With all the videos and books out there, you would think finding gold would be easy for the new prospector. Alot of how to info is really nothing more than a smoke screen to get you to buy that new wonder tool, note the word
TOOL. You can spend alot of money on prospecting equipment, but if you don't find much gold now, that $500.00 tool isn't gonna help you. The pan I use in my videos I bought used for $7.00 5 1/2 years ago, so with roughly a $25-$30 dollar investment I have found 19 ounces of gold. So whats my point, well my point is, tools are for recovering gold you have already found, tools don't find the gold for you.
One of the most important things I learned early on was something almost everyone overlooks, once I figured this out it really increased the amount of gold I was finding. Almost all prospectors will tell you to look for black sand, the problem is that it's sand and it's found all over a wash and it does'nt really tell you anything. Now we all know gold comes in different sizes, nuggets, pickers, and fines, well black sand (magnetite) does to.
In the picture above you can see "nuggets" of magnetite scattered all over the bedrock, there are even some pieces wedged in the crevices. Now if you were standing on this wash and had a full view you would notice that these black sand "nuggets" seem to be forming lines or "streaks" and although magnetite is'nt as heavy as gold, gold does the same thing in a wash. Next time your out prospecting try looking for these black sand "nuggets" and be sure to sample where they pile up. If you get good at spotting these streaks you never now what you'll find.
Good luck out there,
JKLyon
Q: So you're saying that the more you dig, the more you find? Becuase you stated that "the more you dig, the more you find" is the biggest fable out there. I'm still not sure what you mean. Thanks for the reply.
A: All depends on "Where" you are digging. Yesterday I dug a spot on Lynx creek, the richest gold stream in Arizona. The bedrock I was working was a soft clay type shist, very rare for the area I was working, I found 2-3 dollars worth of gold. Why? Beacuse gold forms in streaks, the area I was working was about 70 feet from bank to bank, a streak is usually from 6-8 inches wide. If the streak had been running across this bedrock Im sure it would have been a 2-3 hundred dollar day. So the point is, not all the gravels in a streambed contain gold. Specks and small pepper sized flakes are common, and can be found scattered throughout the creek. I think I'll go out tomarrow and make a video just for you and try to explain this a little better. Thanks for the question.
I have another question for you. During the rainy season, doesn't the floods wash away most of the existing gold and deposit new gold? So wouldn't most areas kind of be reborn with new gold to find?
So its sort of like brand new land with gold after each rainy season? So in theory, a hundred years vs a year would be the same? Sort of anyway? I suppose its not but how??
A: On lynx creek we just dont get enough rain to move 4 feet of overburden. The last big move on Lynx was 7 1/2 years ago, some areas got striped out and pocketed alot of gold, others didnt change at all. Some areas on Lynx are so wide that its likely the overburden will never move unless someone moves it with a shovel. Smaller washes pocket gold more often with alot less rain and thats why I hunt them. The wider the creek, the more water you need to get the same result.