All language subtitles for Gold Rush - S02E05 - Drill or Die HDTV-720p

It's the Hoffman crew's second season, mining for gold.

We're ready to go.

Again, they are risking it all to strike it rich in the frozen north.

If we don't get gold this time, we're in trouble.

To get to the gold this season, they have to mine the Klondike way.

They're battling a sea of black mud.

Oh!

To find out if there is any gold on their new plane.

Come, frickin' nervous.

Down south.

At porky fine creek.

Holy cow.

Dakota Fred is hit with devastating news.

Our house is gonna go underwater.

And 16-year-old Parker Schnubble desperately seeks.

Come on!

A new source of gold.

Oh, what's that?

At Quartz Creek in the Klondike.

It's 45 days into the 150-day mining season.

It's like a big pile of mud, but I can see a plan starting to form.

Oh, we'll find out.

Dave Turin pushes endless amounts of black sludge off of the Hoffman dig site with the D8 Dozer.

We gotta do what we gotta do.

I don't know what else to do till we get out of here.

If Dave can remove eight feet of this mud, he should get to the gravel layer that they hope holds millions of dollars worth of gold.

Yeah, it's working pretty good.

I mean, I'm getting the job done.

The Hoffman crew already wasted $5,000 stripping an area on the claim they later found out had been mined 60 years ago.

Just frustrating.

Now, on new ground, they have won the fight against centuries old permafrost.

There we go.

They ripped it up.

That is a big chunk of ice.

So that it can melt in the summer sun.

But this new ground is untested.

The Hoffman crew has no idea if there is gold here and it's dangerous work.

This soil in the Yukon, I've never seen like it.

You see that sinkhole?

That's not good.

Easy.

Easy.

The black muck just above the pay gravel melts unevenly, creating holes across the dig site.

The D8, the only machine they've got to get down to the gold, is sinking in an eight foot ditch.

Greg Remsberg gets Dave's SOS call.

Dave's stuck and I gotta go pull him out.

Let's go.

Come on, let's go.

Right there, whoa, whoa.

Right there.

Pull back.

Pull back.

Pull back.

Woo!

Ah.

I'm gonna go back a little more.

Yeah.

Right there.

Go ahead.

What a f***ing day.

On a dig site 100 yards by 50, there may be 15,000 tons of muck to move before they hit pay gravel.

What a f***ing day.

On a dig site 100 yards by 50, there may be 15,000 tons of muck to move before they hit pay gravel.

This is terrible to push with.

It's too soft.

What happens if it happens again?

Yeah.

I'm with you.

How are we gonna deal with this mess?

A third of the way into the season.

Every day is priceless.

Before the crew spends more time risking their lives clearing the muck, they want proof that the gold is there.

Freaking old.

Yeah, it's dangerous.

It's ridiculous.

Show me something.

Yeah.

That's tangible.

That's evidence.

You know, give me something.

Look, get on the same page.

Okay, we're not gonna move ahead unless everybody's on the same page.

Well, he better have something.

I believe that we're gonna be able to strip that and run it.

Based on what?

I'm with Greg.

I don't go off of Felix.

I'm sorry, Jack, but show me something, man.

You can't just say, let's go on a feeling.

Last season in Porcupine Creek, Jack was convinced that at the bottom of his prized glory hole, millions of dollars in gold was sitting on bedrock.

We know it's there.

All we gotta do is get it.

The crew spent all summer and $250,000 on Jack's hunch.

But they pulled only $20,000 worth of gold out of the glory hole.

Last year we spent the whole summer digging on a hole based on a feeling, a gut feeling.

And then we start stripping here on a feeling.

I agree with these guys.

You know, before we start moving, before we go doing something else, I'd like us.

I'd like to see the gold before I start going after it.

Well, here's a deal, Dad.

If these guys aren't on board, I mean, we got a serious problem.

Let's go.

I just don't want to be Willie Milley gold miners again this year.

We did that last year and lost our ass.

I need to see something.

I need to feel it.

It has to be tangible.

It has to be something I can see, feel, and touch.

You know, it took us a whole season last year until we finally got into stuff.

Then we had it taken away from us and I don't want to do that again.

Oh, we got an issue.

I got to take care of it.

I got to go south and take care of it.

The Hoffman crew has laid down the law.

They are not going to risk their lives until they are sure there is gold under the eight feet of muck.

To get the proof he needs, Todd needs health.

He heads to see a Klondike miner who's worked the black muck for 20 years.

I need him.

We'll just see what happens here.

This ought to be good.

600 miles south at Porcupine Creek.

Dakota Fred plans to run dirt on an untested machine.

His son Dustin has nicknamed the beast.

The beast is pretty powerful, so I don't know what's going to happen.

So we're about to find out if it works.

Fire it up!

Ever since Dakota Fred removed the Hoffman's old wash plan?

Look at that thing out here!

The Dakota boys have been dialing in their new D-rocker.

It's here now and we're going to put it in the action.

They're banking on the D-rocker to extract the gold from Porcupine Creek dirt.

I need to see some gold keep my bills running.

After 40 days, Fred and his son Dustin are finally ready to run dirt for the first time.

Branding the beast.

This is how Dakota boys morph.

When fire water pump up?

I think it's going to work just perfect, Fred.

You want to take a look?

I think I'm ready to run dirt right now.

I'm going to just throw some in there just see what's going on.

See how it acts, see if it's doing what it's supposed to do.

Fred loads his first bucket of dirt of the season.

The D-rocker is designed to wash gold-rich dirt from boulders.

The material flows along the wavy deck, while jets wash the rocks.

Any gold falls into the slewboxes below.

But, Fred has never run dirt through a machine like this before.

The Dakota boys have no idea if the D-rocker can handle the large Porcupine Creek boulders.

I think it's going to fill up and then just start falling off.

I hope.

Hello!

After a tense moment, the Dakota boys new D-rocker is working perfectly.

This is awesome.

This is a great sense of accomplishment right now.

It really feels good, exhilarating.

I feel charged right now.

Up ahead.

Todd seeks help from a Klondike legend to locate the gold at Kort's Creek.

Dude, I don't know what I'm going to do.

Parker Schnabel wages war against century-old mining equipment.

Look at that beast.

And Dakota Fred and his son Dustin start.

Hit one brick wall after another.

I just never seen so many things go wrong.

In the Klondike, Todd Hoffman is on the hunt for information.

To crush a crew rebellion at Kort's Creek, he has to prove that under eight feet of thick mud, there's gold.

There's an office right there.

Todd's brought Dave to meet neighboring miner, Dutchman Tony Beats.

Hey, my name's Todd.

Yeah, hold on, I figured that one.

There you go.

Tony Beats.

Tony?

Good to meet you.

Hey, Tony.

Hey.

Tony runs Tamarack Mine, a multi-million dollar gold mining corporation.

I got to get some help from this guy.

You know, I'd rather do it once and do it right.

This guy knows how to do it right.

Todd wants to show Dave Torren that it's worth risking everything to get down to the goal.

That's fun to watch.

The moment of truth.

I'd like to have a week like that.

For Tony, this is a bad week.

220 ounces of gold worth about $350,000.

I'd be pretty happy with 220 ounces.

Tony has gold mining down to a science.

This is as part of what we got.

This is not all of it that came out of it.

Like the hoppins, Tony also fights a sea of black muck.

But he still pulls thousands of ounces of gold out from under it every year.

While Dave checks out the mine.

Todd and Tony meet privately.

Todd wants to find out how he can convince his crew that there's gold at Courts Creek.

Well, okay, here's the deal.

I'm down there on Courts Creek.

I'm starting to strip.

What are you doing stripping if you don't know what's on the needle?

Drill it.

See this, what do you want?

Tony's mining corporation is thriving because it sticks to one golden rule.

No drilling test holes, no digging.

This is what it looks like when you drill it.

That's what's in the ground every three, four feet.

Oh, great.

There's no dreaming in this kind of business.

Well, Tony, dude, I'm glad you told me this because I'm going to friggin drill it.

It's there, yeah.

You got to get that.

Now you got to go drill.

Let's go.

Appreciate it.

Drillings number one.

No drilling, no digging.

Never mind the stories the neighbors have, drill.

Otherwise, they'll end up with the same kind of season as they had last year.

I got some confirmation on some things.

He said, don't even touch the ground unless you drill it.

And so, you know what?

That's what I'm going to do.

600 miles south at the big nugget mine.

16-year-old Parker Schnabel has a new spot to mine.

I think my grandpa is kind of saving this area for a special time.

And I guess this is a special time.

Just six weeks ago, Parker finished 11th grade

for his summer vacation.

He's taking over the big nugget mine from his 91-year-old grandpa, John.

He's going to make thousands of dollars every day.

But the big nugget mine is in trouble.

If he doesn't turn a profit, we won't run next year.

Already this season, Parker has 10 ounces of gold worth around $16,000.

I must be doing something right.

But his running costs so far are double that.

And the gold has dried up.

I've got everything I need, except dirt with gold in it.

Parker is desperate to find a new source of gold and save the mine.

My grandpa has been talking about all the buckets to buckets for probably like five years.

He's like, oh, if I want some easy money, I just go dig the buckets out.

That's what he kept telling me.

So, we'll see if he was right.

The buckets are part of a 100-year-old dredge, a primitive excavator

that dug out gold-rich paydirt.

But a flood 100 years ago washed away everything but the heavy iron buckets.

The snobbles think the flood forced the old miners to leave behind a lot of gold.

I'm really excited to get the buckets out and see what's down there.

And if we're right, it should be pretty good.

And if we're wrong, we'll lose 10 grand.

Running the 330 excavator can burn up to a thousand dollars of diesel a day.

John Schnabel has waited 25 years to find out what's under these buckets.

Just trying to see what's down underneath there, huh?

We live in expectation.

But he's going to have to wait a little longer.

It's been sitting in there a long time and it doesn't want to come out, I don't think.

Maybe with a cable on our big loader.

Grandpa John jumps in the loader, while Parker attaches a thick cable to the heaviest part of the old bucket system.

The gear wheel.

Nope, not even close.

Parker's steel cable is rated to pull 10 tons, but it snaps under the weight of the buckets.

It didn't even jiggle.

It must all be connected.

Yeah, I think the big gear has a shaft and a sprocket that the chain has aroused.

Gotta dig it out, you can't pull it out.

Bad news for Parker.

The more fuel he has to burn, the more gold he has to find.

I wish that wouldn't just came right out, but that'd be too easy.

Less than a mile away at Porcupine Creek.

Yeah, I can hear you.

Fred gets a call from his wife back home in North Dakota.

Holy cow.

Where are you now?

I think our satellite is going down.

Did I got news at our house?

Is it going to go on to water in about three or four days?

I'm not North Dakota.

Where Fred lives in the offseason is facing the worst flooding in 40 years.

Fred's home is right in the middle of the flood zone.

We lose pretty much just about everything we got.

Talk to my wife.

I ask her if I should just go ahead and leave here.

And she insists that I do not.

She said, Fred.

We've invested just about everything we got, anything we could afford into this operation.

She said, stay there, make some gold.

It's just tough.

Really tough.

Fred now needs to hit the mother load at Porcupine Creek, more than ever.

In the Klondike, Todd Hoffman is back from his meeting with neighboring minor Tony Beats.

The guy Tony today confirmed it for sure.

There's no way around it.

I'm going to drill.

It's been 24 hours since the Hoffman crew demanded proof that gold lies under the thick black muck at Quartz Creek.

A little meeting here.

Todd has a plan.

First off, we got to get drilling immediately.

This is what Tony told me today.

Don't even look at it unless you drill it.

What do you think, Greg?

It's drilling. It makes a lot of sense.

It's going to be pretty awesome stripping ground when we know it's at the bottom.

So, Dave.

So I'm satisfied.

Might as well start.

This is our last shot.

We need some hope.

We're pushing mud.

We need some hope.

Let's do it.

With the whole team behind drilling,

Jack has no option but to fall in line.

I do agree with the guys.

I do agree that we need to drill it.

So we aren't wasting a bunch of money or time.

We've been aimlessly moving dirt here for the past week

and spending the equivalent of what a driller is going to cost us.

And right now, we can actually have some direction.

No more mud will be stripped

until drill tests pinpoint exactly where the gold is.

That is, if there is any.

600 miles south at Porcupine Creek.

After six grueling weeks of prep, Dakota Fred's derocker is finally working.

Now he can start feeding at gold-rich dirt.

All right.

For that, he uses his aging 980 loader.

Hello, baby, let's start.

At least that's the plan.

I need to read up on the old 580.

I think it's a brake problem.

To find out why the brakes aren't working,

Fred and Son Dustin have to take off the half-tun wheel.

We have another chain there.

I've got one that's one right here.

We could use for that.

Come on now.

One chainset.

Coming up, coming up.

All yours.

Joe.

That would be interesting to see what 28-year-old brakes look like.

Right now, I see maybe maybe three-sixteenths of an inch of lining left.

So those are very, very worn.

Just about the time that we get finished with our derocker

and getting everything set up with water and everything ready to mine.

We get the bad news that the brakes on this loader just will not hold.

Just can't operate that way.

Especially when you're on grades and slopes and ramps,

things of that nature, it's impossible.

I've got some bearings here I want to protect from getting dirt all over.

Fred can't run the loader without new brake pads.

And without the loader, Fred can't run his derocker.

This particular machine is an absolute key part of our operation.

No loader.

No gold.

Across the creek at Big Nugget,

Parker Schnabel is spending close to $1,000 on fuel a day.

He's sure there's gold under these century-old rusty mining buckets.

All we need is one of those little buckets full of gold,

and I'd have a beach house in the Hamptons.

Parker plans to fish the buckets out, but it's hard to fish

when you don't know what you're trying to catch.

I think I need to see what I'm doing.

It's tough not to hook onto the buckets or whatever is down there

without seeing what's under the water.

Once we get the thing pumped out,

we'll be able to get all this stuff out of here.

So we're hopeful that once we get the buckets out the layer of ground underneath them

is unworked ground that's built up over a long period of time.

I need to flop this up over and lay it up against this rock chair.

Oh, damn it! It broke!

Parker works half a day and burns half a tank of diesel.

And manages to pull out half of the buckets.

Hey, you got it!

That's quite a piece of iron.

We can send that to an antique dealer for a dollar of pound would be rich.

There must be an awful lot of iron.

That lift system had a lot more than this lift.

How far do you think it is to bend rock?

It'll be below the bucket.

I don't know. The buckets, I've got probably eight feet down there

under the water level right now.

And I'm still not hitting the bottom of that last chain.

Your curiosity is getting to the point where you wonder who's any gold in it, huh?

I can't get, no, I just can't get the buckets out.

Well, you just keep working at it.

Parker really needs to dig up his gold,

or he'll bankrupt his grandpa's mind.

At the Quartz Creek Gold Claim,

a drilling expert has just arrived.

Yeah, it's kind of a crazy looking little vehicle, but I feel pretty confident about this.

In the Bombadier drill rig,

is Henry Renning.

And you get through there, okay?

Well, you have to be good.

I'm going to put a hole right here.

For 20 years, he's drilled for gold on the largest claims in the Klondike.

Todd needs his expertise to find out how deep the muck is,

and if there's paint gravel beneath it.

So now Henry's going to go ahead and drop the hole here.

We're going to do this right this year.

We're going to drill.

We're going to do everything possible.

We're going to get advice from all the guys that are successful on this creek.

And that's what we're doing.

We're drilling.

Henry sinks hole number one into the black muck.

To locate the gold,

he drills down through the black muck in permafrost,

adding sections of drill bit five feet at a time

to get down to the paint gravel and bedrock.

The dirt sample should pinpoint

whether there's gold under this part of the claim.

After drilling each hole,

Henry collects the dirt into buckets to be penned for gold later.

Oh, we're going to find out if we're going to be eating steak

or if we're going to be eating hot dogs.

What's your guess on our pay gravel right in there?

Five feet of gravel and two feet of bedrock.

The first hole indicates that beneath the muck

there's five feet of pay gravel.

If this layer is even across the claim,

there could be 8,000 tons of gold-bearing gravel

to mine at Court's Creek.

The gold is just under a feet

and still a lot of work to do,

but it's within reach.

Henry moves on to his next test hole.

Kind of curious now is what's going on

going to find in real curious.

Jack was not a fan of the drilling plan,

but two days ago he had to give in to the crew's demand.

This is 18 bucks a foot.

It's exciting, but I could hear the things continued going on

in my brain.

The Hoffman crew can only afford 12 holes

at a cost of $4,000.

Money well spent.

If Henry can prove there's gold on Court's Creek.

What he's going to do is tell us how deep we got a dig

to get the bedrock.

I mean, this is all great.

This is a tool we didn't have last year.

It would have been nice to drill instead of guessing

and going by old gold floor or how deep it was.

This guy would tell you straight up.

The crew watches nervously as Henry digs towards bedrock.

Every foot of pay gravel on the way down

is potentially full of gold.

Henry, what does it sound like when you had bedrock?

Oh, it's a kind of bedrock.

Sometimes you get soft bedrock and then you don't hear

any stones grinding.

Okay.

Well, we're looking for counts of bedrock.

The gravels will be rounded and the bedrock will be sharp.

He did.

I don't know how many shafts in the ground,

but that's pretty cool.

It is still going down.

See, this is all sharp stones, eh?

Yeah.

He's through the gravel.

You know what, it's got sharp edges.

They're breaking up bedrock.

Henry, what do you think?

What's your prediction?

Oh, I think this hole is a good chance.

They're probably nine feet down as

where the bedrock is as well.

I'm guessing.

Oh, you know, this is good ground.

I'm just sure of it.

But I've been sure of a lot of things.

But I think you're going to find out I'm right.

Henry has another 10 holes to drill across the claim.

A hoppin crew won't know if they have gold

until he pans each test sample.

600 miles south.

Dakota Fred heads to Haines, Alaska

to order parts for his broken down 980 loader.

See you later.

Take care.

It's also a chance to find out from his wife

just how bad the flooding is back home in mind on.

Hello.

Hello, hun. How you doing?

Pretty bad day here today.

Of course, we're expecting seven raw feet of water.

Wow.

Seven feet.

Fred's home has three feet of water in it.

Soon, it will be inundated like the rest of my nut,

now declared a disaster area.

Gonna be just like New Orleans.

Once it breaches, you can't stop it.

Yep.

What should I do?

Fred has invested his life savings in porcupine creek.

Now he has a gut-wrenching decision.

Go home to save his house and everything he owns.

Or stay and find gold.

What do you think?

I mean, I know we got a ton of money invested in this thing.

We got to do something this year.

I wouldn't come home yet.

Well, hun, I love you.

I love you too, baby.

And hang on.

I will.

OK, honey.

I'll love you. Bye.

Bye.

Bye.

As long as there is a chance of finding gold,

Fred is staying at porcupine creek.

At the Big Nugget mine, Parker Schnabel hasn't run dirt now for five days.

He's still trying to pull ancient gold-mining buckets out of what he's convinced is gold-rich dirt.

I wish they weren't that deep, because not only can we not get them out,

but you know, everything above those buckets has been worked.

Everything from that bucket level up is garbage.

Parker has given up hope of getting out all of the buckets,

but he shifted enough of them to get to the pockets of dirt under them.

I'm just going to keep digging alongside of them and haul it to the plant

because it should be good dirt.

Finally, he can get to the material he's banking on being rich in gold.

If I work a late night, I could get enough dirt haul to run tomorrow.

Parker must unearth at least six ounces of gold worth nine and a half thousand dollars

just to cover his fuel costs.

But he's hoping this old spot will yield a whole lot more.

I've got a plan. I'm going to execute my plan.

Simple as that.

North and Quartz Creek.

The hoppins are in their second day of drill testing.

That's a lot of mud, Dave.

Driller Henry Renek has already dug six test holes and has six more to go.

Hey, Henry, you got a name for your little rig?

No, I can't pick up on about a little red mama.

It's more orange, though.

Well, not when it was new, wasn't a small little red mama.

The last six holes will be up in the tree line above the dig site.

This area is Todd's backup plan.

Just in case there's no gold under the black muck.

It might be an ancient creek that came down.

So I want to prove it, see if it's, see if that is the case.

We'll get Henry out here to drill a few more holes out into that bowl area.

But me and Dave are kind of thinking that that might be a special place.

If Todd's right, then there could be another pay streak of gold on the Quartz Creek claim.

30 feet up in dense forest.

That is, if Henry can get his drill up there.

Todd has made the decision to drill these six holes at a cost of $2,000.

If Henry can't hit pay gravel, it will be a waste of money.

Hey, Henry, what's the best hole you ever came up with?

How much gold in one hole?

$30 for one hole.

Wow.

Hopefully he'll hit some gravel.

This is good, though.

Look, he hit gravel right there at eight feet.

That's not that much to move.

Henry has five more holes to drill at the tree line.

Before the Hoffman crew can find out if there's any gold on their claim.

If there is, they'll have to pack up and go home.

Broke.

At Port Gippin Creek, Dakota Fred is still struggling to run dirt.

His 980 loader is crippled, but he refuses to give up.

Until he can get the parts to fix the 980,

his sundust in his force to use the smaller D6 dozer to move pay dirt to the DRocker.

We're about to start running real dirt, so hopefully by the end of the day I'll feel like a minor.

It's finally time for the Dakota boys to find out if they're on the goal.

Just bring it out more material.

Oh, we're about ready to go.

Ready?

Get a gun, Fred.

Let's go.

Yeah, the water's going.

The other great.

Nice and smooth, the perfect rear.

I like that.

Oh, yeah.

That is nice.

Fred is about to lose his house to floods.

He has put his life savings on the line to mine.

He has to find gold now.

With his big loader broken, he has no choice but to fire up the 270 excavator to load dirt into the wash plan.

What now hell's that?

Oh crap.

God.

They're dusting.

Let me holler it.

Dust in!

There!

It won't start.

The 270.

Fred's last hope is dead.

All right.

Dust in.

Yeah, hit that starter again.

You go.

Nothing.

I don't know what to do now.

If this machine is out of operation, we are out of operation.

That's all there is to it.

I mean, this is one of our key pieces of equipment.

Particularly with just two of us here.

It's serious.

Very serious.

If you could hold up that rubber piece right there, I could take that bolt off.

All right.

You got it now.

Oh, this is the problem.

What the deal is with that thing.

It's the starter.

Something's wrong with the starter.

Looks like, uh, hey, we in serious trouble here with this thing.

We just can't do any mining.

It's just absolute dead right now.

There is no place around here to get us any parts for this thing.

I need to go back down the mineot.

I've just never seen so many things go wrong all at once.

It's just a difficult time right now.

House is going under night tonight.

You just wonder how much a guy can take.

After nearly eight weeks, Fred has no goal.

And his home back in North Dakota is about to go under one.

This could be the end for the porcupine creek claim.

At the big nugget mine in southeast Alaska, Parker Schnabel is finally moving the dirt from under the old iron buckets to his washpoint.

He needs at least six ounces of gold or nine and a half thousand dollars to cover his costs.

It has to go for sure whether it's there or not.

He's hoping he is hit the motherload.

We may have wasted ten grand.

Yeah, I'm worried.

But after five hours of running, signs aren't good.

If we ran dirt that high, I mean nuggets in it.

This is where they did.

But right now it's just the pilot nailed it.

In the process dirt, there's a reward for his efforts.

A nugget worth about a hundred bucks, but not much else.

And we didn't make money.

Is there anything left up there?

Not really.

I was down on dead rock.

I don't think it changes anything.

It hasn't changed anything.

Yeah.

Parker's plan hasn't paid off.

The gold he found under the old rusty buckets is worth just $400.

But it took ten days and $10,000 and fuel to get to it.

Eight weeks into his first year in charge, Parker is headed for bankruptcy.

I didn't really prepare myself to lose money this month.

What can you do about it?

Keep working.

At Port's Creek, it's crunch time for the Hoffman crew.

Their dream of striking it rich depends on Henry's drill results.

That's our first hole, right?

Yeah.

Okay.

The pay gravel from the 12 drill holes are in separate buckets.

Henry pens each one individually to determine their gold content.

The first six buckets are from Todd's backup plan, the area in the tree line.

This is basically a snapshot of your future.

God, frickin' nervous.

Hey, Henry, if this hole doesn't turn out good, I might need a hug.

Well, you're a very good chance of finding something.

I'll let you have a look at it, count them out.

Here's that least 15 colors there.

It's not as good as I was hoping.

The first test sample is almost worthless.

Henry pens the dirt from drill hole number two.

This one doesn't even look as good as the other one I don't think.

It's pretty disappointing.

Doesn't look too good.

Not since.

Wow, a little bit better than no better yet.

The first six test holes from the tree line are a bust.

There's almost no gold in the pens.

Disappointed, extremely disappointed.

It's not even a paper that post needs to pay the bills.

Not good.

Not good.

But there are six more.

The second drill test results are from the slippery slope

where the Hoffman's have battled the muck.

If there's no gold in any of these six remaining test holes,

the Hoffman crew is out of business.

All right, but pan real slow.

Remember what I said?

You got a hug.

You got to hug me.

And as the next hole is outrageously rich, do I get a hug?

Dude, you're going to get more than a hug, Henry.

It's going to be the most watch pan you've ever done, Henry.

Oh, how do we roll?

That's a lot of blacks there.

That's a lot of gold.

The dirt from the first hole in the dig site is a hint.

I saw at least 20, 30 pieces of gold in there.

Look at that.

20 to 30 pieces of gold in one pan means the Hoffman crew has hit pay dirt.

It's cheap gold all the way around the top of this pan.

This season is maker break.

The Hoffman crew now knows their claim holds gold.

They know where it is.

And they have plenty of time left in the season to strike it rich.

This is exciting.

There's gold under this ground.

And like Jack said last year, but now I believe it.

We just got to dig it up.

Oh, I definitely have gold fever.

There's no doubt about it.

I caught it last year and I haven't been able to shake it.

It's more than successful.

It's dropped their pan to ask me.

That's priceless.

In a life changing event for all of us.

I'm Christo Doyle, executive producer of Gold Rush.

This time on the Gold Rush after show, the Hoffman crew reveals just how close they were

to a full-fledged mutant at Court's Creek.

And we wanted to have something concrete.

You Pokemon up with a stick and a dirt bike back.

Watch the Gold Rush after show at discovery.com slash Gold Rush after show.