Welcome to Treasurenet and welcome to gold prospecting!
Must haves -- lets see --
the Garrett gold panning kit is quite popular around here; comes with a snuffer bottle and some plastic vials for your gold.
Also consider a shovel, a pry bar, and a scoop.
And 5-gallon, or 3 gallon buckets.
A magnet to remove black sand [put the magnet in a baggie when using it, still works, but you won't get your magnet covered with black sand]. That stuff is hard to remove. Black sand is kind of like the metal filings in that toy -- the pic of a bald headed man in a plastic frame. You use a magnet to move metal shavings to give him hair and a beard. Yea.
And work gloves.
I also took up salt water fishing with $600. worth of gear and my darling daughter landed exactly 1 fish. A cute little rock fish. She carefully removed the hook with tools from the surgical pack I purchased and released the fish without incident considering it's spines are poisonous ... I didn't know. Sigh. But, I am doing much better with the gold thing.
My next gold prospecting purchases will be the Falcon MD20. And the Fisher Gold Bug Pro.
There are some good books on the subject:
"Fist Full of Gold" by Chris Ralph, copyright 2009, there is a lot of desert prospecting in this one; but mountains too.
And "Recreational Gold Prospecting For Fun and Profit" by Gail Butler -- this book is a little older -- copyright 1998. She learned panning from her grandpa, and she worked LAPD. Adventuresome!
The guys on this board are very helpful.
So, welcome aboard ... it's going to be a blast!
--Katt
Yes welcome crystalpayne,
I always say there aren't enough ladies in the treasure hunting business and when you start bringing home the gold am sure your family will see a plate full of words they will ingest.
Midnightmoon is a smart lady. I like what she said. Gayle Butler is also a smart lady. I have her books. if you ever get out to California get her book Rockhounding California [Paperback]
Gail A. Butler (Author). Check it out she leads you around California to most of the greatest geologic areas I've ever seen. The rich mining history is still alive today here in California. There are gold and gems to be found all across this great country.
Of course this particular thread deals primarily with gold prospecting, which is why I'm sure you signed in here.
I just got back from a trip to the Mojave Desert to visit a friend's property. He and his wife plan to move here in about five years.
The travel trailer is now permanent.
After helping him put stuff together we did a little prospecting.
We took about a two-mile hike and took several samples.
During the day it never warmed up.
The first night it got down to 23°
The next night it got down to 20°
I put my own little recirculating high banker using a small sump pump and EZ sluice and a small generator.
And I had to bring my own water.
Here are some pictures.
We were very blessed there there was no wind blowing, and it was clear and sunny, but cold.
We found a little color, but we need to prospect other places near his property that may be richer.
Desert mining isn't the only kind of mining out here.
There's lots of River Mining, which is where I find most of my Gold.
This is East Fork San Gabriel River Gold in the picture below.
