty cool-looking, huh?
[Juan] Definitely neat old building.
[Freddy] I heard it was the oldest town in Arizona,
back when it was part of Mexico.
Imagine all the early explorers coming out here
and there was nothing here whatsoever.
People traveled all over looking for gold.
They left their homes, left everything they love,
to help their families out and do what they could
to try to make a living.
Kind of like the miners we help.
[narrator] Freddy and Juan are 11 miles from the Mexican border
on route to the Kennedy Mine.
With investment drying up,
the mine needs to turn a profit this year
or face a shutdown.
We've been in Arizona before in the past, Fred,
and it's always a tough go here with the heat,
lack of water, and everything else.
But, you know, there was good gold here at one time.
[Freddy on radio] Yeah, there's probably more good gold down here
than other places.
[narrator] Gold was first discovered here 200 years ago
when Spanish settlers staked claim to the land
during the Pima Revolt.
But the hostile desert heat
followed by months of monsoon rains
meant only he heartiest of miners
braved these harsh conditions.
[Freddy on radio] This is it, Juan.
-We're here, huh, Fred? -We're here.
-[Freddy] Howdy. -[George] How's it goin'?
-Nice to meet you. -George.
-Robert. -Nice to meet you, Robert.
-Matt. -Matt. Nice meeting you, Matt.
-George. -George. Nice to meet you, George.
[George] We are so happy you guys came out.
Man.
[narrator] Texan George Kennedy, a gas and oil worker by trade,
starting mining part-time in the desert four years ago
when his business fell on hard times.
We were in business for about five years
and, uh...
the natural gas process fell really bad.
Gold's pretty much been my hobby.
I sold my oil and gas company, started looking online,
trying to find a good piece of property to build a mine.
We looked down here in south Arizona
and we did a lot of prospecting,
and this property here, uh, tested pretty good,
as high as 0.800 of a gram per yard
and it had a lot more material.
It's got a lot of good potential.
Once we bought our equipment, got the ponds in place,
we're out of money.
We're mining, but it's just not enough
to even pay the bills.
[Juan] What kind of yardage are you guys running?
About ten yards an hour or so?
Oof, we're seven right now.
-Okay. -Well, do you have any of the gold
that you recovered?
Yeah. It's pretty fine.
No real nuggets to speak of.
[Juan] How are you guys doing for the season so far?
Uh, about seven, so far.
How much do you guys have invested in your gold mine here?
With us and small friend investors and stuff,
I would say probably, uh, 800 grand.
Ooh. That's not a bank you borrowed from, then.
It's friends.
Yeah. And we all have not made any money.
What's the sense of urgency now?
[Freddy] Why'd you call us now?
Uh, we need 13 ounces.
We have four weeks to pay back ten investors
before we have to shut down.
It's gets to a point where you got so much money and time
and blood and sweat and tears involved in it
that, you know, we're in.
We gotta go till we can't go anymore.
How about you, Matthew? What brought you out here?
Friendship. You know, knowing George,
working together in the oil field.
And I ran my big mouth one day,
I said, "Hey, you're gonna need a hand."
[Juan] If it doesn't make dollars, it doesn't make sense.
-[George] That's it. -Well, look where you're at though.
It's beautiful out here.
Not quite. This weather's so unpredictable.
Uh, weather's been shutting us down
just almost daily.
[Robert] Monsoon season kind of rolls in.
All the pay's wet. It's hard to work with.
Rain, the material's thick.
It's like-- it just really slows our process down.
-[Freddy] Yeah. -First two years we were here,
it didn't hardly rain at all.
It was super-dry. And then the third or fourth monsoon season,
it was pretty bad.
Wiped our ponds completely out.
Had to start over.
It was really kind of catastrophic for us.
[narrator] Arizona's monsoon season typically lasts four months,
beginning in June.
Moist tropical air collides with dry desert heat,
causing sudden heavy rain, thunderstorms, lightning,
and flash floods.
[George] Oh, no!
[Robert] Bro, we might have a problem.
[narrator] This sudden intense rainfall
is unable to absorb quickly into the ground.
Rivers move with enough force to rework topsoil and rocks,
creating gully washers.
Gold previously lodged in hard-to-get places
moves downstream to create new deposits.
[Robert] If we really start getting a lot of monsoon and rain,
then that could be the call for the season.
-[George] Yeah. -Kind of what you're saying
is if you don't get it turned around now,
you guys are done mining here.
-Exactly. Yeah. -This is your last season.
[Freddy] There's only one way to get started.
Let's do a 4-hour test run and see how much gold we get.
[narrator] With the threat of monsoon season looming over them,
Freddy and Juan set a 4-hour test run
to replicate half a working day
and determine how much gold they recover.
Wanna start your timer?
First bucket.
There it is.
[narrator] Using a backhoe,
Robert feeds paydirt through grizzly bars
to remove large rocks.
Next, a conveyor transports the pay to a vibrating screen
where water-jets free the gold-bearing material.
Finally, a rotating trommel releases the finds
and a 14-foot-long sluice box traps gold in the riffles.
What are your thoughts on that grizzly, Fred?
It's gonna wipe out the radiator
and other things on that backhoe.
[Juan] After about four or five buckets,
that's gonna have quite the mountain.
[narrator] A rock pile in front of the hopper
prevents the backhoe loading the plant.
Matt needs to clear them by hand
before they can continue.
There's problems there, that's for sure.
Definitely good to have Freddy and Juan here
to see how we do things.
Surely could be better.
[narrator] Cousin Robert joined forces with George in 2019.
We both watch Gold Rush
and basically fell in love with it.
It's all fun and games until you see the first gold.
And then it starts getting real, you know?
You always want more.
Grizzlies are loaded.
I'm about to take another scoop.
[Juan] You know, over here on that screen, Fred...
Yep.
...it seems like it's got a little bit of choke point, huh?
Yeah, there are some problems inside of there.
[narrator] Jammed rocks prevent the screen from clearing
and precious gold from reaching the trommel.
Periodically, you gotta give it the hoe.
Juan.
[Juan] The rocks are sharp.
[Freddy] It's not smooth.
That hasn't been reworked much at all.
[Juan] Doesn't look good at all.
[Freddy] We don't know how much gold's in the ground.
I think they probably have more fine gold
than what they think they have.
You know, different kinds of gold
like different situations.
To me, for the gold that they showed me,
we might have an issue here.
-We'll have a look, eh, Juan? -Yup.
[Juan] Yeah, there's some fine in there.
[Freddy] Yeah.
That was only a quarter of a pan.
There's definitely an issue there.
[thunderclap]
[Matthew] Looks like that storm pushed out a little bit north
but still got some weather to the southwest.
Yeah, I'm steady keeping an eye on it.
We're just gonna have to watch it.
Keep an eye out for lightning, George.
[George] We haven't paid any money back to the investors since day one.
They're ready to start seeing some kind of money back.
Everything's on the line right now.
-Last bucket? -Last bucket.
[narrator] Test run complete.
[Freddy] Exactly four hours.
[narrator] George and his crew power down,
ready to clean up the gold.
[Juan] There's a little bit of color up there.
A lot of fine stuff, you know.
-Yeah. -Well, you guys get 'er cleaned up
-and we'll go think about it... -Okay.
...and we'll get back with you.
That'll work, man.
-[Robert] Sounds great. -That'll be awesome.
Sounds good. See you guys in a bit.
[George] I appreciate it, man.
[Robert] It almost looks sad.
There's a bunch of things on every side of that plant
that are causing it to lose some gold.
So if we can get most of those fixed
in the time that we're here,
we're gonna get 'em a lot more gold.
[thunder rumbling]
We need to go. We need to go.
[Robert] Thank God it's right at the end of our test.
We just gotta beat that wash.
When it starts flowing, we won't be able to get out of here.
[narrator] A flash flood in the wash
will cut off the only exit from the mine.
If the crew don't leave now,
they'll be stranded.
[George] Let's go.
Hopefully when we come back tomorrow,
the ponds ain't washed out.
[Freddy] Well, let's see what it is.
[Juan] Moment of truth.
Hey, guys.
[George] How's it goin'?
[Freddy] You got the gold all cleaned up?
We got a little bit.
[Juan] Yeah?
Ooh.
-Not a whole lot, huh? -[George] No.
[narrator] 11 miles from the Mexican border
in the southern Arizona desert,
mine boss George Kennedy and his Texan crew
gather for the gold weigh.
Well, let's see what it did.
[George] All right.
[narrator] George must recover half an ounce a day in four weeks
to pay investors before they could pull the plug.
0.14.
[narrator] 0.14 ounces,
half of what they need in each 4-hour run
to reach their goal.
-Is that normal? -Like, for four hours?
Yeah. Yeah, that's pretty much what we've been getting.
[Freddy] How many yards you think you ran?
Right there at seven yards an hour.
[narrator] At this rate in the remaining four weeks,
the part-time crew would still be more than 6 ounces short
of their 20-ounce target.
The good news is there's gold there, so.
Every speck counts.
Well, and the other thing too, while we watched you guys run,
you know, we did notice quite a few things
that we can do to help you guys improve
with the material going through the plant
-and then also on the recovery as well. -[Freddy] Mmm-hmm.
[Juan] There's a little bit of light at the end of the tunnel.
Well, if we could double that.
-Oh, man, that would be... -That'd be awesome.
That would be amazing.
I'm not saying we can.
Well, we're sure gonna try.
-[Freddy] Yeah. -Some situations, it's not possible.
-Right. Right. -Right.
Let me and Juan put our heads together
and we'll go from there.
-[Juan] Yup. -[George] All right.
-[Juan] Thanks, guys. -All right.
-Thanks, Juan. -Cheers.
-Let's go talk about stuff, huh? -Let's do it.
[Matthew] I wanna help George and Robert.
They're a good group of guys.
But I feel like I'm obligated to have to come out here
right now.
Now, here we are two and a half years
going on three,
and it's like there's not gonna be a three.
For me.
It's hard to see a big future, you know,
with a small gold weigh like that.
We've been throwing money at it left and right.
And I'm quite a bit concerned about how much it's gonna cost
to fix the issues that they suggest.
It's very, very, uh... very nerve-racking.
[Freddy] Well, what do you think?
[Juan] The biggest problem we're gonna run into is ground.
It just was not good.
[Freddy] Let's hope we can do some things for 'em.
You know, we can't put gold in the ground.
I think one of the big things is that feeder, right?
And all those rocks goin' back.
They're gonna take that radiator out on that backhoe.
[Freddy] So I think we put a chute on there
and get those rocks off to the side.
-Yeah. -And, you know, if we can fix some of the stuff
-in the sluices... -Yeah.
...we could get that screen where they're not losing material and gold,
then it's all gonna add up.
What I wanna do is get that eccentric working properly.
-Put some more weight on it. -Yup. Yup.
[Freddy] What if we weld some chains on there,
-going down... -Yeah.
...and then they're gonna pop up in the air
and they're gonna go side to side, right?
-Hopefully try to clear some of that material. -And clear--
[Freddy] I don't know if we'll get it to where they can get 20 ounces,
but I guarantee we can get 'em more gold.
Here you go, guys.
Oh, awesome. Thank you!
-Thank you very much. -Thanks so much. See you next time.
Thank you!
-Let's get out of here. -Yeah.
-[Freddy] What did you order me? -Oh, you'll be surprised.
How come you always get to pick the food?
[Juan laughing] You're gonna love it.
[narrator] Freddy and Juan have found three main problems
with the Kennedy plant.
First, the backhoe which loads the pay
is under fire from falling rocks,
risking costly stop downs for the operation.
Juan will attach a chute in front of the hopper
to catch falling debris
and safely divert them away to the side.
Next, the shaker screen isn't vibrating enough,
so rocks build up and jam.
Freddy will add weight to the existing eccentric below
to make it vibrate harder,
and in a rescue first,
install chains above to pound the jammed rocks
free of the gold-bearing material.
Finally, Freddy and Juan will extend the sluice to 18 feet,
replace the mats, and install their signature riffles
to catch more fine gold.
But if Freddy can't find better ground to run,
all of the fixes will be for nothing.
How are you doing, guys?
-Hey, Juan. -Hey.
[Juan] Yeah, you know, when we watched you guys run,
we noticed a few things that we can definitely help you guys improve on.
One of 'em, that screen is getting jammed up.
It's actually kind of limiting how much material you can run to the plant.
So, if we can get that to clear properly,
do it on its own without you having to be out there babysitting it.
That would be wonderful. Golly.
And then, situation you're in, you can't afford a radiator for your backhoe, right?
Not quite.
So we're watching you yesterday,
you have to get up there and throw those rocks
-out of the way, right? -[George] It's a real problem. Yup.
So if we put a chute on the front of that feeder,
the rocks are gonna shoot out there
and you'll be able to just pick 'em up with the backhoe.
-Oh, man. Yeah. -Nice!
[Juan] Then, on top of that,
what we wanna do is actually extend your sluice box
and reconfigure your riffles in it as well.
Exactly. Put some fine gold riffling in there
and carpet set up for fine gold in there.
-Yeah. -And the pay we ran that first test,
it's not good enough. Maybe we can find something better.
-Yeah. -That'd be interesting to do.
We understand your guys' financial situation,
and both Freddy and I have been very blessed in a lot of different ways,
so what we wanna do is we wanna do our labor for free.
-Yeah. -If we don't double the amount of gold you get,
-we'll throw in the material as well. -[Juan] Yeah.
[Freddy] We're looking at about $1,500.
It's all on your little plant.
You guys good with that?
-Man, that is awesome. -Absolutely, man.
You guys being out here on our side
and the experience that y'all bring,
uh, is invaluable to us.
100%. Really appreciate y'all.
-[Juan] Right on. -All right, thank y'all so much.
-Deal. -Deal.
-Thank you, brother. -All right.
-Thank you. -All right.
[George] The deal that Freddy and Juan came up with
couldn't have come at a better time.
You know, we have a lot of investors to pay back.
They could possibly save us.
[narrator] With just five days to increase the Kennedy's gold haul,
and under the constant threat of a storm shutdown,
Freddy and Juan dive in.
Well, let's start on this chute, huh, Juan?
[Juan] 8 foot right here to the edge.
So that's gonna take up a lot of steel.
Yeah.
[George] Freddy got me to clean off the shaker deck for him.
That pluggin' all,
this could really help it run more material.
Well, we've still got a lot of work to do to the plant.
During the first test run, this was their main choke point.
That screen fills up with rocks
and it's not allowing that gold-bearing material
to get down into the trommel to get washed.
It slowed 'em way down.
The solution, find a way to keep the screen clear
and increase their production and gold recovery.
-Here you go, sir. -Oh, yeah.
-Thank you. -You're welcome.
I'm gonna weld these chains in that top shaker deck
to try to help knock rocks out of the screen.
'Cause in theory, they should bounce up and down
and go back and forth on there.
So we'll try it and see what it does.
[narrator] When the hopper vibrates,
Freddy's innovative chain fix will unblock the screen
by pounding the rocks, moving them into the tailings pile below,
a first for Mine Rescue.
[bleep]
-Thank you, sir. -Yes, sir.
[Freddy] Well, I've welded two chains on the screen,
so as it vibrates, they'll do a dance
and keep that material moving down or through
and knock those rocks out of there.
It improves efficiency
and takes away a person standing there with a rake
having to rake those holes out.
That person could be doing something else,
digging pay or whatever around the mine.
-Hey, guys. You got a second? -Hey, guys.
[Freddy] It looks like we probably have a rainstorm coming
this afternoon.
[narrator] In southern Arizona,
Freddy and Juan are in a race against the elements
to complete their rescue mission.
[Juan] I gotta start cutting that chute.
-Yeah. -You guys can help us down at the plant.
-Heck yeah. -We'll go down and pull that eccentric out.
They were doin' seven yards an hour the first test,
so if they could get it turned up some more
and get the eccentric shaking harder
and fix their fine gold sluice,
every little thing adds up.
[narrator] In the cut trailer,
Juan designs a tailing chute to protect the backhoe.
[Juan] Right now, that when the material falls off the grizzly,
it's comin' forward, hitting the front of the backhoe.
By putting this little chute in front,
it'll catch that material.
It won't hit the backhoe, and it'll actually slide off to the side,
so we don't have issues with it later on down the road.
[narrator] A 25,000-degree beam of plasma
makes easy work, slicing through the quarter-inch steel.
-[George] What's goin' on? -Hey, buddy. How you doin'?
-[Juan] Are you married? -Yes, sir. I sure am.
What's your wife think about you being out here?
Uh, she's trying. Hopefully it works out
and it's worth all the time being gone away from the family
-and stuff, you know? -Yeah.
You got a couple little ones?
-I got three. -Yeah?
What ages?
Uh, nine, ten, and eleven.
That's always a killer, man.
Time away from home and the kids.
[George] I work full-time
to make sure I got enough money to pay for my kids' school
and, uh, take care of the bills at the house
and also support this.
We've already spent money we didn't have
for, you know...
college for the kids.
Um, definitely no retirement plan
or anything like that.
There's a lot of sleepless nights.
[narrator] Wife Tosha and their three sons
live 1,000 miles away in Texas.
George is trying to provide something--
some kind of future for our family that's sustainable.
We wanna set up our children
to be able to take care of themselves
further in the future.
If the gold mine doesn't work out,
I-- I just...
I don't even wanna think about that happening
'cause it would be absolutely heartbreaking.
It really sounds like you got everything into this.
Everything I got. Yeah, I do.
You gotta make it work.
Yup. I just know, uh...
I got no way out other than fixing it
and gettin' it goin' right now.
Well, I guess we could start workin' on these.
[narrator] At the wash plant,
Freddy revamps the eccentric vibrator
to help clear the screen from debris.
Right now, the way it's running,
it's plugging itself up, which slows them down.
Essentially, the counterweight makes a spinning shaft uneven.
So you've got all the weight on one side,
so when it comes up,
it makes the screen throw up 'cause the weight's goin' up.
And when it's goin' down, it pulls it down.
So that causes the vibration in the screen.
Add some more weight to it
and that's gonna add some more instability.
The goal is to get more production through that plant.
We want it out of balance,
but we want these welds in balance.
There you go.
Did you do any gold stuff before comin' out here?
-No, sir. -No?
This is my very first experience with any of it.
Grew up in a machine shop,
worked in an oil field for 25 years,
um...
never any experience whatsoever.
The first pan I did for the first time,
me and George came out here prospecting.
-Oh, is that right? -Yup. Yup.
And there was gold in it.
That's-- Uh-oh.
[laughing] The very first pan I ever did,
it had some gold in it.
-So it was on from there. -Yeah.
My first trip down here while we're prospecting,
I'm like, "Hey, there's fricking gold here.
This is the real deal."
I'm like, "Okay. Yeah, I'm on board.
Let's make a go at it.
Let's do this."
And, uh... yeah. And it takes money.
Especially at startup, with equipment and the claims
and all of that.
Pitch in a couple thousand here...
It just got to the point where,
okay, I'm part of it.
Any extra money that I had,
this became where it went.
By now, in the 100 grand range.
That's me, personally.
You don't wanna walk away from that kind of money.
Watch your fingers.
You got a wife and kids back in Texas?
Yes, sir. I got a wife.
We've been married 25 years.
How many kids you have?
One, a daughter. She's 22.
I have a daughter that's 22, too.
[Robert] We all work at our garden center every day.
-Okay. -So, when I'm out,
they have to pretty much tug the load, you know?
-[Freddy laughing] -And I leave the haul away.
[Robert] She's behind me 100%.
But the emotional strain of me and my wife being apart
for extended amounts of time is real.
Money's not everything.
But, you know, we started something we wanna finish.
Just can't see anything in there.
Let's see if it clears.
Okay, it's hittin' on this side.
-Let's fire it up. -Okay.
-Ready? -Yup.
[Robert] Oh, yeah.
[Freddy] We got it shaking harder now.
It wasn't as easy as it should have been.
It's one of those 15-minute jobs to install
that took an hour and a half.
We don't have any extra time here.
You know, we're here to help these guys the best we can,
and then we've got other miners to help.
[thunder rumbling]
-Hey, Juan-o. -Gettin' there, Fred.
The counterweights are done,
but that lightning's getting pretty close.
Are we done?
[narrator] Lightning kills 24,000 people every year.
But those who survive
usually face a lifetime or neurological damage.
With a striking distance of over two miles,
lightning can hit the claim at any moment.
We don't wanna be welding in that.
[Juan] No.
[Freddy] We don't like pulling out,
but I think this is one time we need to.
[Juan] I think you're right, Fred. I think we need to call it.
And it's getting close, close.
[Juan] It is.
[thunderclap]
Everything we're working on is all steel.
It's always an issue when we start running into weather like this.
It's gonna be hard to finish this build, Freddy,
because of lightning.
[Freddy] Yup.
[Juan] You know, it's a really simple chute we built.
[narrator] At the Kennedy Claim in Arizona,
Freddy and Juan are a day behind
after a lightning storm forced them to shut down.
This is gonna be able to get that material
off the end of the grizzly, off to the side,
so, that way, we're not worrying about it
hitting the front of the backhoe
or creating a pile of material here in front.
[narrator] While Juan finishes welding the chute...
[Freddy] Hey, George, time to go prospecting
and see what's out there.
...Detective Dodge goes on a treasure hunt
to find high-grade pay.
The stuff you're running has never been reworked by nature.
[narrator] With no dump truck,
George uses the backhoe to dig pay
forty yards from the wash plant.
Over millions of years, one piece of gold at a time
gets into the stream system,
then they concentrate up.
And what we're running here, it's a lot of angular rock
that have never been reworked.
What we're looking for in a gold-bearing area
is rounded rocks that have been reworked,
'cause that concentrates the gold like a sluice box.
We just gotta find where it's got concentrated.
-So I like this better. -Yeah.
-[Freddy] The rocks are more rounded, right. -Yup.
-This will flood big-time. -Oh, I can see that. Yeah.
See, look at this guy. He's moved a long ways...
-Mmm-hmm. -...for this desert, right.
Right. Right.
So it's nice and smooth.
This one's fairly smooth with the rounded edges, right.
Right.
You know, you can't cut yourself on any corner of these.
-No, no. -A lot of those rocks where you're digging over there,
-you could shave with. -Yup.
This wash here, your best gold...
is most likely on bedrock.
-[George] Uh... -Right here, 'cause it's been reworked
down in the bottom. That's nature's sluice box.
I know the sides are virgin.
This could be really good right here.
Yeah.
[narrator] Freddy's hunch,
the best gold has been concentrated by monsoon rains
into this old creek gully.
It's said if there's gold on the surface,
there's gonna be gold down deeper.
True. All right.
Let's go pan it, huh?
Yup, sounds good.
Well, let's see what's in it, George.
Holy [bleep].
Look at that. Right on the surface.
-Look at those. -Oh, yeah.
There's some nice pieces, too.
-That's exciting. -I like it.
[Freddy] I say, for the next test,
if you can get a dump truck in here,
then, uh, we'll run it and see what comes out of it.
This may be your future.
Yup.
[Freddy] The gold was way better here,
but we gotta find a way to get it to the plant.
Hopefully, we could find a dump truck.
[narrator] After Freddy's successful hunt for better gold,
Juan doubles down on the wash plant fixes.
Right now, we're building a custom sluice box for 'em.
The old sluice was too short
and they're losing gold because of that.
I'm gonna build a 10-foot sluice box with new gold riffles,
new mats and carpets.
That way, we can increase their gold recovery.
[Matthew] What do you say, Juan?
Hey, Matt.
[Juan] These riffles keep the bottom from warping.
If you got a swell on the bottom,
you're just gonna blow gold out.
Yeah.
Matt, he's been out here for the last few years,
helping 'em out for free.
But the lack of gold, the lack of success,
is putting a lot of strain on him.
I'm hoping this helps him out dramatically.
Uh, I know he has a big choice ahead of him,
whether he's gonna come back or not.
So how's your relationship with the guys?
Anytime you're involved in a project that's stressful
and you're around your friends and...
it can be...
it can be tense.
You know, nothing can ruin a friendship quicker than, you know, finances.
That's why we asked for your help. You know what I mean?
I got a little knowledge of gold mining,
family in the past.
So I said, "George, hit me up.
I can run heavy equipment, weld, do everything,
mechanic work if you wanna dig now."
And, uh, so that's how it started out.
And it was, uh...
a mistake.
I don't get paid at all.
It would be nice if this were my full-time deal
and still had the time that I want at home
with the family.
It's nice to see all these pieces coming together, you know.
Hopefully, with what we got goin' on,
we'll be able to get you guys at least to a point
where you're making a little bit of money.
I hope so, too, man.
Well, there's our dump truck.
Oh, nice.
[Freddy] Looks like George came through on that.
[narrator] After a crash course in prospecting,
George gambles $300 hiring the only dump truck in town.
If Freddy's right,
running pay from the new creek gully
could save their season.
How's it goin'?
We're out of time here
and we gotta get some material moved over there.
Let's get him loaded.
[Freddy] Make sure it has gold in it.
[narrator] In one day,
the dump truck can haul 90 yards of material,
over three times what they will need
for the second test.
[George] That feels awesome
seeing a dump truck pull in here with our pay.
It's normally been one yard at a time.
It's gonna help us get a lot more material moved faster.
[Freddy] Well, we'll get this sluice loaded up
and get it down there.
[narrator] At the entrance to the claim,
Freddy transports the sluice.
[Freddy] Well, things are comin' together,
but we're still behind.
Can we spin it around now?
Perfect.
-New sluice. -No doubt.
[Freddy] We've been getting shut down by thunderstorms
when there's a monsoon every day.
And, uh, they're calling for more lightning this afternoon.
How's it goin', guys?
-Howdy. -Hey hey.
You get all the pay hauled?
-Yes, sir. -Yes, sir.
[Juan] Nice.
[Freddy] Let's fire it up, huh?
[George] Sounds like a plan.
[Robert] We're ready to rock.
[narrator] After five days, Freddy and Juan
have transformed the Kennedy wash plant,
adding chains and weight to the eccentric vibrator
to clear the prewash screen,
increased the sluice to 18 feet,
installed mats to catch fine gold...
Hey, George, I'm gonna start loadin' this box.
...and, finally, built a tailing chute under the grizzly bars
to safely divert rocks away from the backhoe
and prevent delays in running pay.
Here's bucket one.
There it goes.
All right, he's started it.
Looks like the rock chute's workin' good.
-Good? -Yeah. Way better.
[Juan] The screen is vibrating perfectly.
[Freddy] Never watch you guys scrape it one time now.
-No. -Remember before?
You were over there with a rake.
[Robert] No need.
Here, check that out.
The material's comin' out clean.
The sluice feels really good.
You can kind of feel what those riffles are doing,
and every one of 'em feels great.
So, I'm happy with it.
What do you think of your new sluice?
Oh, awesome, man.
I've been watching y'all build this stuff for four years.
Finally.
[Freddy] Well, that looks pretty good, Juan.
[Juan] Yeah, but if we can't push it a little harder,
we can't double their gold production.
Well, these guys are trying to scrape out a living here, right?
Yeah.
So we need to switch gears now,
and hopefully that pay works out.
Let's do it.
[narrator] Running seven yards an hour,
George won't make his 20-ounce target.
Turn it up a little more.
[George] All right.
[narrator] So Freddy wants to crank up the yardage
to nearly double.
[George] All right, we're rollin' now.
I can't get to my cooler to get my lunch.
It's drippin' water. There's a pack of bees.
If I don't stop the water from dripping,
the bees are never gonna leave.
I'm slightly allergic to bees,
but I'm also slightly allergic to not eating lunch.
If you see me holler and then haul ass,
you know I got stung.
Oh, [bleep]!
They're gonna get me.
Hey!
Well, it looks like Juan's sharing his lunch.
This thing appears to be really just running smooth.
[Matthew] Yeah, this prop looks good.
It should save us a lot of time on cleanup and stuff.
[narrator] The Kennedy crew are near the end of their second test run.
We got our hopper feeder turned up to 12 yards an hour,
which is crazy.
We've never ran that much yardage per hour,
so this could be a big game changer here
just from the yardage alone.
Super-excited, I know that.
-Last bucket? -[George] Yeah.
Sound good, man.
Right at four hours.
Hey, Matt, this is the last bucket.
I'm excited to see what the weigh is.
[Freddy] Well, the box looks pretty decent.
But you never know till you weigh the gold, so.
If you guys wanna pull the mats and get it cleaned up,
we'll get it weighed up.
-Sounds good. -[Matthew] Thank, guys.
All right. Heck yeah. Thank y'all.
[Juan] Let's get it on, gentlemen. See ya in a bit.
It's been a lot of time and a lot of money spent
to get to this point.
And hopefully that all these changes
that Freddy and Juan have done
will get us to where we need to be,
where this stuff will start paying off.
I'm excited to see if the changes that we've made,
um, are gonna be...
uh, what it takes to keep this thing movin'.
Morning.
-Good morning. -All right.
[Freddy] Got 'er all cleaned up, huh, guys?
Yep, sure did.
Well, it looks pretty decent, guys.
[George] Mmm-hmm.
-Four hours. -For four hours, it looks really good.
Yeah.
-[Juan] What'd the first weigh, Fred? -0.14.
0.14, huh?
Well, there's 0.14 right there, guys.
And look how much gold's left in that pan.
[George] Wow!
[narrator] The Kennedy crew need 0.25 ounces
to have any chance of reaching their 20-ounce goal.
But if Freddy and Juan don't see at least 0.28 ounces,
they lose their double-or-nothing wager.
-There's double right there. -Yeah.
-0.61. -0.61.
-Wow. -[Juan] That's awesome.
Right on, guys.
Heck yeah, man.
[narrator] Worth over $1,150.
The Kennedy crew quadrupled their gold recovery.
So a combination of the yardage, the fixes to the plant,
and much better ground.
That ground's a big step in the right direction, right?
-[George] Absolutely. -And you got miles of that.
We're hoping 10, 20, 30%.
I mean, look at us now. It's-- it's...
ridiculous.
I'm gonna have a smile on my face
for quite a few days after this one.
[narrator] Running eight hours a day over the next four weeks,
they could haul in over 29 ounces,
more than enough to keep their gold mining dream alive.
You guys wanna be able to pay back your investment,
actually be able to make a little bit of money out here,
instead of it just being a boys' trip...
-[George] Right. -...and that's gonna make it a possibility.
A heavy weight's been lifted off of my shoulders.
We may actually have a future in this now.
[Freddy] First, get a dump truck.
There's your down payment.
And if you get your yardage up even more,
you're pushing probably $3,000 a day.
$1,000 apiece.
Awesome!
[Juan] The guys were genuinely concerned about their ability
to stay out here and mine.
Now, going from what they had before
to what we were able to get 'em,
you know, this is more than just a possibility.
This could actually be their future.
[Freddy] Well, I couldn't be happier with that second test than I am right now.
They're happy.
I seen Matt smile finally.
So, uh... [chuckles]
So it must be good.
You got miles of creek.
So, with your small plant, you're gonna have to push it.
And when you get enough money saved up with your ground you've got,
get a bigger plant.
That would be a dream.
And, uh, yeah, if we keep doing this right here,
I could see that happening.
[Matthew] I can't thank you guys enough.
Well, you're welcome.
It's been a learning experience
and, uh, we all needed that.
Gentlemen, it was a pleasure.
[Freddy] Absolute pleasure.
-All right, thank y'all. -Good working with you guys.
[Matthew] Now that we've seen more gold,
I'd love to continue doing this.
Um, you know, it's an adventure.
Next season's on, for sure.
[George] This may free us up for a little bit more family time with the kids,
which is very important.
We've been waiting on this day for a long time.
We can actually produce some gold
and, you know, follow our dreams.
Hey, Freddy and Juan. Thank you guys so much.
All the fixes y'all done up, the virgin ground that you found us,
it's holding up pretty good.
We've done some more prospecting for the north side
and the numbers are holding up.
We bought the dump truck. We're moving material seven times faster
than we were before.
We've done a little fine-tuning with the sluice box here and there.
But everything's working good.
[George] Our biggest cleanup so far is an ounce and a quarter.
It was crazy to see that much gold in the sluice box.
We've met our 20-ounce target for sure.
We're sending money back to our investors
and it definitely won't be very long
till Matt, myself, and Robert start actually making some money.
So we really appreciate all the help y'all did.
The sky's the limit.