Howd you learn to prospect???

[mjarvis]

Nobody taught me how to prospect, I just learned. I wanted to learn, the fever started with watching GOLD RUSH and my interest started from there. My dad or anyone else in my family has a clue how to or what prospect. I think it's interesting where people have learned to prospect and from who. I'm learning from all of you all and I've learned a lot!!! Keep up all the great sharing and knowledge of a long American history that has been fun doing and sharing!!!

 

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[pmgsourdough]

When I started 10 years ago, I purchased a small pan from a local hardware store and set out on foot for a 3 day journey that yielded not a spec of color. I didnt know anyone involved in prospecting, and would pull material from the middle of Slate Creek. Right off the top. I look back and think to myself "what a fool". After years of research and learning from seasoned prospectors, I now have 3 claims of my own and do this full time. What a crazy journey it has been. Extremely discouraging at times, but worth every minute.

 

[Gene Slater]

I learned from another IBEW member a few years back. I had heard that my new found brother was into gold panning. I persuaded him into taking me gold panning. The night before we went, he made me come to his house to pan some concentrate. After about 8 beers, I had it down pat. ( really after 4 beers, but, the beers were really good and I kept messing up till he ran out of beer) The next day, the week before Christmas, he took me to Doc Rodger's field. He had a small sluice and I learned that this was a lot of work...not like the shows on tv. I froze my nether parts off, but, found color. I had just buried my little brother the week ago...this was the best rehab I could have ever done. It allowed me to get out of my funk and get on to life again. Gold panning cures depression. It allows you to be out with mother nature and breath fresh air and gets your head retuned.

 

[Aurabbit79er]

I had listened to a few stories from a fellow worker that was a partner with some of his friends who worked a suction dredge together in northern Cal.
He showed me a half oz in a glass bottle and I was interested.
10 years later in a drug store in Oakhurst, Cal. I was camping in Yosemite, needed some lantern mantles. On the bottom shelf of clearance items I saw a small stack of black, plastic gold pans. $3 each. I thought -I'm in gold country, I should try panning. I had panned before at Knotts Berry Farm, so I figured it was just the same. I bought 2 pans. We were camped on the Merced River in Yosemite Valley. I took a bucket and a folding army shovel and dove down to the middle of the river and scraped the bottom gravel into the bucket. i was about 7' deep and the water was 40º. When I energed from the water My wife Ann said I was Blue in color. It was cold but I was on a mission.
I panned a hand full at a time and I found nothing. I went back in the water one more time and still no gold. I knew I was panning right. I must be looking in the wrong place.
When I got back home I started to research. I bought books, Looked on the web, Then I saw my first Gold prospecting show on the Outdoor Ch. George Massey Talked me into joining the GPAA and that would supply me with everything I needed to find gold and give me places to look near where I live. and that it would be cheaper than spending $250 a month going to a gym and all I would need to get in good shape is the membership, a bucket and a $4 shovel. I was now totally hooked And a week later I found gold in the East Fork San Gabriel River. That's when the fever hit, summer 1993. Two weeks later I bought my Keene A52 sluice box. I have it to this day. I have done a few mods to it and even built 2 homemade sluices. I change my whole life direction. I work to go mining. All my vacations revolve around Mining. When I win the lottery I will be mining the next day, with better mining gear of course.

 

[soupfreak]

A friend of mine took me up the the East Fork after he got his sluice. This was in the mid 90's. Wasn't really into it that day, but did find one of those cheapo Rambo knives in the river (Cleaned that stupid thing for two days before I could see any of the blade.). We ran into a couple of guys MD'ing, and they showed us this beautiful nugget that must have been between 2 to 3 oz. They said the MD pretty much paid for itself with that find. Strangely enough that got me interested in MD's more than gold. Wasn't until maybe 5 or 6 years ago I started looking into desert prospecting. One thing I will say is you will never learn anything until you get your hands dirty and listen to experience.

 

[perish01]

for me it was my grandfather he used to take some of the older kids with him on "vacation" which entailed him finding a good spot in a dry creek bed and us hauling buckets to him to dry wash while he sat in the shade that's how i learned. guess i got the fever early my first trip i was 11 or so .

 

[Oldyoungtimer]

I learned through my own experience. I have learned A TON from tnet and i thank everyone for that. Nothing has taught me more than being out in the forest and a pan in my hand. I still have a lifetime of learning to do still! As a matter of fact i best be going!

 

[GrizzlyGremlin]

When i was in 4th grade my teacher mrs. Natelino did a section called "going west" we learned about the pioneers and the driving forces that made people go west. I was more into the trapping and hunting aspects. One day one of my classmates dad came in and told us that there was small amounts of gold in NH. He brought pans and a vile with .05dwt or so of gold. He also brought dirt from a river up north. We panned into a plastic tub and found tiny tiny specs. 8 years later when i was a senior in highschool and decided to give gold panning a try for real. My first outing was discouraging at first. We dug and panned and dug and panned but nothing. On my last pan ofthe day as i was walking backto the car one handed panning some dirt from between a chunk of bedrock i noticed the beginning of the disease i now have. This piece of gold was a nice sized picker. I did not realize how nice a piece it was at the time but thought " yeah now were getting somewhere!" I showed some dredgers downstream and they told me how nice a piece it really was. Now 5 years from that date and i still haven't found a larger picker that that one on my first day.

 

[Hoser John]

1956 Korean war vet bachelor Uncle John ,in shell shock still ,bought a place in Bagby to escape life and learned from him and Chriss Mills a ol'hard arse sourdough--John

 

[Oakview2]

I was on that creek and bridge yesterday. Great pics...

 

[Jeff95531]

He had a small sluice and I learned that this was a lot of work...not like the shows on tv. I froze my nether parts off, but, found color. I had just buried my little brother the week ago...this was the best rehab I could have ever done. It allowed me to get out of my funk and get on to life again. Gold panning cures depression. It allows you to be out with mother nature and breath fresh air and gets your head retuned.

I too recently lost my little brother. It got me off the bench and into the game for prospecting...it was just one more great thing he did for me.

 

[Rutnbuck]

Had a Uncle that took me up on the american river when I was 8 we fished for Steelhead and panned for gold. Been hooked on both now for 47 yrs. Been all over the country and part of Idaho chaseing the dream.

 

[Sackett]

A buddy of mine and I did a little panning when we were teens. We thought that we were "Mountain Men" in the mountains of Western North Carolina. We never found anything, but we had fun totin' our gold pans around! Then 30 years later when we both retired we started again, but this time we researced on our endeavor. the internet, books, tv shows, anything. We learned how to pan the right way, and started hitting the creeks. Boy, I can remember looking at all the little shiny rocks, mica, ect trying every way in the world to turn it into gold!! Then one cold snowy winter night in a camper I was panning some cons from a sluice box that we had run that day, and I FOUND MY FIRST SPECK OF GOLD!! Man, when you see it you KNOW it!!! Finally!!! We had gold!!! Since then I have come a long way, from factory sluices to homemade sluices, homemade highbanker that really works GREAT! Homemade Miller Tables...I have now found gold just below my house and it is getting better every day. It is a great hobby, peaceful, relaxing, hard work!!!

 

[LP13]

Father and grandfather were carpenters in Northern Cal near Reno. From as long as I can remember when we weren't out hunting, we were out looking for gold or rockhounding something in the hills around where I lived. My dad made me my first sluice out of a board, some sides and some wood slats set at about 15 degrees. Riffles were about an inch and a half high, and the thing was 5 feet long or so. I think I was about 6 or 7 then. Would drag it down to the creek and don't think I ever did get any gold in it. Looking back now it was because I was expecting it to be big chunks and not fine stuff hidden in the sands. At 11, when I lived in Colorado, my best friend's dad took us to Central City, CO. He paid for some panning lessons on that day trip out. Some old guy who had a claim there drew on a piece of paper the outline of a river and explained where to look for gold when prospecting. Inside of curves, etc., gave us a shovel and two buckets each and told us to go figure out where to dig and fill the buckets up. Then we brought it back and he showed us how to pan. We actually did pretty good. As I recall we got several large flakes each and a bunch of fines.

During my adult life I had periods where I would want to go gold panning or dredging and would get some equipment and get out and do it. Never did get much though. But over my life I did continue to learn more about geology and stuff (I was the one who found the dinosaurs in Cody, WY in 2000) and a few years ago when I found out I had spinal stenosis (arthritis in the spine), and would probably end up in a wheelchair or bedridden most likely (I can't afford a bunch of operations - what happened to my free Obama money ) I decided that I had to get out and try to enjoy life and do what I loved to do, which was being in the outdoors and rockhounding and things, before I can't any more. So it was a natural for me to pick up gold prospecting in earnest again. This time however I decided I would make a serious effort and figure out how to get the gold for real! And so over a few years, I studied a lot and tested a lot and then I decided on the design for my sluice, because the ones I was using just didn't catch the fine gold I could find in the unclaimed areas around where I live.

Pretty much brings it to the present time. I really love that peace and quiet out there and gold prospecting is just a really fun, healthy way to enjoy what life is really all about! Turned out the physical exercise has helped a little with my back problem too! Might buy me a few more years, and when I find my first big nugget ... maybe a new set of tires for my 55 M38A1 jeep too!

 

[sidvail]

I used to do a lot of hiking and climbing all over south central Alaska and one of my favorite hikes was the pack trail from Crow Creek mine over the Chugach Mtns to the Eagle River valley. A friend from work suggested I take a pan my next trip and try my luck. Can't say the fever took me then, as I wasn't very good at finding anything and really had no idea what I was doing - but it was still fun and made my hikes even more enjoyable. I tried my hand in some great gold country - Resurrection Creek, Crow Creek, Hatcher's Pass. All provided more fun than gold - but just living in the area was enough for me.

Until I got old - LOL. Then the cold drove me down here to sunny California. Now I'm in mother lode country and finally learning how to actually do it right. Give me another 10 years of this and I may find that nugget I was promised 20 years ago.

 

[mjarvis]

Great stories. Very cool to hear the different walks of life. No matter how you got it, you got it and that's the best thing!! Keep the dream alive.....

 

[BigBud]

I was addicted to heroin for 8-9 years and was wanting to get clean and happened to be looking at ways to do that on the internet and came across something about prospecting somehow and learned there was gold in Indiana. Idle time is a bad thing for someone trying to quit so I decided to try and prospect and the first time I seen color in a pan I had a new "addiction" and that was 8 -9 years ago.
Probably not a story many would expect.

 

[mjarvis]

I was addicted to heroin for 8-9 years and was wanting to get clean and happened to be looking at ways to do that on the internet and came across something about prospecting somehow and learned there was gold in Indiana. Idle time is a bad thing for someone trying to quit so I decided to try and prospect and the first time I seen color in a pan I had a new "addiction" and that was 8 -9 years ago.
Probably not a story many would expect.

Hats off to you big bud! Congrats let the yellow in the pan be the only thing that posses you!! Best of luck!!

 

[63bkpkr]

In Detroit the folks took us tent camping/fishing in the summer. Moved to Calif and in February of 1963 hiked down a mountain trail to a mother lode river during flood stage. The river was milk chocolate brown, wall to wall, roaring, huge trees really moving fast downstream, boulders bouncing/banging along the bedrock and I was hooked to all this mountain splendor.

I always 'played' at looking for it but exploring/fishing/campfires/being with my children took precedence. One year a buddy and I happened on this gold mine and the shop foreman had us come into the main building and showed us pint jarS Full of good sized nuggets, I think that kind of tipped the scale a little. A few more years of playing at it and then one year when the water was really low and I had a good classifier system I found my first small nugget. Then bought one of the original GB's that I did not find gold with, then the GMT and gold and an A52, 4 ton cable hoist, etc. etc. and I am hooked on the entire outdoors w/gold thing. Quite a ride though the outdoors are the big draw still for me, awesome stuff to explore................63bkpr

Sidvail, you are in the right general area. Just keep looking/learning and you will find it, see example below....63

~1/4 oz. of Ma Nature's finest CA gold

 

[idowa]

You can read all about it in the next issue of American Digger magazine... Hopefully.