Bad luck runs deep this season for the Holy Roller of Gold Rush — and tonight’s episode is no different as Todd Hoffman suffers yet another setback and ends up at loggerheads with son Hunter.
Big rocks in the Golden Gulch paydirt are making an ungodly racket as they hit the steel drum of the trommel and, as local Colorado news reported, noise is THE big problem for Todd after facing the ire of residents who tried to halt his sluicing and mining.
The issues with regulations and compliance have shut Todd down several times this season. He can’t afford another setback, which could cost him a ton of money, as he’s already bleeding from earlier machine problems.
In our exclusive clip, Todd gets the bad news from his crew that the noise is right on the line for being too loud. They have to shut the plant down while trying to solve the problem, but that means more money lost, no gold recovered and one irate group of guys. Especially Todd’s son Hunter, who doesn’t take kindly to being told to cease running his machine.
He says: “We’ve put weeks into building this thing, and we finally get it running…it’s kind of pissing me off!” He then shouts at his dad: “Why are you shutting off the plant? I’m hitting gold right now!”
Todd faces his son and it’s evident how angry Hunter is at the interruption of their workflow. Todd tells him: “Because we’ve had enough troubles with the neighbors. We got to get this thing quieter. I’m just trying to make sure that it’s not too loud for the neighbors, that’s all. I don’t want any more complaints.”
Hunter seems to not care, and asks: “Why are we worrying about that? They’re gonna complain no matter what. We keep shutting down for these little things. We’re in the legal limit, I want to run the plant. I want to get gold.”
Todd replies: “Let’s just fix it and get running.” Tonight’s episode will show how the Hoffman crew creatively silences the noise their machinery is making — but will Hunter’s temper rear up one more time?
Gold Rush airs Friday at 9/8c on Discovery.