What State is most small miner friendly?

[spillercanyon]

I have lived in California all my life, it's a beautiful State run by a bunch of morons. I am about to retire, my son is going off to college and I think it's time to go spend my retirement money and prospect elsewhere. My wife and I are talking about getting out of the state but would like to stay in the west. My decision will be partially based on where I can prospect. My question is what State, with good gold mining, is most friendly to small miners (dredging, high-banking, ...)? If it were you, where would you be looking to move to?

Thanks!

 

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[fowledup]

Go now, don't make our mistake, cuz next thing ya know you'll have grandkids, than you ain't never leaving, lol! My vote would be Idaho, or Oregon

 

[spillercanyon]

Where our son is going to college and grand kids are a big consideration. The grand kids are a ways off, I hope, and where he goes to college may not be where he ends up so I don't want to base my decision on that. I figure if I'm retired and he is busy at college, than visiting will work for awhile. Idaho is probably at the top of my list, Montana I think might be too cold. Colorado is in the running and perhaps Oregon, though I think Oregon may go the way of California.

 

[Asmbandits]

If I could do just that id head to Idaho personally. Great gold there and very beautiful place to live and the cost of living is very appealing compared to other states. A good friend of mine along with his family, and his parents and his brothers family all just made the move to Idaho from Cali and never looked back. They don't do any prospecting it was merely based on the cost of living and quality of life available there.. Just to get away from the traffic here in the bay area would be worth it to me.. Its such a shame because California is such a unique place that offers so much yet the government and amount and type of people here ruin it.

 

[rodoconnor]

I fled from Kalifornia many years ago for many reasons. The head of the list was the antagonism toward the small miner. I escaped to Idaho where I could peacefully dredge to my heart's content. What happened ? The epa in all it's ham-handed glory pounced on Idaho! It will work it's self out. The local authorities in general don't have any use for ANY federal/rogue agency. Long story short,Id is miner freindly

 

[AU_Solitude]

My homestate - Wyoming...as long as it's not invaded you'll never have any troubles. The gold is fine. Very few people and a lot of land. Next choice would be AK, but that can get depressing.

 

[stefen]

Tuolumne County. Probably the best area in the State (other than Ferndale) for the vistas, friendly people and a place to retire.

 

[rockbar]

Seems that I've heard Nevada to be touted as the most mining friendly state in the lower 48.
Not so sure about dredging and high banking opportunities there, though.

There is dredging in Az, but usually, one has to build temporary holding ponds and recirculate the water. No diving. Works for me.
In 15 years, I don't believe I've ever been approached by a public land agency employee in Az while mining. So far, so good.

I was harassed by a FS employee once in Idaho while camped and dredging on the North Fork Payette river. He didn't like the fact that my tent could be seen by the road. I was camped there in order to keep an eye on my dredge. He insisted I move my camp up the hill and out of sight, which I did. The funny thing is that my new camp was directly under a big sign in a tree that said "No Camping Here". I thought that was hilarious at the time.

 

[Bonaro]

The clear choice would be Alaska. It is truly the wild west up there but it comes at a price...cold
Washington is still pretty easy to prospect in. No permit fees, and year around seasons for hand operated gear. Dredging is open too, with timingrestrictions
As with any place, the liberal swarm of locusts is expanding and banning one thing after another

 

[winners58]

Research and find a mining claim that has gold in the stream and area's you can work off stream.
regulations are ever changing for in-stream mining, if you find a good mining claim you would have a place
to camp and if you also have a place to have a holding pond to work and process material,
you can dig anywhere in any state, you have the mineral rights, states regulate the processing.

preferably one on BLM administered lands. BLM is more lenient on camping for the FS probably need a PoO

for BLM camping for longer than the 14 days you don't necessarily need a plan of Operation
Under Federal law in order to occupy the public lands under the mining
laws for more than 14 calendar days in any 90 day period, a claimant must be involved in certain activities that
(a) are reasonably incident;
(b) constitute substantially regular work;
(c) are reasonably calculated to lead to the extraction and benefication of minerals;
(d) involve observable on - the - ground activity that can be verified; and
(e) use appropriate equipment that is presently operable, subject to the need for
reasonable assembly, maintenance, repair or fabrication of replacement parts.
All five of these requirements must be met for occupancy to be permissible
BLM More info

 

[goldenIrishman]

Arid-Zona is great for small miners but not all that much dredging here. The majority of sluicing is with recirculating systems. On the up side, we've got great nugget shooting and plenty of desert to use a drywasher in.

 

[Hoser John]

5 year ban on dredging in Oregon,in other words gone like kalif. Idaho seems the guiding light. Water mining is fun and much easier on the body plus I make much more gold that way also. Alaska is cranking down the thumbscrews FAST now on dredging as the Klamath anti dredging cancer spreads in a ever widening slime slick-John

 

[rodoconnor]

Most of the people that have relocated here did so because of the lifestyle and political climate[ sorry Mods] . We DO NOT like government intrusion in any fashion and just want to be left alone. The hunting ,fishing and mining opportunities are second to none. We need more small scale miners to add to our voice !!

 

[NoBudgetMining]

Idaho is a horrible place to live. All the gold is gone, no big game left, all the fur is gone, some places so remote you have to drive most the day to catch a call, and on and on.

 

[rodoconnor]

Idaho is a horrible place to live. All the gold is gone, no big game left, all the fur is gone, some places so remote you have to drive most the day to catch a call, and on and on.

NBM Point taken. I'll quit bragging .LOL

 

[Hoser John]

Mine mine mine aaallllll mine

 

[Hard Prospector]

I'm stuck in Cali til I retire so I've learned to make the best of it. Most of my desert prospecting is on federal public lands where the BLM are for the most part pretty cool (especially in the historic mining districts). The forest service however, I've had mixed experience with as some have been reasonable others heavy handed door knobs. In the Mojave I can set up a nice camp from my jeep right in the digs, move dirt, have a camp fire etc. with little thought of anyone caring. Prospecting and camping such a way in the national forests these days (in Cali anyways) invites hassles and tickets. You can't park here, no camping there and don't even think about doing this or that blah..blah.. blah. When I do prospect in national forest lands; I'm dropped off, gear packed in and I "disappear" till ready for pick up. BTW; the Delorme IN Reach satellite communicator works great. If I could move tomorrow it would be Arizona, Nevada and Idaho in that order.

 

[goldenIrishman]

Well hurry up and retire HP! I need a good partner out here to nail the gold with. In all the time I've been out prospecting since I moved up to the Kingman area I have yet to see anyone from the BLM while in the field. From what I understand there's an underwhelming two agents for the entire county here and it's a big county with much of the BLM area only accessible by rock crawler or air. Forest Circus? Don't have them, don't need them and don't want them. They over by Prescott and I don't miss them one bit.

 

[russau]

I'm stuck in Cali til I retire so I've learned to make the best of it. Most of my desert prospecting is on federal public lands where the BLM are for the most part pretty cool (especially in the historic mining districts). The forest service however, I've had mixed experience with as some have been reasonable others heavy handed door knobs. In the Mojave I can set up a nice camp from my jeep right in the digs, move dirt, have a camp fire etc. with little thought of anyone caring. Prospecting and camping such a way in the national forests these days (in Cali anyways) invites hassles and tickets. You can't park here, no camping there and don't even think about doing this or that blah..blah.. blah. When I do prospect in national forest lands; I'm dropped off, gear packed in and I "disappear" till ready for pick up. BTW; the Delorme IN Reach satellite communicator works great. If I could move tomorrow it would be Arizona, Nevada and Idaho in that order.

YEP! pretty much most of the people that work in these agencies are good well meaning people ! BUT back in the slick willy days his sec. of the interior sent out word to all environmental groups that they would hire them for F.S. , B. L.M. ETC. kinds of jobs and NO WORD to the mining groups. I think it was Dan Miller that did here about it and post something referring to it. all it takes is one wacoenviromentalists to give you his version of what your doing wrong to ruin your day with a citation. to counter these types of jerks you need to read and understand not only your mining rights/laws BUT the F.S. manual of there job description! and if you find them violating their job description while trying to enforce "their" version of the laws , you can go after him with a lawsuit and if it is determined that he violated his job description his own agency are bound to NOT defend him or use "our money" to defend him! and that's leaveing him out in the breeze to fight for himself! If we don't go after these types of jerks we stand to lose it all eventually! we need to play hardball and get it done!

 

[goldenIrishman]

I agree with ya 100% Russ. Those that exceed their authority need to have their heads handed to them in a court of law. As stated earlier, I don't have to deal with the Forest Circus any more because I've got all the BLM land in this area to work on. When I was working down near Greaterville the FS guys that worked in the area were good guys. They were friendly and never gave us any grief at all. They'd often stop by the dig site and shoot the breeze with us and were interested in the mining process. Once they saw that we were not the "plunders of the land" that the greenies make us out to be they were very nice.

It's not the entire FS that's running amok but a select few that have been indoctrinated into the greenie belief system that need to get a good smack down. On the other hand, we should also try to figure out a way to reward the ones that do their job correctly and are friendly towards miners.