Tips and Tricks

July 2020 by Harry Griffin

Many suggestions had some pieces or parts that would work some of the time, but Dredger Dan’s suggestion was, in my humble opinion, the cleanest, cleverest, and most dependable.

Detecting Alluvial Bench Deposits -- Pt II

March 2017
Walking around the gulch and exploring the upper drainage, picking up different rocks and inspecting them with a good loop, and looking them up in a field guide of rocks and minerals of your region will help you understand how the gold got there.

Miners Market (Classified ads)

February 2024

Pocket Gold

June 2016
Once a seam is found it can be traced for miles in either direction. While you are tracing a clay line, you are looking for indicators. The indicators that I look for are ironstone, hematite, different color clays intermingled with the clay line, and a very iron-rich, brown gritty soil.

Excavator Testing Wet Placer Ground

April 2013
The excavator or backhoe has become the tool of choice for testing placer ground. These machines are the best way to explore and sample a placer deposit if the ground is not too wet or frozen and bedrock is not beyond the reach of the machine.

Underwater Reclamation

February 2022

Working underwater certainly has its challenges, but since I wanted to learn how to blast underwater, I just  needed to dive in headfirst and take charge of the operation.

Prospecting the Easy Way

August 2022

And what do I think is the easy way? It’s what you can learn from the old timers that walked that ground many years ago.

Digging It Dry

October 2016
I believe dry washing is an underappreciated prospecting method. There are plenty of places where there is some pretty decent gold to be had, but the spot is a long way from any water and dry processing may well be the best way to go.

Subscription Required:
The Bawl Mill   • Ask The Experts - Can GPR be used for lode prospecting?   • Ask The Experts - How do I extract gold from pyrite?   • Ask The Experts - Should I dig faint sounds with no indicator bars while detecting?   • Ask The Experts - Should the detector sound on iron and nickel in a gold area?   • Hard Rock 101: Micro Blasting   • Sluicing and Detecting Downstream   • Gold Prospecting for Better or Worse: Does Caliche Grow?   • 10 Keys to Prospecting Like A Pro   • Polymetallic Skarn Deposits   • Practical Advice for Milling Hard Rock Ores   • Speed Prospecting for Hard Rock Gold   • Forrest Fenn Treasure Chest Finally Found?   • Melman on Gold & Silver   • Mining Stock Quotes and Mineral & Metal Prices

Free:
Legislative and Regulatory Update   • PLP Update