Prospecting & Detecting
The Story Behind the Story
March 2013 by Michael Greyshock
The sun just peaking over the bare desert hills casts a pale pink light on their eastern faces. The hum of the detector fresh in the ears and a slight break in the threshold beckons the pick to break the ground for the first time. A few whacks into rotten bedrock and a sifting of the material in a plastic scoop reveals a flash of yellow.
It started in the warmth of my bed as I looked over an old state issued publication from the early part of the 20th century. In reading it I found a place where placer miners had extracted a healthy amount of gold in the late 1800s. No mention of the size of the nuggets was given, but nearby areas and different publications revealed a history of nuggets.
The Internet is one of the biggest assets to modern prospecting. That book I was reading may have been one hundred years old, but I would never have had access to it if some enterprising individual had not uploaded a copy of it on the web. Thank you, whoever you are. Sites such as archive.org have not only preserved these valuable written histories, but also made them available to the masses.

Maps never show the true nature of an area. Everything appears a bit larger when you step out of your truck than it does on a flat piece of paper. Google Earth is fun to look at for many reasons, but I doubt a demographic has more to benefit from it than we prospectors do. I can get a feel for an area before my feet ever touch the ground. The first thing I search for is the nature of the terrain—how steep it is and how steep are the drainages. In desert locations I can see the make-up of the rocks—at least their size and color. In forested country, old workings are often visible as tailings and cuts that stand out among groves of trees. Many features can be mistaken for mining, but a little experience of seeing them in person after viewing them from the images can bring more success.
No purpose to all these efforts comes to fruition until the nose is involved. In other words, you have to get out there. You may discover that what you’ve learned by research is not really the truth, but that’s all part of the effort that makes that nugget taste so sweet. The one certainty all this effort from home has accomplished is…you’re closer to the gold.
All the time and energy spent up to this point won’t produce results unless you’ve done your homework and put forth the time to learn your equipment. A flat or steep sluice will hinder your efforts. A metal detector with improper settings can pass right over the majority of nuggets.

My story of finding the new patch at the outset of this article happens often when I do all my homework, but far more commonly it takes a while to get on the gold. Despite conducting diligent research and utilizing years of experience, prospecting new places may

I enjoy the solitude of the goldfields. That solitude is there for good reason—it’s a long, hard process to find gold—but it’s something all prospectors understand. I’ve heard it said that 90% of the gold is found by 10% of the prospectors. That 90% of the gold is a terrific reward for a lot of hard work. If you’re interested in sharing the bounty, embrace the whole process and you too can end your story with a flash of yellow.

Ask the Experts
• Drones for the independent prospector
Are You Being Followed?
These “people”—and I use that term loosely—worked together with others. What was happening to me was like scenes out of the old James Bond movies.
Using Vegetation and Soil Conditions as Prospecting Aids
Wouldn’t it be great if you could know if there is gold in the ground without setting foot on the ground? Well you can, to a certain extent, if you can recognize mined ground from unmined.
The Rest of the Story—Detecting With Ray Mills
Ray followed up by detecting the same area and I was happy to see that he did not find any good targets in the same line. So far so good.
Feather River Gold

Finding Streams of Gold

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