For me I just see it as lying. I have been prospecting for a number of years. Simple truth there are recreational miners. Gold clubs are all recreational. I have never met a member that claimed to be anything but recreational well until recently now that these Recreational clubs are advocating "RECREATION" as a bad word.. And its been my experience that RECREATIONAL MINERS use the land different then individuals who actually wish to profit in mining. Land use is distinctly different. Everything is different.. NOTICABLY DIFFERENT....
For me Mining Law intent gives the prudent man an opportunity to make money mining. PRETTY SIMPLE..
I went back and forth on this for a while when I first got into prospecting. Looking at all the area's around me in southern CA that were claimed up, while at the same time showed no active mining being done on them. Which was frustrating as a greenie, because all I wanted to do was put my box in the water and run some local dirt but couldn't without breaking mining claim laws.
It all felt pretty unfair.
And the answers were all the same. Either go stake your own, which is kinda difficult when every plot of land on the only local river is already claimed up. Or buy a claim from someone for some outrageous price. Which would just be a loss because they are asking way more than the ground is actually worth. Bottom line, most ground really isn't worth mining for a profit. Because if it was, some company would already be mining it (they already did). Most of the ground we're mining today isn't worth the spot value of the gold, which is why, "PayDirt" has become so popular. Sell .25 worth of gold for $5.00.
Most of the ground mined in the past was only worth mining when you could hydrolic mine the sides of the mountain for such a low cost/yard to make it profitable. I look at the ground I sluice on up in San Gabriel. It's on an old hydrolic mining claim from the past. I've probably run 100 buckets at least, if not more, for what? Half a gram of gold. That dirt produces what? 1 gram a yard? You coudn't even mine that ground with heavy machinery and cover fuel costs. I think the only person who could mine San Gabriel if they had the permission would be Todd Hoffman. Since all of his opperations opperate successfully at a loss.
Remember, Mining the Miners has ALWAYS been profitable. Makes sense that creating a mining club and mining the miners is the only profitable way to make money on such low paying dirt. Shannon get's to collect his paycheck from AMRA, which is probably WAY more $ a year than he could EVER pull from the ground, even if he dredged 24 hours a day 365/year. And families across the country get access to claims all over the country. It's a Win/Win for Shannon and AMRA under current mining laws.
Now if you want my opinion on current mining laws well that's completely different.
I personally think that unless you're activly mining a claim for PROFIT, than you shouldn't be able to squat on a claim. Which would probably open up acres and acres of land across the country for "recreational" prospecting because tons of claims would become invalid. I personally don't think that John Doe should be able to lock me out of 20 acres of river because he bought the claim off EBay for a couple grand and wants to reserve it for his personal use on Labor Day weekend every year. I also think that this same John Doe wouldn't see any reduction in his enjoyment of the SAME land if the river was open to everyone to run some dirt in. Why? Because it's not profitable land. The value of that claim is in the enjoyment the claim owner gets from the camping, the vacation time, whatever, and the little flash in their pan they get when they are done. But when it's all said and done, if you added up all the costs associated with mining that land on Labor Day: The drive out, the fuel costs, the time spent, etc there is no REAL profit. It's a HOBBY.
I'm not a member of AMRA or any local clubs. I'm not stupid. I know that if I spend the $100 to get access to those clubs claims, I'm going to dig up the SAME 1 gram a yard that I dig up in San Gabriel. Most ground just isn't profitable to mine. And after fuel/food/time costs I'm not going to be in the black, even if I mined on club claims 8 hours a day like a regular job. I doubt I could even recover the $2500 if I mined daily for the rest of my lift.
Because lets be real. If Shannon (or any of these clubs) had claim's that actually PAID. Well you and I both know that members of AMRA aren't getting access to them.
