Prospecting & Detecting
Prospecting The East Fork San Gabriel Canyon, Southern California
January 2020 by Dan Stanton
I have found gold more than 200 feet above the river. It was not unusual for nuggets of an ounce or more to be found in these deposits, but fine gold and flakes are much more common.
Prospecting After Winter Storms
So, how much rain does it take to cause a major movement of gravels in a stream and redistribute the gold? The technical answer is enough water to move the bed load of the river.
Wild and Scenic River Prospecting—North Fork of the American River
Today it is getting tougher and tougher to find a place to prospect. There is one significant haven left for the small miner...
Swing and a Miss
A very good baseball hitter might get a hit roughly one time out of every three at-bats, but for prospectors often the results are much sparser and it may take many trips before the prospector hits a home run.
Detectors: Past, Present and Future
Detectors were invented long before I was born, but it was in the 1960s when they started to become an item popular enough to power a fledgling industry. The key development was miniature transistor technology replacing the old fashioned tube technology of the 1950s, making lightweight, affordable detectors possible.
Mutiny on The Mason
We decided to check some spots that were pretty good to us on previous trips. The detector was deceptively simple with few buttons and auto-ground balance.
The Challenge of Winter Dredging
Dredges actually do pretty well in freezing conditions. There are a few tips you should know, however.
Crumb Hunting With A VLF Detector
Chris got a nice target signal on the edge of rising bedrock, but still in a low, but washed area. After breaking up the bedrock, he recovered several pieces of gold amounting to almost three pennyweight.
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