Reaper Nation’s wasting no time springing into action.

Really, I want to get two people in the water today.
Myself and Andy.
Prospect the hole.
Make sure it’s worth bringing the crawler in.
I don’t have any time to wait.
Okay, start it up.

So, the mission for today is to find ground that’s good for the crawler.
Some ground would be okay for a diver to jump down there and poke around on, but for my crawler, it might be a nightmare.
So, what I’m looking for right now is flat ground loaded with gold with light overburden.
If there’s a couple feet of overburden, it won’t work for the crawler.

I’ve got to make a special dive hole all the time for my brother Andy, aka Fat Boy, you know, because you just can’t fit in a normal hole like everybody else.
Chip that for a little bit.
Did he just jam?
He did.

Came off my wrist.
No, it didn’t.
It wasn’t on your wrist.
Let’s see the video.
I can’t believe we lost the chipper.
First hole too, man.

There you go.
Good job.
Good job, Chris.

Hell yeah.
Look at that.
Okay, let’s get this thing underneath the water.

So normally I use my chipper, but I dropped my chipper on the bottom.

Trying to bob it up and down at the last second.
Push it up underneath the ice that way.

Okay.

Okay, here we go.
We got it.
Okay, push it in.
I think I did.
There you go.
Give me a second.
Hold that truck.

First time seizing.
I’m going to get down there and kill it.
How is that?
Is that good?

My brother’s going down first.
He’s already testing out the hot water.
He already burnt his for good.
I’m telling you, man, I want to have children in the future.
That’s too hot.
You already got one.
You’re good.

You ready, Jake?
Yeah, I’m ready.
Good.
Good.
My chipper back up.

First time of the season, baby.
I’m glad he’s going down first.

Everything good, Jay?
It’s great.
How’s the ground look down there, Jay?

We’re on a beautiful cobble field.
Everything looks good.
Lots of big rocks.
That’s good.
Untouched or what?
Untouched.
That’s what I like to hear.

Okay, idle up.
Let’s see what we got.
Idle up.
How’s the ground look, Jay?
I don’t know yet.
Looks like deep overburden.
Couple clay layers on the top layer.

That’s good.
Jay, is it worth it?
No, it is not.
It’s mostly fine gold.
I don’t see any big chunky pieces.

I don’t know if this is going to be good ground for my crawler.
I really hoped I was going to see more gold than this.

Buddy, that’s only one section of the hole.
We still got a lot more to go.
Move wherever you want, Jay.
Keep going.

He’s only worked one area so far.
He has to do a complete 360 on this entire hole.
I’ve been in lots of spots like this too, where the whole hole was garbage except for one corner, and then I made 30, 40 ounces in one corner.
Prospecting.
It’s the name of the game.

Is your air and everything good?
Your hot water?
How’s the ground down there?
It’s three inches underneath the overburden, but then it goes to three feet.

Gambling on a new expensive piece of equipment, wise guy Chris Kelly is still on the hunt for the right ground to make it pay off.
Hey, sir, you think this would be good enough ground for the crawler?

My crawler’s not going to work here.
I didn’t like the gold.
Too deep of overburden.
I don’t like it.
I say we move.

Well, let me go down and check the other side of the hole.
Then if it’s garbage, we’ll leave.
Yeah.
Coming up.

All right, Jay.
Well, first day of diving could be going better.
For the crawler to work, I need good pay streaks, flat ground, and very little overburden.
That’s not happening so far.
If we brought the crawler down here, it would be screwed.

This season, gold’s not going to be enough.
I need to give my crawler the best chance to operate correctly.
So I need to get into a better spot, less overburdened, hopefully more gold.
When I get down there and prospect it, if it’s not worth it, we’re leaving.

Andy’s going to jump down, prospect the rest of the spot, see what there is.
If we don’t find good ground for the crawler to work, by the time it gets here, the whole planet’s going to fall apart.
You like that?
We’re good.
Talk to me.
How’s it going?

A hell of a hole you dug there, buddy.
I told you, deep overburdening.
Best looking ground down here though.
I’m going to this right here.

Hey, Jack.
Andy, how’s things going?

Everything’s going good, Jay.
Yeah, I got a little bit now.
Woohoo.
Are you on gold?
I’m on gold, dude.
How much gold do you see?
Nothing to jump up and down about, that’s for sure.
Could be a lot better.

Just going to try this way.
Actually, I’ll come this way.
Well, this is fun.
What the—never mind.
False bottom.
Moving.
Waste of time.
Damn, dude.
Garbage.
Nothing.
That’s too deep.
This is up.

Do you think we should move to another hole?
Yeah, I’d say at this stage.
I know.
I know.
This is what we call in the trade a waste of time.
Whole day has been a waste.
This hole’s a bust, dude.

This is definitely not the way I want to start the season.
I put everything I have left into this plan with the crawler, and if it all falls apart, Reaper Nation will not survive.
We’ll just keep pushing, trying to find perfect ground.
But every day we come up empty will cost a lot of time and money.

Hey, I think you should just finish up.
We pull the system and we start prospecting for a new hole.
Okay.
Let’s get the hell out of here.