I just joined GPAA and I'm new to this site so please excuse me for any stupid questions. I have never been gold prospecting before but I have been rock hounding in NC and NY and had a great time. I'm very excited about going gold hunting. I have been looking into the Marion NC area to start.Has anyone been to this area and is there anything I should know about. I was thinking about the following mines; Lucky strike, carolina mine, thermal city mine and heather grove mine. They all seem tobe very close together. I don't have any real equipment yet but I was thinking of picking up a backpack and a small sluice. Does anyone have a list of the things I should have starting out?
Thanks for the help and thanks for all the welcomes I have received
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Being only a couple year newb, I learned a couple things. 1. A D handle shovel is pretty much required for moving through brush, but I use a long handle when I can drive down to the spot. 2. Have several fancy pans. Gave away my letrap, and a couple of odd pans, but kept the garret with super deep riffles,the Trinity bowl for when there are no sluice options, and the $3 black plastic 10" pan. Guess which pan always gets used.... On the black pans there is a round groove cut in the bottoms. I use them till rocks beat up the grooves too much and replace. The grooves allow fast separation of color from heavy sand once you get the technique down. Also keep track on the weight of anything you buy and shop for modern units. Some of the old tried and true things were only that because the new ones didnt exist. Test everything before you go out.
mountain creek gold mine in new london nc
Welcome to a great new hobby. I am seeing some of the sights in the desert very few people have seen and getting a little gold just to make it more interesting. And additional excercise carrying buckets and digging holes. I need to charge my mining equipment to my medical health spending account. Better than a treadmill or one of those cross country ski things
Hi Harry,
And welcome to the site, I have worked the mines around vain mountain over the past few years, there are a lot of helpfull people at any of them and you can pan, sluice, hibank or run a tromel wash plant at thermal city all for a fee ofcourse, but that only runs from 5 to 60 dollars, so here my suggestion for equipment starting out 2- 14" gold pans one to pan with and one to pan into as as safty, when your paying to play dont give it back, next a #4 screen (i.e 1/4") I prefur the garrits as there deeper and work better when screeing in to a bucket, a snuffer bottal to suck the gold from the pan when you get home and do a clean up or your out just sampling the creek there inexpencif so i keep couple laying around, 5 gallon buckets atleast two, check with your local firehouse subs thay recycle there 5 gal pickel buckets by selling them to the publick for $2 bucks ea and the best part besides smelling like pickels, the proceeds go to charity, Win Win . Of course a shovel lowes has a 48" D handle for $26 thats strong and easy to pack. Sluices, so much to choose from, I have built them rented them and bought them and you can not go wrong with an Angus Mckirk sluice there easy to set up, fast to clean up, strong, light weight and man these things get the gold. Well i hope this helps, Oh heres some picks of my pack , hope to see around vain mnt some time.
Dr Phil, nice get up and go pack you got there. I only wish I could fit all the crap I carry in the back of my truck into a nice pack like that. Now get out there and go for the gold!
yes you are right Doren
Hi Harry,
Being fairly new to this hobby too, you have found a very good forum! There are many people here that will be happy to share their wealth of knowledge. As far as the Lucky Strike place I have been to it a few times this late fall/ winter. You can purchase a loader bucket of material and rent highbankers from them and they set it up and so on. We had good luck with this. We also sluiced in the creek/river there and did find some color, but not a lot. The peolpe there seem very nice too. One thing to do is call as we went there to highbank but they closed that portion for the winter. They sell bags to pan and many people do that and I did see some people there that was very excited about their finds. I would also advise taking cash as sometimes the debit/credit machine gave them fits.
Finally welcome here and may you find all that makes one happy!
most important is a gold pan and a shovel ...then a bottle to keep all the gold in that you will find
Come on Tim...a bottle for his gold?! Don't you mean he should have buckets to carry it all in? Ha ha