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• Don’t bet on it…
• Finders, Keepers…
• Bigger “phish” get caught too.
• So long, Seattle!

I’m combining these columns this month because there is an overlapping issue I wanted to address -- the new Interior Department “working group” on mining reform

We want to assure you that we took our time, looking for someone energetic and knowledgeable, and I think we found the perfect match.

Prospectors deal with black sands in lots of different ways. I know that some prospectors worry about getting every speck of gold and save black sands in buckets until they have hundreds of pounds.

Sure enough, after hiking a couple miles uphill and hacking through some brush, we found the place just as he had described it.

The question that most new people have is, “What do I detect?” Most people have a picture in their mind of what it takes to make what they are seeing a good place to detect. This is what I will try to sort out for you.

Keeping in mind how the local topography affects where gold has been deposited can help you find more gold, and is certainly something the prospector needs to keep in mind.

Once I started dredging with heated water pumped into my wetsuit, I never went back to not having heat except late in the summer when the water is very warm.

The problem is every other nugget hunter and drywash prospector had the same idea. As a result, you can spend days, weeks, and even months detecting these areas and not find a single nugget.

The opal is larger than a brick and is broken into two pieces, which von Brandt said was a practice used decades ago to prove gem quality.

Over the years, I’ve proved to myself over and over again that I don’t have to wait many weeks after rains before I head out to the goldfields to do some gold digging.

This is yet another potential danger to the financial and social health of America—and one which the precious metals markets appear to be taking under consideration.

The critical metals are essential to the modern lives we lead. The prices of critical metals are moving up even faster than government published rates of inflation, with little sign of slowing down.

• Would you like an order of flies with that?
• Covid isn’t the only thing “Made in China”

• Another setback for Twin Metals
• US Supreme Court to review case that challenges WOTUS