so I'm always reading about claims in the mid to west coast and never exactly new how it worked or if you own a certain parcel of property or what or is it you get permission from a land owner on a certain area divide the profits or what kinda curious?
So here's how it works out west vaquero;
Much of the western lands are owned by us and managed by the government. Both Nat'l Forest and "BLM" land fall into this category. When you discover a "valuable mineral deposit" you may file a "claim". In order to secure your "claim" various fees are paid to various agencies as indicated above. These fees entitle the "claim-holder" to certain rights. In the past these rights were intended to insure one could extract said minerals at reasonable cost and effort using known and accepted methods.
Currently, it seems, these fees are used to feed the bureaucracy employed to inform the "claim-holder" that the valuable mineral deposit cannot be extracted by any of the known and accepted methods due to some group of individuals' (or critters') claim of harm. (It is unimportant that said "harm" be in fact harmful. It is only necessary that the harmed group or their advocate "feels" "harmed" by the activity.) For instance. In the area of my claim there are a frog, a toad and a Native American tribe who "feel" "harmed" by mining. This prevents my group from using known and accepted methods to extract valuable minerals from our claim.
I believe a majorityof our 20 years of fees went to pay for the "No Parking" and "ESA" (environmentally sensitive area) signs erected along the only access route to said claim

. Some may be for the observers to sit and watch for something, I'm not sure what

Maybe counting toads.
Last year, along with thousands of others, our association lost 87.5% of our claim because the bureaucrats decided to change the rules on acreage in order to collect 8 times the fees for the "claim" we haven't been able to mine in many years.
I hope this will help enhance your enjoyment of mining out west. .
