Bayfield Ventures Sits Alongside Major Rainy Rivers Resources
By Peter Fitzhenry
June 20, 2007
About a year ago Bayfield Ventures’(TSXV:BYV) President Don Huston began staking ground in the Rainy Rivers area of Ontario. One full turning of the calendar later, he’s pleased to be holding claim blocks neighboring those of Rainy Rivers Resources’ (TSXV:RR), a TSX Venture-listed company trading for $5.20 per share. President Huston explains, “Rainy Rivers have since last summer decided to increase their land holding in the Rainy Rivers area too and they find now that they have a neighbor in Bayfield and I think that bodes very, very well for us in the future if they are to develop this ore body to production.”
Huston’s strategy has paid off. The ore body he refers to has been identified and drilled by Rainy Rivers. In early November 2006, Rainy River Resources began reporting assays from its targets to the tune of 23.5m of 10.0 g/t gold and 22.6m of 17.0 g/t gold amongst others. An NI 43-101 report for the Tait Property in Claim Block A at Rainy River, listed on Sedar.com on March 20, 2007 stated, “of considerable significance is the gold mineralization reported on the adjoining Rainy River Resources Ltd. property.” Rainy River, in Huston’s words, “have got themselves an ore body.” And their stock price reflects it. Rainy River’s stock took a large hike in November 2006 from $2.50 per share to over $6.50 in early December before settling comfortably into the $5.00 neighborhood.
Bayfield’s Rainy River properties are situated on a known greenstone belt, which is also host to the Rainy Rivers Resources deposit. Huston explains, “We adjoin Rainy River on its east boundary. We’re about 2000 feet from where they’re drilling now and we adjoin them on the south and the southwest about ¾ of a mile from where they’re drilling now. We are on either end of them on-strike. We’re in the same major volcanic greenstone belt. We are following up on what we think are very similar structures that Rainy River Resources and their precursor, Nuinsco has seen. We think that we have as much opportunity as they do.”
Bayfields’ Rainy River properties consist of 131 hectares at the 50% owned A claim block, 192 hectares at the 100% owned B claim block and 800 hectares at the C claim block in the northwestern region of Ontario. The other 50% interest of Block A is being earned by Pender Gold Corp. On Block A, both Pender Gold and Bayfield can earn 50% each by paying $41,000 and issuing 100,000 shares each over 4 years to Perry English and Rubicon Minerals Corp. Both companies must pay a net smelter return royalty of 1.5%.
Bayfield Ventures will earn 100% interest in the Block B claim by paying $90,000.00 and issuing 160,000 shares over a three year working option term. A 2% net smelter return (NSR) is payable to the optioner with Bayfield retaining the right to buy back ½ of the NSR. Bayfield also has an option to earn 100% interest in the C Block Claim.
Huston predicts that the next phase of diamond drilling at the A, B and C blocks will begin about July 5th after the July 1st long weekend. “We’re anticipating a 10,000-12,000 foot drill program consisting of probably 12-14 holes that are spread over the 3 properties A, B and C…We’ll start on the B block.”
The last winter has been busy on the B block. “We’ve done a fair amount of work now this winter, since January. We’ve spent about $400,000 in ground preparation. We’ve established grids. We’ve done geophysics being magnetometer and horizontal loop electromagnetic surveys and we also did overburden drilling.”
Bayfield’s last winter’s program duplicated the successful methodology used by Rainy River Resources and its predecessor, Nuinsco. The results? Huston analyzed the winter’s conclusions, “We are very, very pleased with the gold grain counts that have been seen in our assaying in many locations on our Rainy River Properties. It’s not just one little assay or anything like that. The most intriguing thing here is that, we did the geophysics and now we’ve done the overburden drilling, we have gold green counts in the tills and they are coincidental with the geophysical targets which indicates geological structures and cross-cutting faults in the same places that the gold grain counts are found and I’m talking high gold grain counts—plus 1000 ppm and that’s quite substantial numbers. We have very bonafide, very real drill targets to look after on Blocks A,B and C.”
The Rainy River properties are Bayfields’ focus and Huston says he’s sitting on money that has to be spent. “I’ve got $600,000 to $800,000 that must be spent here in Canada very shortly. So I’m aggressive at getting at it. We’re going to work now.”
I’m expecting to see serious investor activity on the stock price as drill results begin to come in on the property. Bayfield stock is currently trading at $0.58 (June 21, 2007) with just 17 million shares outstanding. The low for the year was $0.35; the high was $0.80.
This article is intended for informational purposes only and should not be considered as a recommendation to buy stock in any company. Although the author has made efforts to verify the information contained herein, the accuracy of all the information cannot be guaranteed. As always, it is recommended that you commit considerable time to completing your due diligence before buying stocks in publicly traded companies. A fee has been paid for the creation and distribution of this article. |
