CApicker
Full Member
The weekend started out nice as I arrived at Rucky Chucky on the Middle Fork American and met up with a couple of my good prospector friends... Until...
The tide came up quick as it does prior to the rafters taking their run through, and we waved and chatted with them as they rafted by. finally as the rafters finished I noticed a green colored raft pull up to the bank a little ways from where we were working. I paid little attention until I came up from panning out some pay dirt to see my friend being told to gather up his stuff and get the hell out of there! The 3 Rafting Rangers had come on land to check us out. Once they had departed my friend showed me that he had been served with a ticket for defacing State property; the charge was "Rock Hounding" this offense caries between $10.00 to $1,000.00 depending on the judge I guess...
This was mostly due to having small garden shovels and pry-bars. as the Ranger said "you should know the rules going into the park - hands and pans only"
My question to all of you is - have I been doing this all wrong? Is it time to call it quits? Without some of my scrapper tools I would have not gotten any gold this year at all. Does anyone else use a shovel, pry-bar, sucker bottle, spoon - knife etc... to get into the cracks? I guess it's all illegal
Please respond with what is in your Gold Bag, and any other thoughts on what this ticket means. Thank you!
The tide came up quick as it does prior to the rafters taking their run through, and we waved and chatted with them as they rafted by. finally as the rafters finished I noticed a green colored raft pull up to the bank a little ways from where we were working. I paid little attention until I came up from panning out some pay dirt to see my friend being told to gather up his stuff and get the hell out of there! The 3 Rafting Rangers had come on land to check us out. Once they had departed my friend showed me that he had been served with a ticket for defacing State property; the charge was "Rock Hounding" this offense caries between $10.00 to $1,000.00 depending on the judge I guess...
This was mostly due to having small garden shovels and pry-bars. as the Ranger said "you should know the rules going into the park - hands and pans only"
My question to all of you is - have I been doing this all wrong? Is it time to call it quits? Without some of my scrapper tools I would have not gotten any gold this year at all. Does anyone else use a shovel, pry-bar, sucker bottle, spoon - knife etc... to get into the cracks? I guess it's all illegal
Please respond with what is in your Gold Bag, and any other thoughts on what this ticket means. Thank you!
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As they pushed off again my buddy who was with me yelled "Don't fall in!" I think they only do their little raft patrols on weekends so if anyone wants to avoid them go during weekdays if possible or prospect in an area where it's impossible for them to stop.
