I've been watching the show since it premiered, on and off. Consistently I've seen the dredgers (?) pull in mediocre profit. I'm sure after their expenses they are left with next to nothing. Is mining there even worth it? Or is it possible for it to be a payday, but the dredgers are so caught up in their petty dramas they're missing the mark?
shareThen again, discovery and its sponsors probably pay them, but I can't see it being that much.
shareI make a good living mining gold offshore Nome. But I'm one of perhaps 20 people that are able to do so. And I make only a little more than I could doing other types of work that I'm qualified for.
You are correct that the vast majority of people either barely break even or lose money. Most would be far better off if they would just stay home and work as a greeter at Walmart.
There are a few important aspects to an important operation. Most important is having good leases. The best leases are carryovers from the 1960's lease sale, so newcomers are not going to have them unless they pay a very high price. A few of the 1999 leases have been pretty good. The leases that people couldn't make money on were re-issued in the 2011 lease sale.
Two other important aspects are good equipment and a good crew. Good equipment does not mean expensive, it means appropriate for the task, efficient both to operate and to maintain. A good crew is typically one that are owners/operators, very few people make good money working for someone else. A good crew not only owns their own equipment, but can repair almost every aspect of it themselves. A good crew works hard and as a team. A good crew is typically very small, one to four people.
I've seen many millions of dollars spent on poorly designed operations from self-proclaimed "experts" and others. Most of that money is never recouped, and very little is applied optimally. What annoys me is how all this money is spent with so little research and trusting untrustworthy spenders that have no track record of success. Whereas when I try to find investors to expand my successful operation, no one is interested in my measly 30% IRR because so many delusional liars are promising 60% or higher IRR, of course they never deliver.
I think it is correct to say that more money has been spent trying to mine gold from the Bering Sea than the value of the gold mined.
http://safonatt.com/estimating-nome-dredge-gold-production/
Yeah, even to a layman like me I can't see many people being successful. I can't believe how ridiculous some of the people on the show are, it probably makes all the rest of you miners look bad. Thanks for the reply, love to learn from an actual miner :)
shareI know of dozens of Nome dredgers that are not coming back this year. They can make better and more reliable income elsewhere.
The show is a joke to us. Not only do the editors change the timeline around, they contrive these ridiculous scenarios. There is, occasionally, some really good footage by some skilled camera operators, but for the most part they are required to film people yelling at each other.
Thats one thing that has always drove me nuts about the show, the timeline. You never know what month it is or anything, it could be 2 episodes in and it sounds like half the season is over already. I would enjoy the show much more if they showed me what month it was for each episode.
shareYou never know what month it is or anything, it could be 2 episodes in and it sounds like half the season is over already
Yes, like the other poster said, they heavily edit the show, even using video from prior seasons and mixing it in when it suits them.
They could do one episode a week or two, and stick to a documentary style, but they have to cater the show to the people that buy the stuff advertisers advertise. Like all other shows of this nature, it often makes for very dumb television. Nice scenery shots and video work though.
I'm sure certain areas are profitable if you have the right setup, crew, and knowledge to succeed. The main problem is that the entire area has been heavily mined for over 100 years now, so whatever easy gold there was is long since gone.
Finding a claim with a profitable amount of gold just gets harder and harder year after year and the price just goes up.