The Gold Rush Member Fans Think Is Secretly Hiding Something

"Gold Rush" is a reality television franchise that is host to an entire cavalcade of crews and personalities. Following several individual groups as they strike out to find gold, or attempt to turn around existing mining operations, "Gold Rush" and its spin-off shows have traveled across the globe, visiting several locations in North America, South America, and Australia. Of course, gold mining attracts some rather interesting prospectors, and each one has their own ideas as to what is the best way to extract the precious ore.

Todd Hoffman and his crew have been with "Gold Rush" from the very beginning, and they've unfortunately hit several snags on their tenure on the show, like losing the rights to a mine or suffering equipment issues. Parker Schnabel is a young miner who hails from a family dedicated to the pursuit of gold, and fans have watched him slowly become a seasoned veteran at the profession, while Tony Beets hails from the Netherlands and spends most of his time in the Klondike region of Canada. After 12 seasons, fans of "Gold Rush" are starting to have some suspicion about a certain member of the show and have taken to a popular online forum to discuss their thoughts.

Rallying on a subreddit dedicated to all things "Gold Rush," u/mudpupper initiated the conversation with "I really wanted to believe this season Fred was running a real gold mine operation." They went on to describe how it seems fishy that Fred Lewis' team took four days to add dirt to the berms and that whenever they show drone footage of the area, it seems rather small, adding, "This is not a real gold mine folks, just like last year."

This statement caused several others to echo this thought process, with u/P1ckleRiiick stating, "So funny how these networks literally hit gold when they just let you have a glimpse in their life, but once popular, they feel the need to manufacture a story and ruin the show." Redditor u/USArmy51Bravo agreed, believing that the show has "jumped the shark."

Redditor u/Ordinary_Shallot_674 added, "One of his guys on episode 17 was talking about 'Making a living'...I haven't seen Fred Lewis weigh enough gold to cover their costs yet, let alone make a living," while u/LeGeantVert joked that he hasn't seen the crew make enough money to buy a cheeseburger after expenses. Redditor u/Cyprexina is also at the end of their rope when it comes to Fred: "He's just some TV personality and not there to really mine."