Like everyone else...looking for gold

goldseeker

Newbie
Jan 21, 2012
1
1
Primary Interest:
Prospecting
Upvote 0

RCGoodin

Jr. Member
Sep 12, 2013
95
40
Goodyear, AZ
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Just bought a used White's V3i. Can't wait to get it.
Primary Interest:
All Treasure Hunting
I live in the Goodyear area and have never heard of those places. I can only assume you are searching for gold. I'm hunting tomorrow morning with two pals for gold in the Estrella Mountains. I hope we have better luck than you. HH.
 

Kiros32

Bronze Member
Feb 21, 2006
1,407
441
Pittsburgh, PA
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Moderators, please move this out of the Best of TNet. Thanks.
 

DesertNuggets

Hero Member
Mar 29, 2011
737
184
Tucson, AZ
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Have you thought of joining a prospecting club? Roadrunner/GPAA to get access to their claims?
 

rocme44

Jr. Member
Sep 4, 2013
75
39
AZ, N.CA
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Prospecting
I have found gold in Cave Creek. This was about 25-30 years ago. I Still
have it. My son found his first gold there,
 

TheNewCatfish

Sr. Member
Mar 4, 2011
344
125
I did pretty good in Rose Creek two years ago. Don't know if it's still open to recreational panning though. I heard they closed it last year to do somekind of reclaimation work. Check with Prescott City Hall, they should know. Turn off the highway onto StoneRidge Rd. and take a left onto the first creek. Walk under the elevated water transmission pipe that crosses the gulley. Look for the first feeder creek on your left. We were getting decent gold off the bedrock. It was thuroughly worked, but i'm pretty sure there's still some gold up the wall of the feeder creek on the StoneRidge Road side of the creek. I was averaging about $10 dollars worth of gold per 5 gallon bucket of dirt.
 

Goldaa55

Newbie
Dec 31, 2013
1
1
Primary Interest:
All Treasure Hunting
Nice, just to let you know the post isnt showing up properly on my iphone - I think there is a plugin you can grab that takes care of that now.
This information is very constructive for correct planning. I like your work for providing information to the other.
 

Goldwasher

Gold Member
May 26, 2009
6,077
13,222
Sailor Flat, Ca.
🥇 Banner finds
1
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SDC2300, Gold Bug 2 Burlap, fish oil, .35 gallons of water per minute.
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weirdest thread ever
 

LP13

Full Member
Dec 31, 2012
211
216
Arizona
Primary Interest:
Prospecting
I live in Wickenburg and go out in the san domingo wash/little san domingo wash general area fairly often. I get some good gold out there in spots and other spots nothing. But there is good gold in that area but you need to know how to find it. There are also some private lands out there so check it out carefully where you go. There was a 9oz nugget found out in little san domingo a few years back, but most of the gold is very fine. I use a Gold Well sluice because I manufacture them, and I get gold where others normally don't. Not a ton of gold, but nevertheless, gold, it all adds up. For me, I hunt the areas where the general angle of the land makes a sudden change, like where a mountain meets a flat area. There where the flat meets the steeper mountain side is where the debris field from erosion of the mountain is and water velocity drops off, and gold is more likely to be. Also look for rattle weed and orange dirt (higher iron content in the soil). Much of that is paleo-gravels from a river that ran long long ago and got buried. Where it is exposed, the gold re-erodes out and gets concentrated in the washes (some). The old 'look in the inside of the channel in a bend' does not apply so well in the desert where water flow is rare. And when water does flow it blasts out everything in most cases. Do look however for cracks and dikes crossing a wash, and places where a drop in the water may have made a deep pool. I have seen on the Hassayampa, boulders as large as a small house exposed just after a flood, with a deep hole probably 10 feet or deeper all around it, but soon after the water slows down it gets all buried in by light sands and it looks like a 2 foot rock sticking out of the sand. This would be a great place to look but will take a lot of work! Also the smaller side washes in many cases yield more gold than the main wash (less dilution i.e., less non-gold bearing material to gold bearing). Usually less overburden on top of the bedrock too!

I have been in a wash near the Little San Domingo, getting excellent gold (1/4 to 1/2 gram per 5 gallon bucket) and then move just 5 feet away and get zero! So you have to prospect prospect prospect ... oh hey ... that's why they call it prospecting huh! :) Just remember that if it was easy everyone would be doing it, gold would be plentiful and you would have to pay to do it and gold would be worthless! And although the San Domingo area is good (higher up the washes toward the mountains is better), there are many places all around that are equally as good, and plenty of lousy places too!

That area is one of the two areas I go to get dirt to demo my sluice for potential customers, because I know that I will have SOME gold in the run without salting it. Not that that would make a difference anyhow, because it's about how the gold is caught not about how the gold got in the dirt. But anyhow, that is where I get my dirt for demoing the sluice, and it runs fairly consistent, even though not super rich.

Well I hope that this was helpful to those headed out in that area (or for that matter anyone hunting in arizona desert areas). Although this thread is old, the answer might help some new to prospecting in the desert around this area. Good luck everyone in 2014 on your gold hunting adventures!

I do occasionally take a customer out to show them how to use their new Gold Well sluice. I will be going this weekend, not sure yet if it will be saturday or sunday. If you are new to desert prospecting and would like to tag along, I could take one or two additional people out with me. PM me if you need help and want to go along.
 

Last edited:

Clay Diggins

Silver Member
Nov 14, 2010
4,862
14,180
The Great Southwest
Primary Interest:
Prospecting
There is good gold of size throughout the San Domingo district. I have to disagree about the gold being small. I've seen nuggets of up to six pounds coming out of there over the years. :laughing7:

LP13 is right that the gold is very localized there. The geology is very complex in that whole area and until you understand how that determines where the gold will be found it would be easy to bypass the richer deposits.

The fact that you say you "have been up and down the little san domingo and san domingo washes with no luck whatsoever" tells me two things you are doing wrong goldseeker.

First you are looking in the washes for gold. Most of the better deposits are found up on the benches in that area. Second you have been highgrading (stealing from) a lot of other peoples claims.

In the first case you can help yourself by forgetting all you have been told about "inside of the bend" and water deposition. None of that applies in the desert there. You will need to learn about eluvial, deflation and residual placers to understand how gold concentrates in dry desert regions. The washes there at one time did carry some gold but those washes have either been picked clean or have moved on. Where you see watercourses in the desert the experienced desert prospector sees the effects of the last large flash flood - which might have been more than 100 years ago. This isn't California or North Carolina. Get out of the washes.

In the second case you should learn about the laws controlling land and mineral ownership. Study up on what constitutes felony mineral trespass and the consequences. Most claim owners are weary of hearing weak excuses about why you just decided their claim was good enough for you to steal from. Even so the vast majority will allow you some limited prospecting time on their claim if you go to the trouble of asking before you start digging their gold. Then again there are a few who would rather show you to the nearest shaft for a long nap rather than hear just one more highgrader make squeaky noises about how they just didn't know...

In short you were working some very productive gold placers with little to no knowledge as to how and why they were formed. The gold is there. Myself and several hundred other prospectors find paying gold there each year. Prospecting is a learned skill. Learn the skills of spotting signs of mineralization and the skills of land status research and you will find plenty of gold there on lands open to prospecting.

I would suggest you join a prospecting club. There are several that have claims in the Little San Domingo. Learn where and how to prospect for and process gold producing ground. That will give you a start in your learning while keeping you out of trouble with the local claim owners. Maybe consider taking LP13 up on his offer. He knows the area and like most of us he will help you in your desert prospecting education.
 

detectahead

Silver Member
Dec 1, 2007
2,563
872
Western, N.C.
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1
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Equinox 600, Bandido UMax II, Fisher F5, Tiger Shark, Ace 250
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This thread is considered in
"Best of treasure net"?
 

A2coins

Gold Member
Dec 20, 2015
33,807
42,606
Ann Arbor
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good luck diggin in az the ground is like cement
 

BoydBros

Jr. Member
Jul 28, 2019
47
39
Arizona
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MineLab GoldMonster 1000
Garrett ATX
Primary Interest:
Prospecting
I live in the Goodyear area and have never heard of those places. I can only assume you are searching for gold. I'm hunting tomorrow morning with two pals for gold in the Estrella Mountains. I hope we have better luck than you. HH.

Yeah, I've been all over the old Bosley "claim" areas, and it's got squat. Nothing but bullets, casings and shrapnel! I'm betting this area was one of those claims which State employees "salted" mining data ... fake assays, surveys ... all to generate revenue for the state.

Stay away from the hiking areas, they're protected wilderness and on the other side (east) is Indian Res land (big no no).
 

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