Reno Chris

Fred was a great guy...

Fred, if you had it within you, then you would be most welcome.

Hey I went back to the spot where I got some nuggets the other day and had a pretty good afternoon - even though I didn't get there until after lunch. I decided to shoot some YouTube video, and it worked out pretty good as I was finding good gold. It was a lot of fun.

Matt -send me an email, as I cant send you a message through this board. Let's figure out a time. Sorry Bill. Maybe early September? or if not, then next year.

Hey Bill Southern and the rest of you gents roasting in the AZ heat - I have a question for you: Is it normal for you folks to have snow drifts among the trees in your prospecting areas in mid-July? Well, when they have a big snow year in the Sierra, its not that strange. This was just a little tiny drift, but there were ones a lot larger, including one blocking one of the roads I wanted to go down. This little guy was just the only one I photographed. Wait a minute - I forgot, you guys dont have trees, let alone snow among the trees. Sorry you didn't make it up this way Bill, we could have had a snowball fight in July. While I was up there, I didn't just make summertime snowmen. I filmed a few videos for my youtube channel and detected 10 nuggets for a total of 2.5 grams of the good stuff. I was using the SDC 2300, and working around some old spots and doing a bit of digging. Because I am digging into an old patch location, I am also dry washing the dirt I dig, and I have about 2 grams of additional fine gold in the DW concentrates as well. The high temps for the couple days I was over there were around 80 - very comfortable.

There is no tourmaline visible in the original photo - the dark mineral is Biotite mica. Tourmaline has no perfect cleavage like mica - like the minerals in the original photo. Biotite is dark colored and may be nearly black. If you cleaved off a thin flake of it, it likely would be dark brown.

We get a lot of questions about different types of rock that might be gold ore and what this might look like. I did a video in which I show a wide variety of gold ores from around the world that vary from super rich to low grade open pit type ore. Its a long video, but there are a lot of slides of different types of gold ore. If you've ever wondered what gold ore looks like, this is the video you want to watch.

A sedimentary rock, maybe sandstone, with some layers a bit richer in iron that others.

As fine a specimen of leaverite as one could find. Looks like a good pond skipping rock. Nothing of any value.

Ooooh - square nails = old diggings.

I second the motion to read Chris Ralph's book. (since that's me). Its available on Amazon - Fists Full of Gold is the title. Perhaps the best area to detect in southern California is the El Paso Mountains area. (Goler Gulch, etc.) Yes, its a fair ways up 395 from Dana point, but people do find gold there. Another location is in the area of the Dale district. Farther out is the Chocolate Mtns / Cargo Muchacho / Potholes area, and people find gold there too. All these areas have plenty of existing claims. Join some clubs to get access. The trash and bullets are a product of people being there. You live in a highly populated area, and places where a lot of people have been over the years will be shot up and trashy. After reading my book, your second book should be California mineral resources bulletin 193 - gold districts of California. You can buy a paper copy or if you search the internet you will find a downloadable copy for free. Read this and you will learn loads on the gold districts of California. A couple more things that new guys need to know - 1) Gold sells for more than $1400 an ounce because its rare. Its hard to find. Be patient and dont set your expectations super high. 2) Gold prospecting is a skill - one that is learned by working at it, just like learning to be a plumber or an electrician are skills that require work and effort to learn. You wont become a successful prospector merely from owning a good detector any more than buying a pipe wrench will make you a journeyman plumber. Learning a new skill takes time.

The word is out that Jim has passed away. I last saw and spoke with Jim a bit over a year ago. He spent several hours on both Saturday and Sunday in the ICMJ booth with me at the Pomona GPAA show. He was a good man and wrote many books on prospecting as well as many articles for the ICMJ. It is sad to see him go. I know I posted this picture before, but its my last one with Jim.

I like that cover. It looks good and I wish you the best of luck with your book project.

Looks good. I request you do a capture on your laptop or desktop and post a version that is large enough for the forum members to read the sales print on the back. I tried blowing it up and everything just gets blurry.

Great stuff and you know well how to trace a lead up to its source, that's for sure.