Prospecting & Detecting
Persistence Leads to Over a Pound of Gold
April 2019 by Ron Kliewer
I have figured out over the years that the winning combination is hard work, persistence, knowledge, and a little luck. This leads me to describe one of my best finds ever, a “honey hole” of placer gold, if you will.
Fault Zones and Prospects
As we walked back we were just reaching the point of where the faulting should be and there, covered with deep grass, was very faint evidence of an old road going up the mountainside! What was that old road doing there?
California State Panning Championships—Foresthill, CA Heritage Celebration
Here's the kicker—for every lost flake there was a five minute penalty added to the time. Lost gold generally meant you didn't make it past the preliminaries.
California Sniping
I opted for the underwater portion of the river. All I have to do is float down the river and pick large flakes and small nuggets out of cracks and crevices while staying cool in the summer heat.
Using Geologic Publications to Discover Collecting Sites
I understand that a person without geological knowledge could be daunted reading a geological publication. You can pick out the good stuff from a geological publication without a lot of geological knowledge.
Metal Detecting Old Hard Rock Mine Dumps
The type of mine dump that is best for metal detecting are the ones that consist of mixed sizes of rock and are located near some sort of excavation, commonly a shaft or adit. Sometimes the piles located along a trench dug by the miners can be productive as well.
Extracting & Smelting Your Gold
Unfortunately, not all the gold that we prospectors find is pretty, or appealing to the eyes. They are not all nice, bright, shiny nuggets with lots of character that carry high collector value.
The PIGMI—a DIY Crevice Tool
I’ve had great success using it to gather gold from crevices. I’d like to share the design with all of you gold miners reading this article and hope that you get as much satisfaction building and using it as I did.
Subscription Required:
The Bawl Mill
• Our Readers Say
• Ask The Experts - Is there a Forest Service camping limit for mining claims?
• Ask The Experts - Should I be focusing on uranium and thorium?
• Ask The Experts - What is this sample worth?
• Ask The Experts - Need help finding production records
• How To File A Mining Claim
• Back to Basics--Finding Gold With a Pan and a Sluice
• Gold Prospecting for Better or Worse: The Superbowl Nugget
• Revisiting The Old Mini Patch
• Preserving the True History of the Ivanhoe
• Carr Fire Gold
• Secrets of Successful Prospecting
• Melman on Gold & Silver
• Mining Stock Quotes and Mineral & Metal Prices
