This week "Bering Sea Gold" finishes up season 6 with a strong finale episode titled, "Jackpot." Shawn Pomrenke states at the start of the show that gold mining is a risk and everyday is a gamble. He and his father, Steve Pomrenke, have spent over a million dollars this season and are hoping for massive rewards for their efforts and investment. Last week we saw Vernon Adkison risk and lose everything with the sub-dredge, but he vowed to come back to Nome and dredge another day.
The bluff is a disaster
Shawn has been prospecting 16 and 18 hour days for almost a week at the bluff, but has yet to find any significant amount of gold.
With little time left to the season and temperatures dropping everyday, Shawn reluctantly gives up on his hopes of a massive bluff payout and heads back to town. Staring down a $100,000 loss for the costs of the trip, Shawn returns to the Tomcod claim to try and recoup some of the costs. He comes up with a disappointing 47.2 ounces worth $56,000 for a loss of $44,000 on the bluff gamble.
Shawn catches Derek at his coordinates
While Shawn is driving the Christine Rose back to the Tomcod claim he notices someone has been messing with his GPS machine and vows to catch whoever came onto his property. As he approaches the GPS coordinates it becomes evident that Derek McLarty is the guilty party and the High Noon is dredging where Shawn has worked hard to find a spot that is rich with gold.
Shawn chases Derek away, but not before he scores 79.6 ounces of gold worth $95,000. It's enough to allow Derek to come back next year.
Brad Kelly sells his claim
When Brad Kelly bought a claim for $10,000 this season it seemed like the family was set up to do good things. It turned out the claim was largely barren of gold and was mostly sand with no cobble.
After fighting most of the season and a couple of good cleanups, Brad decides the best thing he can do for his family is sell the claim to someone else. It appears that Brad poured some previously mined gold into the sluice box before he showed the operation to a potential buyer who gives Brad $30,000 for the claim up front and promises to pay $10,000 more next year.
The buyer is told the claim has a lot of cobble on it and is producing gold, but nothing could be further from the truth.
Emily and Zeke get one last cleanup
Emily Riedel has a panic attack while Zeke Tenhoff tries to dive, but soon calms down enough to get back to work. Emily has a lot of burdens in her life and she's finding it hard to pull it together. Zeke dives again and finds good cobble and works the nozzle as much as he can, eventually pulling in 21.1 ounces worth $25,000. The two miners split the rewards and for now seem to put their past differences behind them.
The Pomrenke family has a massive payday
Just below Anvil Mountain, the Pomrenke family have staked their claim and season on an inland mining operation that was paid for mostly by Shawn and the Christine Rose dredging gold on the Tomcod claim.
Steve says he wants to set up his family for the next 25 years. Shawn pans through the night for the final cleanup and the end total is 2,102.5 for their five week season ,worth 2.5 million dollars. It's the biggest cleanup ever seen on "Bering Sea Gold." With the haul from the Christine Rose included, the Pomrenke summer total is 2,626.1 ounces of gold worth a staggering $3,154,098.
