The only thing that saved me was talking to a local miner who gave me a “heads up” that private individuals owned all the mineral rights in that section.

All bedrock cracks that appear to be wide and deep should be cleaned out completely, and if you cannot clean it out thoroughly then you should break the bedrock apart…

More Desert Adventures in the Historic Rand Mining District, Southern California

This helps me to see if there is a pattern taking place with where I am finding nuggets, and when I study the map layer with all of my pins marking nuggets, I can drop in new pins where I want to search the next day.