The 3.98 troy ounce monster was recovered utilizing a suction mining machine in a stretch of the Rogue River just downstream of the former site of Gold Ray Dam. The miner who has thus far chosen to remain anonymous, is a long time member of The New 49ers based in Siskiyou County.

Local miner Alan Mash, who owns Mash Detectors, managed to provide MiningRights.org with photos of the specimen and says he was working about 200 yards away from the anonymous miner.

While nothing close to equaling the size of the famous 17 pound Collins Nugget which was discovered on Althouse Creek in the 1850's and holds the size record among Oregon Gold Nuggets, local mining historian Kerby Jackson remarked that this is one of the largest nuggets recovered on the Rogue River near Gold Ray in quite some time.

"What's particularly exciting about this discovery," Jackson says, "is that the area in which this guy was mining was heavily worked back in the early 1980's and was thought to have been pretty well cleaned out of large gold. After local miner Harold Brown took 130 ounces out of that area in two weeks during the early 80's, everyone and their dog was in there after it. This season, I've seen a couple dozen nuggets come from that portion of the river that have not traveled too far at all. This and the other nice pieces of coarse gold recovered in that stretch of the river of late indicate that there is still new gold eroding from a lode somewhere in the vicinity of Gold Ray. Basically, the placer deposits in that section of the river are being re-charged. I think we'll see more of these larger nuggets coming from this portion of the Rogue in the future".

Experienced miners working this section of the river have been reporting good results for much of the summer season, with some miners reporting daily averages nearing a half ounce per day.