Prospecting & Detecting
Becoming a Successful Detectorist
May 2017 by Rod Fitzhugh
During my adventures I’ve learned a few key best practices that help me to consistently find gold nuggets with my detectors. You can apply many of these best practices to any type of prospecting. These best practices are really common sense; however, they are easy to neglect.
Resurrecting An Old Hard Rock Mine
There were nice sections of vein material at the end of several drifts, like they just stopped work one day and walked away.
What, Where and How for the New Prospector
How to go about the entire process of prospecting is a big question. The answer comes down to research and preparation.
Salted Mining Properties—How to Properly Evaluate a Claim
Sometimes there are good mining claims on the market available to purchase, but there are also folks out there who are willing to take your money under false pretenses. Don’t fool yourself into thinking that these wolves in sheep’s clothing are few and far between.
The Value of Old Patches
Nuggets make for the best memories and this patch was just adding to mine. In the hours of daylight I had left, I worked from that nugget to the bottom of the patch, collecting eight more nuggets.
So Where's The Gold?
...we finally got back to this exploration effort. The old works there were up above the old camp, which was very significant in size.
Just One More Time
We chose this particular area because an old channel had run here at one point and had been heavily worked on top of a mountain hilltop. Erosion patterns cut deeply on each side, leaving the channel exposed. The erosion cut sharply, dropping into ravines far below.
Rediscovering Placerville, California Part II
To get to the gold, the miners had to remove the shale pieces and stack them on the sides while sluicing the remaining material through their boxes.
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• Sampling, Hydro-Shocking & Cleaning Quartz-Gold Specimens
• My Lucky Thirteen Nuggets
• Crushing, Grinding and Pulverizing
• A Break in the Weather
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• Melman on Gold & Silver
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• Over The Divide: Miles John Mitchell
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