For 12 years I've been studying and researching placer gold deposits and after this long wait I'm able to leave in the spring for whatever destiny I have .....Armed with only a garrett At Gold pro detector and various panning equipment, I'm looking for places to begin, hopefully you guys might want to steer me in some "Hot " direction.....My ultimate goal is backpack or canoe into some real desolate areas un-reachable by truck to do some dredging with a 4''-6'' dredge which I plan to pick-up somewhere along the way...I'm aware a good handful of states are banning dredging practices, so if anyone has any ideas where I could do this would be great, along with whatever the rules the state may dictate. I'm not even sure if the detector I have is very good wofor nugget hunting, so if anyone has any advice on equipment which might prove better,please throw it by my way...I have 4 months to get ready.......so Guys anyfeedback would be greatly appreciated.
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Why don't you join a club?
American Mining Rights Association has claims in CA which are great claims and it only takes a donation to join(tax deductible), then you can mine for a year on their claims. There are many other clubs in the area. Delta, Sierra, UPI, Coarsegold, East Bay and many other chapters of the GPAA.
You could come up here to douglas creek with some of us. Starting the second week of july.
Larry
It is a major undertaking to back pack a 4 inch dredge not to mention other supplies including many gallons of fuel.
My advice would be to join a mining club and get experience first before you but a lot of equipment. If you want to go in to remote areas. take a pan and sluice, of course shovel etc. I've known people who had their dredges helicoptered in after they found a good spot. Some of them left their dredges.
Hello Richard! Your plan is a familiar one to many of us who have dreamed of chasing yellow. Unfortunately, it is just a fantasy to most folks who will never have the money or skills to pull it off. The very first thing you’ll need for your trip is money – lots of money.
Gold prospecting in the back country is expensive and dangerous. You need medical supplies, ammunition, communications gear, food, equipment, yadda, yadda, yadda. Look to do this on the cheap and you could end up dead, or without working equipment when you need it most. Good equipment and solid planning costs money.
The second thing you must have if you plan on going into the wilderness is a solid partner. You have to be practical and prudent going into this, and a partner in the backwoods – especially if you are prospecting and not always paying attention to your surroundings. You may even have to unload your boat several times and carry everything past rapids and waterfalls.
Lastly, you really only have a few choices left to do what you want to do close to home – Alaska, and the Yukon, are the places I can think of right off the top of my head for canoeing and dredging. It sounds to me like your research has just skimmed the surface of this very deep subject. Just out of curiosity, have you ever even lifted a Six-inch dredge?
You may think I am overstating things or trying to make a simple idea too hard, but I have lived in the mountains for months at a time, and seen the misery that occurs when people don’t know what they are doing, or worse. I knew one guy that planned his trip for months, then watched helplessly as a black bear pulled apart his supplies and knocked all of his batteries into the river before he ever had a chance to turn on his metal detector.
Keep up your research, and never let go of your dream. Looking forward to seeing your gold!
Good point on dredge weight. Backpack 1.5" runs 55 to 75 pounds depending on the maker. Was faster than my stand up screen and A52 sluice...until I got my T-II. With good muscle memory I can dig and keep up with a 1.5" and my weight is 14# for shovel, box and buckets. All the crap fro the A-52 weighed in over 22 pounds, so it was a significant difference and another 30% more material ran per day.
I watched a guy put a 5" dredge in the water a couple hundred upstream and attempt to float and swim down river with it running an electric trolling motor to get down into a hot spot a couple hundred lower then me. I yelled at him to be careful the water gets fast down by the corner. He didnt say a word. eyes as big as saucers. As I watched him go right on around the corner I wondered if I should go have a look, but remembered it was wide and shallow after the turn. No clue if he ever got it back out of there. Good 3,000 yard from the road where he would have been able to crawl out, with not even a deer trail to get back to gravel. Best laid plans of mice and men.
Well if you get a dreadge stay out of Calif. In Just My Opinion you are thinking of 'Backbacking' so I would think about a Sluice and pans
With a Backpack of Supplies, A Shovel,a Scoop, 2 Buckets, Classifier, Pan, and a Sluice, snuffer bottle, and a pill bottle to put your finds, Trail Mix, Water, and Matches. I would call this the Minimum amount of Supplies. You will have to do your Homework on Claims in the area but You could Prospect around Bridges, Take your MD to big events Like Surfing or 4th of July at the Park or Walk Washes Looking for Blk Sands. I Have Been Walking the Hills for a Few Years and have Very Little to Show without a Claim and the Proper tools. There are Clubs that have Campgrounds and Advice. every area is Differnt. question do you have eny Prospecting Tools or the Boat ? Good Luck
And a firearm. Weapon of choice if you packed in and staying a while is a good 12ga slug gun with slug sights. Too heavy for day trips added to your gear weight. Second choice is a good quality (Stainless if you can) revolver firing a compressed charge round. If you dont know what this means you need to find out. Examples of compressed charge rounds are .357 mag and .44 mag. though there are others. (better be deadeye dick with a .357) In addition to that its wise to carry a compressed air boaters horn and a large can (the tall one) of bear spray. Those last two can often diffuse issues before they start as the horn sounds similar to a logging operation and the critters tend to give a wide berth. If you are going into an area with wolf packs, wild dog or coyote packs or wild pigs you also want a second handgun like a Glock 17 or a Beretta 92 and a 32rd mag packed with +P multi fragment hollow points.
Second point after you keep yourself from being eaten alive is you better have all your permits in order. Most states want a hydraulic permit on file before you dredge or bank in different areas and during off seasons. BLM has rules and paperwork as well. Forest service has additional things they like to see and that varies with state,district and the manager. Even though the law is set, it is broad enough in wording that you need to make contact for national forest lands before you dig. Like any other enforcement they can take all your crap and hold it until they decide to dismiss, just to teach who is boss. The states issue fines just above what the better skilled prospectors can make, so the sting hits everyone. More so for the less skilled.
Generally the more remote, the more dangerous, and harder to reach terrain the better. But people still get good gold in public easy access spot that others have missed. Good case of this came up this fall. Hundreds of people treked across a bar that obviously was wrong to contain gold and waked through boulders 100 yards to dig. I walked across it myself for years. But as I was running that material I looked up and realized the front tires on my truck were 10 feet from my nose. A multi year mistake for everyone. Good gold there. Just remember, its where you find it.
WOW sounds like a fun vacation. What states are you mainly looking to prospect?
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