Sampling a Placer Claim

[chrisski]

When sampling a placer claim, how much time do you spend?

I looked at some unclaimed land, ran ten buckets through a
drywasher and got a single speck of gold.
The dry washer got plenty of black sand, so it’s got to be set up right.
I’ve also gotten gold from the dry washer before. The samples came mostly from cracks in the
bedrock from three different washes in the claim. This took an entire day.

Other frustrating thing in claim hunting is when a claim
shows in LR2000, but is not filed with the county or is filed with no map, and
a couple of signatures making it 40 acres.
That leaves 600 acres, but you don’t know which 600 acres is open or
claimed. That’s a lot of area to look
for a claim marker.

[El Dorado]

You can easily research that entire section with a visit to the BLM. Your sample area may have previously been gone over

[Hoser John]

Forget that pick and shovel work man, get a nice detector as then your checking purt' near a cubic foot of gravels A SECOND as you merrily swing along. Us ol'farts like to do the most with least and Bills store here has some sweeeet deals going on. 40 hours of labor would be my norm for checking out forty acres BUT read law sections here as anything over 20 acres costs ya BIG now with new insane laws in place-John