talladega national forest

[owlslair]

howdy, I
Is there anything worth searching for near Payne Lake rec area Brent Al. ? Will be in the area for a few months at the Payne Lake Recreation area. I have a garret 500 GTA that I have used in Florida for a few years. Have panned gold in GA. and had a few good finds,paid for my vacation. Well thank you for your time.

Ronnie

[Bandito]

Will let you know, we are headed there this weekend.

[owlslair]

kewl,,,,send some pictures if you can...we have tried everything to find out more about this area from forest rangers there.Found only one picture of the lake and nothing else.

thank ya for sure
Ronnie

[Bandito]

Went this last weekend as planned. Park is under renovation so half was closed off and the lake was partially drained. We went to the "beach" area on the side that was open and started our hunt. Since the lake was partially drained, we were able to search the entire roped off swimming area as well as the grassy area where people would lay out.

Either the area has been hunted before or there just wasn't much to find. We found a house key, several nails, bottle caps and a phenomenal amount of old style pull tabs. Also found a few clad coins, 7 in all.

It's a good drive from where I live, about 50 minutes so I won't be going back any time soon. The wife used to go there as a kid so that's why we went to check it out. There are hundreds of local spots within a few miles of us that we have plans to hunt. Based on finds at local parks, it seems that no one other than us has a metal detector in our area.

[owlslair]

howdy,,,,

Thanks Bandito for the update. looks like we will be looking mostly around the camp site for the time being. Guess we have some hard looking to do around the area..We will be there for the summer so we will get to cover a lot as well as go to some of other places ..

thanks for sure

klare/Ronnie

[CaptJohn]

You both may want to consider checking out the www.alabamagoldcamp.com in Cragford Al. Its not too far from Ashland, which is at the SE corner of the Talladega Park. I have been there once for an afternoon, panning, didn't find much, but there is gold there.... About a dozen old gold mines are in that area. He will rent gold pans, and MD'ing is allowed. I think its about 10 bucks a person/day to pan. Its a new site and worth a day to check it out. I think you can email him from the website, His name is Lonnie Seales.

[owlslair]

thanks Captjohn for the information. We will have plenty of time to check out the sites as we will be there all summer. I have searched alot of the area and found bunches of places to go but it will depend on how much free time we have at the park.
again thank you

Klare/Ronnie