These are entry-level machines designed with gold prospecting in mind and with the ability to handle mineralized ground and see nuggets of a grain or so in size, perhaps smaller.

Gold probably is one of the easiest things in the world to cheat an absentee owner out of. He would generally have no way of really knowing if a guy had found 3 nuggets or 30 nuggets on his claim.

Watching for these areas is one of my primary targets during the winter. It doesn’t take but a few inches of the surface moving away to give a fantastic target response that you didn’t hear prior to the washing of the surface.

This same concept is true of many of our modern-day rivers, and we have to find out where their gold originated if we can.

There were many small gold placers found and worked in the deserts in the old days, which had then been pretty much forgotten about. We all tried to be the first to re-discover these spots.