Is there gold on the OTHER side of the mountain?

[gold chick]

I have a question. I have found a location with multiple lodes on ONE side of the mountain, along with a huge placer discovery at the bottom of the mountain. This side of the mountain is all claimed up.

The other accessible side of the mountain has only two gold claims, lots of land left unclaimed on public property.

What do you think are the odds of finding gold on this other side of the mountain? Is it worth prospecting with a metal detector? Or not?

The X on my map is the general lode locations and the ? is for the area I am considering prospecting.

TIA!

 

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[Clay Diggins]

Quadrangle maps aren't a good choice Reed. Their 1:62000 scale has really low resolution and detail.

A better choice would be the 1:24000 topo map. Free, much more current, much higher resolution and the most recent ones have aerial views as well as topographic.

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[Clay Diggins]

Free current and historic topo maps made easy.



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[IMAUDIGGER]

Wasn't there a tool offered somewhere where you could type in a legal PLSS description and it would generate coordinates and plot the area on a map?

 

[Clay Diggins]

Wasn't there a tool offered somewhere where you could type in a legal PLSS description and it would generate coordinates and plot the area on a map?

You can do that on any U.S. Land Matters map with the advanced search tool (Binoculars tool). I use it all the time to zoom to a particular spot on the map.

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[Johnnybravo300]

Steven Cyrus with Department of Land Transfer is a scammer.
He stakes claims and sells them where there is no gold.
He has claims around here where I live and all over youtube.
Theres another dude that does this too but I cant recall his name. I've seen his claims around and theres no gold, I've already prospected these areas before.
They like to claim on the outskirts of placer areas and sell them.

Not every claim is legit and not every claim has good gold. Some people will stake a claim for just a speck or two.

 

[gold chick]

Wow, I am learning SO MUCH about mapping and nerding out HARD lol lol

Thanks for all the tips it's a lot of work but I am starting to get the hang of a good system to follow.

I am glad I started my mapping 6 months before summer!

 

[gold chick]

You need to look back farther at the recorder. That is simply the quit claim deed from when he bought the claim. You need to go back to the notice of location of mining claim to see the maps drawn by the person who filed the claim in the first place.
But all of the coordinates are there, so you can easily draw your own map of the claim. But it is a current valid claim that belongs to someone else. Time to put your boots on
Download the map pdf, print out the section on standard paper so you have the topo, then add in the posts yourself.
Here's the pdf page
https://madisoncountymt.gov/243/Quadrangle-Topographic-Maps

Unfortunately the notice of location of mining is not available online, even though I paid 5 bucks, it just has the quitclaim. But that is useful enough, now that I am figuring this whole system out. It is a lot of work but hopefully worth it in the end.

 

[Clay Diggins]

Unfortunately the notice of location of mining is not available online, even though I paid 5 bucks, it just has the quitclaim. But that is useful enough, now that I am figuring this whole system out. It is a lot of work but hopefully worth it in the end.

No public record is not unusual with claims scams. The sellers of the quitclaim you posted are well known for selling claims with no prospects for valuable minerals and for poor location work. That's is not unusual in the world of placer claims.

If the locator did not make public notice within 90 days of location the claim doesn't exist (even if someone is foolish enough to buy the quitclaim). Without a location notice recorded at the county you can pretty much ignore any "claim" the BLM has in their database. That's why you should never rely strictly on the BLM or the County records. It takes both as well as a physical location to make a legal claim.

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[IMAUDIGGER]

Well just the name of the company appears to be intentionally misleading.
Either to give the impression that they are a government agency or perhaps to make the company appear much larger than it really is.

Selling a mining claim is a transfer of land?

 

[gold chick]

No public record is not unusual with claims scams. The sellers of the quitclaim you posted are well known for selling claims with no prospects for valuable minerals and for poor location work. That's is not unusual in the world of placer claims.

If the locator did not make public notice within 90 days of location the claim doesn't exist (even if someone is foolish enough to buy the quitclaim). Without a location notice recorded at the county you can pretty much ignore any "claim" the BLM has in their database. That's why you should never rely strictly on the BLM or the County records. It takes both as well as a physical location to make a legal claim.

Heavy Pans

Really..... I have come across quite a few "Department of Land Transfer, Inc." quitclaims but there is no notice of location. So they make a quitclaim, but never file the location notice? But they pay the fee for the quitclaim so it shows as active? Strange. The funny thing is there are a whole lot of non-locals with quitclaims but no location notice that are tied to this company. I only got the one hour to look at the paperwork so I didn't pay too close of attention.

So basically, there must be a quitclaim, location notice, and physical markers to count as a claim?

 

[gold chick]

No public record is not unusual with claims scams. The sellers of the quitclaim you posted are well known for selling claims with no prospects for valuable minerals and for poor location work. That's is not unusual in the world of placer claims.

If the locator did not make public notice within 90 days of location the claim doesn't exist (even if someone is foolish enough to buy the quitclaim). Without a location notice recorded at the county you can pretty much ignore any "claim" the BLM has in their database. That's why you should never rely strictly on the BLM or the County records. It takes both as well as a physical location to make a legal claim.

Heavy Pans

Also, is there a way to plug in coordinates directly into landmatters? I cannot figure it out