Colorado Gold Question

[angermd]

I've been out panning and sluicing in Colorado for a few years now. I'm perfectly happy finding my flour gold and small specks in my cons from my usual spots, but I was wondering if anyone else in CO has found bigger gold. I've heard that there might be some places where more pickers are found. I live in the Denver metro area so obviously closer to there would be of interest to me, but I'd also be interested to hear from anyone around the state. Just curious

 

[vpnavy]

If you haven't already - you might consider browsing Sub-Forums: Colorado for information (i.e., clubs, hunts, finds, legends, maps, etc.) directly related to your state.

 

[GrizzlyGremlin]

The cache creek recreational are has pickers. Panning and sluicing only now. They are few and far between but there are plenty left. The old timers got most of the big stuff tho. We think wen we find gold we are panning ground that was missed but in reality much of the dirt we run came right out of the back of their sluices. Remote big gold is still possible but almost no stone has been left unprospected here in the lower 48.

 

[jmoller99]

Actually. in the Cache Creek area, if you head West up into the hills a little and use a quality Gold metal Detector with a small coil, you may find some small nuggets away from the areas that people are panning. I have hit a number of 1/10 gram nuggets (large pickers) with my White's GMT there. I don't think that a lot of prospectors even consider looking uphill at all (they concentrate on the flowing water areas - which I am told are not flowing with water anymore).

By quality Gold detector, I mean a detector that was designed to find small gold (such as: Fisher GBII, GoldBug Pro, Whites GM II thru GMT and MXT, Tesoro Lobo ST, Minelab 705 or Garrett AT Gold [note: the older Garrett Scorpion/Stinger is not a good gold detector for Colorado] or a PI unit that is good for gold - altho Cache Creek is directly under high voltage power lines which may render a PI unit inoperable). The vast majority of metal detectors will not find small gold.

I really like this writeup about gold detectors:
http://www.detectorprospector.com/gold-prospecting-guides/steve-guide-gold-nugget-detectors.htm

 

[B H Prospector]

Get in touch with Kevin in Colorado in this forum. He is in Denver and is very willing to help.

 

[KevinInColorado]

Get in touch with Kevin in Colorado in this forum. He is in Denver and is very willing to help.

What a compliment! And true, happy to help. There are still pickers in bench deposits all thru the gold/mineral belt of Colorado. Lots of spots (many under claim of course but not all) where a bench deposit wasn't reachable via historic methods...at least not commercially viable back then.

Personally I've found pickers in Clear Creek Canyon and on a mining claim in Park county (2 hrs from Denver). I also found a 1/8 inch picker right in a creek in metro Denver but I ain't tellin' zacly where fer cuz y'all will mob da place! All of mine were wet and in the creek so I can say for sure they are out there but fairly rare.

 

[Marmentman]

Still some along the animas river also, but gotta know where to look. A friend of mine found an oatmeal sized flake with his dredge, but the biggest I have found is rice grande size, lots of flour size and fly speck, but nothing big yet. Don't give up looking though.

 

[angermd]

Oh, I haven't given up looking. Trying to get in as much time on the river right now before it's too late in the season. Always looking for those pickers or nuggets. Plenty of fine gold to keep me interested though!

 

[TheNewCatfish]

Two years ago i spent a couple of weeks at Cache Creek and was told by everyone there was nuthin there except flour gold and very small pickers. The day before i left (started snowing, early November), i found a $400 dollar nugget in my sluice box. There was nothing remote or exceptional about the hole the dirt came out of. I wasn't digging under tree roots and the hole someone else had abandoned earlier was about 100 yards from the gated entrance of the BLM. An ole fella, (local guy) in his 70's told me there's a creek on the East face of the mountain near Cache Creek absolutely loaded with good pickers and small nuggets. Haven't been back yet, so i can't say whether the story is true or not. I can tell you this much. Anywhere gold has been found before, it can be found again. Same thing happened at Rose Creek, Arizona. Plenty of people said, "Don't Bother, Nuthin There". I found a feeder creek just above Rose Creek where we were getting between $50 and $100 dollars of gold off bedrock every day. Most days i only worked about four or five hours.

 

[KevinInColorado]

^^^good info! thanks for sharing!^^^

 

[KevinInColorado]

Here's a sample of CO gold that is fairly typical in my experience. About half -50 and the rest -20. Three dimensional flakes, the rest pretty flat. Still adds up to 1/10 gram

This was about an hour's work at the end of the day today. I found a spot where the recent floods took off much of the overburden so I spent most of that time scraping a thin layer of material off of the sandstone bedrock of the creek. I also got well over 100 pieces of lead bird shot. Part of this (a lot?) came out of a pothole in the bedrock...sure do love finding those!

So, no pickers today but a fair amount of gold for the time put in here in metro Denver.

 

[Colorider]

Birdshot is worth something....... you could reload one shotshell!!! Looks like a good day for ya.!

 

[DesertNuggets]

<img src="http://www.treasurenet.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=874221"/> Here's a sample of CO gold that is fairly typical in my experience. About half -50 and the rest -20. Three dimensional flakes, the rest pretty flat. Still adds up to 1/10 gram This was about an hour's work at the end of the day today. I found a spot where the recent floods took off much of the overburden so I spent most of that time scraping a thin layer of material off of the sandstone bedrock of the creek. I also got well over 100 pieces of lead bird shot. Part of this (a lot?) came out of a pothole in the bedrock...sure do love finding those! So, no pickers today but a fair amount of gold for the time put in here in metro Denver.

Good job!

 

[Leonard F.]

^^^good info! thanks for sharing!^^^

Kevin,

I'm surprised you've found a place in metro Denver where you can work -- I ride my bike a lot in the city and every part of the south Platte I've seen is still really bloated since the floods. Same goes for Clear Creek coming down out of Golden.

 

[KevinInColorado]

Kevin, I'm surprised you've found a place in metro Denver where you can work -- I ride my bike a lot in the city and every part of the south Platte I've seen is still really bloated since the floods. Same goes for Clear Creek coming down out of Golden.

The trick is to know the area really well ;-)

I went upstream into a really small creek that had settled down and found an area that had been scoured instead of buried in fresh overburden. It was a bit of a search but quite rewarding...thanks!!

 

[angermd]

I'll have to echo kevin's statement. I've had great luck without much overburden in the right spots in metro Denver

 

[KevinInColorado]

So I found a cool spot here the megastorm stripped the over burden off of an ancient river channel with gold in it. The light was fading so please forgive the photo quality... This first one is from a bit of distance to give some perspective. The creek is in the foreground and my green 6 gallon bucket is there for scale...and 'cause I was ready to fill it after the photos :-) Second photo shows the river rock layer a bit better...big rounded river rocks! Third one is even more of a close up. Looking closely you'll see rocks that landed on an angle (pointed upward toward the current stream) showing which way the ancient stream was running...and proving they weren't moved by the recent mega storm too. ...and here's the gold :-)

 

[tamrock]

So I found a cool spot here the megastorm stripped the over burden off of an ancient river channel with gold in it. The light was fading so please forgive the photo quality... View attachment 877608 This first one is from a bit of distance to give some perspective. The creek is in the foreground and my green 6 gallon bucket is there for scale...and 'cause I was ready to fill it after the photos :-) View attachment 877609 Second photo shows the river rock layer a bit better...big rounded river rocks! View attachment 877610 Third one is even more of a close up. Looking closely you'll see rocks that landed on an angle (pointed upward toward the current stream) showing which way the ancient stream was running...and proving they weren't moved by the recent mega storm too. View attachment 878090...and here's the gold :-)

Sweet!