The right ground balance setting for the conditions you are working is critical. If your detector isn’t set properly, you will lose depth of detection, sometimes to an extreme degree.

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.

While none of the historical mining camps are active, the area is still a hub of activity for the modern prospector, and claims still blanket the hills and gulches.

The placer gold shows up in ground sluice areas, hydraulic pits, secondary channels and hillside diggings. It is coming down the hillsides from an ancient channel left high and dry millions of years ago.

When working fine gold placers with a drywasher, there are some natural variables that can be beneficial as well as others that can be a hindrance to achieving good recovery.

Fortunately, there are products on the market that can address these problems and make a small-scale mining operation feasible.