Prospecting & Detecting
The Bucking Room
October 2015 by Hank Chapman, Jr.
Since this position was the least desirable due to the hard physical labor, the bucking room was used as punishment. Do you have a mediocre worker? Bad attitude? Off to the bucking room!
Detecting Wet Ground Yields More Fun Than Gold
We all continued over to another location at the top of a massive placer operation. Arriving at the draw, I showed everyone where gold had been found before and we all began detecting.
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.
Give That Club Claim A Chance
My first trip to the claim was the tip-off that there might be larger gold to be found. I brought my puffer drywasher and my dad to a local prospecting club outing that was held at the claim.Detecting Old Pocket Diggings
Looking around, I could tell that this was an old hand-digging. As I walked around the perimeter of the digging I could see shovel and pick marks scratched on the clean, hard clay and bedrock.
Dry Washing to Capture Fine Gold
There may be lots of smaller gold I cannot hear with a detector, but it looks just fine in my pan once it is out of the crevice.
The Highs and Lows of Drywashing
We were met with a plethora of mechanical problems with the dry washer and even a few with the excavator that were at times frustrating, but we were in this for the long haul, so we needed to solve these problems and move forward.
The Smell of Gold—Part I
Some claim they can smell gold. This may be, but when I take a whiff of gold, I smell dirt, rotten eggs, garlic or just nothing: my nose is everything but sensitive.
Subscription Required:
The Bawl Mill
• Legislative and Regulatory Update
• Ask The Experts
• A Long Dry Spell
• Prospectors Protest San Gabriel Mountains National Monument
• MMAC & PLP Update
• Where Should I Start?
• California State Gold Panning Championships
• From Curiosity to Mine Owner - Pt II
• 2016 Gold Prospecting and Mining Summit
• Growing Up Gold
• Rock and Formations of the Mother Lode Gold Belt
• 2015 World Gold Panning Championships
• Melman on Gold & Silver
• Mining Stock Quotes and Mineral & Metal Prices
