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I only had one day for the outing so I had to make it count. Hit some old areas and actually found a new area with extremely old handstacks. The handstacks were completely covered in lichen and appeared to be old. This new area deserves more attention when time allows. Wish I could of stayed longer. Gold total is 2.6 grams.

I'm sure there will be some great drone and regular video of the outing...Dodacious and I just got home from the biggest gathering yet after 20 years of gatherings ...There were easily 100 folks there, amazing food (and lots of it) ... Lots of good talk with old friends and a few new ones ... Jack Ass Flats was jam packed... Several ladies found their first gold nuggets and some guy I didn't get to see found a nice one...Hope someone posts some gold found...Anyhow another roaring Nuggetshooter success! Cheers, Unc

I spent the day out with my new to detecting significant other yesterday going over some spots id previously found nuggets in. I sent her out with the Falcon MD to get small while i searched slowly with the SDC. Nothing nothing nothing.... and i could sense the slight frustration and doubts about the spot, the detector, or the whole idea of finding gold this way... I said to her "the falcon is great and works you just need to find the right spot" well after many spots and no luck we headed out..... and then i said hey lets stop at one more lil spot i found some dinks in last year...easy, right next to the road. I went over an area that id been over before but with a little less overburden after the last rains.. nothin.. hhhmmm, i decided id scrape back a small one foot area and borrow the falcon for a few minutes, and voila! a tiny sparkly nugget! That was all the proof she needed to see, and we pried up some clay and bedrock and and sat there for 45 minutes picking up piece after piece until it got dark. I got to witness her first 5(!) detected nugglets... total joy! funny thing is I detected that whole area with the SDC a few minutes prior.... hhhmmm..

Howdy Folks, I was able to get out this morning for a half day hunt at Stewart Valley, planning on leaving by noon, since I had some errands to run this afternoon. I arrived at StV about 8:30am with a brisk 36 degrees and thought, perfect weather for meteorites hunting. With-in 10 minutes of leaving the truck I scored a nice little StV rite. However, that changed for the next 2 hrs. Nothing. Granted I made all my finds on the North side of the lakebed. But it wasn’t until it was close to leaving. Then I scored the next three almost one after another, but spread some distance. The lakebed has changed since the last time I was there, with more soft ground then I remember. Almost got the truck stuck, but managed to keep it going until I hit some firmer ground. All the rains we have had made the ground upheavaled As I was walking back to the truck I scored two more and called it a day. All in all a good morning of hunting. Until next time.... keep looking down. Jayray

I returned to my Halloween Patch for a partial day (late start due to honey does). Tons of trash wore out my back and knees, but this pointy-tipped chunkster (.52g) added some color to the haul. Coated in a thick blanket of caliche like the others.

I have just bought the permit. I'll be staying around Friday and Saturday night. I've got a 4Runner 4x4 that can fit one prospector for day hunting (no sleeping). If you know where to go (preferred) and you need a ride, let me know. If you don't know where to go (I don't either) and you still need a ride and we can follow your friends let me know. Finally, if you don't know where to go and you don't have any friends to follow, I still have room for a rider on Saturday. Mitchel

Hitchhiker....About 20 years ago I owned the prospecting shop in Wickenburg ... I had two total greenhorns come to the store separately and outfitted their unrelated quests to prospect full time....I tried to dissuade them from walking away from their lives to try something they knew nothing about but both had the worst cases of the fever I've seen ... They both bought detectors from me and I took them out to train them ... Neither one wanted to slow down and follow my training and after a full day with each one, I pretty much threw up my hands... They couldn't find a buried pickup truck racing through the goldfields, swinging in a big arch with the coil only near the ground about10% of each swing...Anyhow, my parting advice to each one was, "Don't try to do this full time because you are not being sensible" in the way they approached it... A couple months later, one of them came back to the store wanting to sell their gear to me to buy groceries ... The other one seemed to have lost his mind and was barely capable of regular functioning ... Neither found any gold in a month or so and they both just disappeared... On the other hand, I know of many folks who approach it with a degree of reservation about throwing the whole hog in the fire who did quite well and continue to do so to this day...Nugget detecting is the most difficult form of detecting ... Unlike coin detecting in which all you have to do is find a park or a beach, etc., gold detecting requires the acquisition of geology, mineralogy, etc... I did it for a living from about 1979 to 1985 and did make a bunch of money until our mine collapsed due to investors ... But it was fun! Hayfork is a very interesting area and I think with good prospecting it could be a good producing area ... Whatever you decide to do, a good conservative approach could be an amazing adventure and maybe a little golden too! Good luck! and have fun! Cheers, Unc

We decided to post a free issue of the prospecting and Mining Journal magazine on the internet for any new folks who are around to see what it is. (Also experienced prospectors who are wondering about the magazine). We have up to date articles about how to get more gold in your prospecting, legal issues and the best equipment out there for finding gold. If you have any interest in prospecting, this is the magazine you will the most learn from. I may be a little biased as I'm the assistant Editor, but on the other hand I've been getting this magazine since the late 1970s and its always been a lot of fun. Take a look, I think you'll be glad you did. I you want to subscribe, the subscription info is on the inside of the last page. Its worth not missing a single issue. https://www.icmj.com/resources/news-and-events/miners-news/free-online-sample-issue-392/

Bob, no twitch , but both eyes are wide open and watching every word. I will however point out that this topic has went from going deep for gold and seeing monitering stations to breaking the "No Political Posts" rule of this forum....but since it is major mid-term election time I have let it ride to see how it went...for now, but the rules will be enforced starting tommorow, so ya'll get it out of your system tonight! That all being said, I'm very proud of ya'll for keeping it civil, it's actually amazing, if I do say so myself!!!

You didn't miss much Adam. The dancing girls were fun but they wore out quick. Dave's flyover was "interesting". The band didn't show. The best part was when Minelab gave away those 12 GPZ 7000. Everybody that didn't win a GPZ got 8 ounces of gold coins so they could buy their own if they wanted. Yeah it was ...OK. Maybe next time?

Daniel, You may want to run your detector over that dirt and the hole, you never know you maybe sitting on a gold mine, can't hurt to try it!!

Do it part time until you learn the ropes. Successful prospecting is a trade like any other. It takes time, a lot of research, fails, and days of disappointment before you get the golden results. And even when you think you know what your doing, the gold always dries up and you are starting all over. If you're up in the Trinity area, you're probably in one of the best places in CA to do it full time, once you learn the trade.

I enjoy trying to find new ground and get fairly lucky from time to time. Of course, that can mean you get a few skunks in between. Heck, sometimes more than a few. But this trip is what makes up for those times. The day started out normal enough. Way out in the desert away from the city. Away from the stress, away from the noise. Just me and my truck scrambling to get to a place I had just detected a couple weeks earlier. On a previous trip, I had found a couple dinks in this shallow wash. It was a little strange because there were no rocks thrown out of the wash or hand stacks or dry wash tailings. It just looked good to me. Basically, earlier prospectors either missed the area or it just didn’t show worth it in their gold pan. And it had already given up two small pieces of gold to me, which did not even add up to a gram. And after finding these pieces I had continued a couple hundred feet up the wash and the ground just got ugly. Me, being the expert geologist (sarcasm) I decided to jump to the next wash and search there instead of finishing the entire wash Of course nothing else was found in this second wash. But on this trip, I wanted to finish that wash. Simply because it was the right thing to do … and as my friends always say … Beep It All!! And so I did. Only 50 feet or so where I left the wash previously, I hit nugget after nugget after nugget, until I had reached a new GPZ record of 11 pcs. Even with my GM1000, my record was only 10pcs. So this turned out to be a great day. The largest piece was 5.5 grams. Most of the others pieces were over a gram but a couple were smaller. Total weight was ½ ounce. Here is the quartz stringer I believe most of the gold likely eroded from. It was in the bottom of the wash and ran right down the center. Note the red hematite along with it. And here are a couple gold pics It's still out there!

Once the patent application is given a "first half certificate" you no longer need to pay annual mining claim fees. The patent costs $1.25 an acre for placer claims and $2.50 an acre for lode claims. You can aggregate several contiguous claims into a single patent. Once the patent is granted you will own the land lock, stock and barrel except for a reservation for ditches and canals. The patented land is then private property, the mining claim is no more and the federal government has no further ownership in the formerly public land. Unlike most other types of patents a mineral patent transfers the subsurface along with the surface ownership. There is a huge bonus to perfecting a mining claim even if you don't intend to take it to patent. If the feds restrict mining rights or remove the land from mineral entry you get to keep the claim and all the rights to the minerals. You also have protection against any efforts by state, local or federal governments to take your mining claim lands for other purposes. They can still do a "taking" through imminent domain but they will have to pay you the full value of the minerals as if you had mined them. It's really rare for any government to take perfected mining claims due to the cash expense. Patents are the foundation of all the private property outside of the original 13 colonies with the exception of Texas, Alaska and Hawaii. More than 6 million patents transferred the public lands of the United States into private ownership. It is extremely likely the land where you live and work were once public lands that were patented by citizens pretty much like you. One of my former claims right here in Arizona is now 40 acres of private patented lands due to being granted a mineral patent. Not sure about the "getting a spot in line"? It's not a lottery, concert, DMV or movie so I'm puzzled.

Is payment in cash ok, or do you want something of value..?

If a guy gets creative about what he is looking for and how he markets it there is a lot of treasure out there to be found. The "new prospectors" look for items that may often seem to have little or no value but can be a real "gold mine". And there are minerals out there that are going to be the wave of the future just like gold was in the past. Sometimes it is best to look forward in the direction we are headed rather than back to the days of prospectors and burros. Those guys knew it would take a lot of gold and silver to fuel an expanding country and growing population. They looked forward and as a result they searched for precious metals. If you use that same logic and apply it to where this country is headed you can clearly see brand new opportunities and "rich deposits" just like the old time prospectors did. They went for the gold not because of gold's sake. They searched because it was in demand and could offer a profit. Apply that very same logic to today's reality and you will find that the "new prospector" has a bright future and wide open horizons. Gold is an interesting hobby and an lesson in the way it used to be but it does not apply the forward looking vision that the old prospectors had. Use their lessons and apply them to today's realities and you will see there is plenty of wealth out there just laying around that no one has ever found or even thought about. Just like the old burro prospectors of yesterday. They simply focused on getting there first and the situation is no different today. The "new prospectors" have their own unique adventure story complete with cowboys, Indians, and tales of adventure and tribulation. We can live in the past remembering the glory days that once was or we can take part in the new glory days. When you separate the word "gold" from the word "prospector" then it becomes a lot clearer.

I think it's common opal. Let us know what the experts say.

Yup, kicking away some dirt can be rewarding. I think of it as getting closer to "timeline gold", i.e., over the longer span of time a division can be discerned between the daily, weekly, monthly regular surface disturbances and the harder, more durable under-layer that does not often get affected by the usual wind and rain events. It is in the stuff beneath that timeline zone that one's odds of encountering the good stuff increase. Congrats on persevering and taking some gilded prisoners.

Looks like a bong. Could that have held one shot of THC smoke?😉😉😉

I wasn't going to post these because most of them are so small, ...But, I managed to pull this bigger one out today (2.56 Grams)(along with three smaller ones) SOOOOOOOOO. I got these out of 4 different locations over a three day period (6.68 Grams Total). The big one that I got today was hidden down fairly deep under about a 10" round granite boulder (rock) and was stuffed (wedged) along a sheer cutoff bank about 5" deeper within a small narrow crack. The initial signal was but a whisper of a signal, and I almost mistook it for the sound that mineralized ground gives off. But "curiosity killed the cat" , so I just had to dig down to find out if it was a valid signal or not. Sorry, No photo's today....I forgot my camera. "YAHOOO"....Gary

I sure am glad I was able to keep most of mine. I stuck pretty tight to $400 an ounce. If I could not get that I would use it myself at the panning booth or just keep it. I am glad I did not undersell myself back then because it was all worth $1504 in the end. I told guys that if they wanted to buy gold at spot price they would have to buy gold coins. A lump of refined gold was worth whatever the market said it was worth. But real Hillsboro placer gold was a rare and precious commodity and I set the price on it. They could either pay the price or go dig some up themselves. The strategy worked just peachy for my purposes. Back then there were lots of guys buying detectors and hitting the placers around here. There would be several in the S bar X saloon every weekend. Most of them had been out for weekends on end and had yet to find a nugget. I could always throw a few out on the bar and get a lot more than spot price for them. I often could sell a $5 piece of gold for $20. And I carved little mesquite hearts and would glue a little thin flake in the middle and sell the heck out of them. Lots of those guys had wives that had not seen them enough and the hearts were really popular. It sure beat 80% of a $325 per ounce spot price from a "gold buyer". I used to say that no matter how much gold I found I could always come back from Hillsboro richer than I went. Even a little dust in a vial fascinated the touristas and could generally be sold at a nice profit for a novelty item. If I stumbled into the saloon with a gold pan, a story to tell and a little gold to show for it I could always wrangle a meal and a beer and a few bucks for gas. I tried to hit a completely different angle than selling it by the ounce to a buyer and I think that turned out to be a good move.

I agree with everyone here, its tough going, but if you feel inclined toward the adventure then go for it! Iv done a good bit of traveling up and down the coast and the western states, exploring the hinterlands, camping, prospecting, etc... The beauty and expanse of the Western US is just stunning! If you have the means AND time, which is so rare these days, get after it! Tom said it all.... Heres a few of my suggestions since you asked: 1. Since the seasons are so important in prospecting and camping, plan out a basic route to your target goldfields based on the time of year. Its possible to plan a route that follows the endless summer/fall from south to north -North to south, iv done it, its awesome. I love this country.... High desert in the spring, rivers in the fall....low desert in the winter.. perfect. 2. Join a bunch of clubs that have claims in the areas your interested in. Having a place to start in each area will help in so many ways. Iv gotten pointy fingers to great areas just by calling the president of local clubs and introducing myself as a new member. And dont let anyone tell you the GPAA claims are worked out, they are not, ill leave it at that. 3. Minimal gear: Heres whats in my truck kit: Gold pan, custom small shovel, crevice tools, small sluice, rock hammer, crow bar, sucker tube, 1/4 inch classifier, hand lens, snuffer bottle, etc. not much more.. Detectors: SDC, GPX 4500, Falcon MD 20. I always wish I had an Equinox when i arrive at some remote swimming hole or beach, or old homesite though.. I wouldnt carry around the big guns like a dredge/highbanker etc, until i prospected out a good concentration.... add to the kit on a need to basis. 4. Find someone to show you how to use the gear. Big learning curve, If id had just one person show me what little i know now id been years ahead! But this forum is what got me over the 1st nugget hump and beyond, 5. expect to have fun! This adventure of finding gold and traveling up north each season, looking for crystals, fishing, camping in amazing places, soaking in remote hot springs, meeting all kinds of characters, and just being out away from the city- grind has been so rewarding. Oh and if you do decide to go for it, please keep in touch here on the forum and share your experiences, im sure people would love to hear about your adventure!

Like a few others, I liked it better when you were 86'd Bob. You've been posting like a monkey on crack ever since they let you back on. The way I look at it, it's just a matter of time before you are gone again so have at it man. Don't worry about me, go nuts. I'll continue to do my best to ignore you.

Gold is created when you mix sweat with dirt and time. G=(s+d)/T

Now you've seen another like it. I too figured it was some sauce bottle.