Prospecting & Detecting
Where Should I Start?
October 2015 by Chris Ralph
Digging in the right spots will produce excellent results, like this group of nuggets taken by the author while metal detecting during the last few months. The biggest nugget is over an ounce.
Gold Prospecting: For Better or Worse
We all love to see that first glimmer of gold when it peeks out from under the black sand in our pan, or feel the weight of a nugget in our scoop when we dig a good target. But sometimes things don’t go quite so smoothly.
California State Panning Championships—Foresthill, CA Heritage Celebration
Here's the kicker—for every lost flake there was a five minute penalty added to the time. Lost gold generally meant you didn't make it past the preliminaries.
Time for a New Approach: Detecting Float Gold
The first pieces found were in a spot that most gold hunters would not even detect, right in the middle of a downslope meadow.
Fountain of Youth Gold
Across and downstream of our operation was a large pile of huge boulders. It was logical to think that water forces may have deposited gold in and around these boulders. We moved our dredge over and started pulling the rock pile apart.
How to Stake Your Own Claim—Researching Mining Claims
Once you have determined that the land is locatable, the next step in the claim research process is to determine if the land has already been claimed by a previous locator.
Who Says You Have to Own a Claim to Find Gold?
Most of us know making a profit as a small-scale miner is difficult; however, sometimes we combine luck with a little skill and bring home a few ounces of the yellow stuff.
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.
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