How Do You Deal With Claim Jumpers?

[Rick Watkins]

I just was wondering if some of you have had these problems on claim sometimes. We have had lots of lead around ,thats gonna happen but when they shoot inside of small digs with shotguns and 22s they very well know what it does to ALL prospecting methods.I have found many pieces of detectable stuff

stuffed inside of small place's just too throw detectors off. Our claim has seem many of these including

the guy that digs out a deep target (assuming ) then burys the hole half way back up with big lead in hole,

laughing the whole time hes doing it. It is someone pretty knowledgeable about detecting. Last time i went too claim this had happened near one of my big nugget producing areas,it really gets adrenadrenaline flowing. I would really like to catch this guy it is just a slap in the face and he knows it .,I have been collecting a few clues maybe catch them someday. We know they have pulled gold here and they will be back. We do have a few people who watch claims occasionally but this is gonna happen.

Just wondering if any of you have had this happen and maybe some ideas. Rick

[flakmagnet]

Motion camera's tucked away in a good vantage point.

[Sourdough Scott]

Well, hard to hang a game camera off a sagebrush branch.

[flakmagnet]

Agreed Scott.

It's a shame to even have to deal with people like this at all.

[klunker]

  Game cameras. But lotsaluk getting a D.A. to prosecute. Be patient and keep you head if you catch them.

[Ivansgarage]

I was thinking more in the RPG category, that should clear them out and open

up some good new gold ground, (the old two birds with one stone story).

 

 

Ivan

[bado1]

Unless they are illegally removing gold/minerals from your claim there is'nt anything you can do about it. Shooting,fishing hunting, camping, etc. is legal and allowed on claims. Unfortunately some people are idiots and we have to live with it. I see guys quail hunting on claims I hunt and I just cringe. Can't do a thing about it though. Thing is, I hunt too...not in areas I detect though!

 

I can't stand guys with claims that think that they some how own the land and do things that are very illegal trying to keep people off of "their" land.

Using game cameras is a great way to have your camera stolen or shot up. In AZ. the Forest Service (don't get me started) is the biggest offender of taking game cameras...if the camera is up for more than two weeks it becomes public property if on public land and the FS will take it down.

 

Good luck
 

[jasong]

I tried fighting it to no avail, after a while I just started telling people they were on my claim and if they weren't a-holes about it I'd say go ahead and prospect just don't leave coyote holes, trash, or dig into banks. Oddly, now I rarely get anyone on my claims, something about forbidden fruit I guess.

 

The only exception is when I have a permitted/bonded operation going because I can't have people crawling all over and getting in my way or potentially hurting themselves or doing things that forfeit or increase my bond. Even then people poke their noses in when you are gone for the night, at that point it's a call to the sheriff who just says there is nothing he can do about it, so....shrugs. 

 

Next project I start I'm just going to apply for the permit that lets me put a living quarters (camper) on the premises as long as my operation is active and then I can just watch it myself. If it's just an empty claim without a permitted operation going on then I'm not sure exactly how you prevent claimjumping unless you have a real cooperative sheriff with free time on his hands or a claim real close to town.

 

I don't claim anything that I don't think has some sort of commerical potential. I can detect out a 20 acre claim on the surface in a few days, someone can try to go out there and try to get something I missed after that but it won't be much. For me the real value is in dozing it, or in processing the gravels, and I've never had anyone claimjump with heavy machinery yet so its not a big problem so far in the mineral theft department. It's more keeping people out of my tools and equipment and fresh excavations, at that point you can actually erect fences around the active workings, despite what some people think.

[LipCa]

If you can detect 20 acres in a few days and not leave much of anything, you are superman!!

[jasong]

Your comment is tongue in cheek but mine is serious. Very rarely do I find patches where I don't have the bulk of the finds cleaned out in the first few days...nothing superman about it. 20 acres isn't a lot of ground and generally the nuggets are concentrated in a couple (or 1) localized areas within the claim boundaries when you are only dealing with cleaning off the surface (as I stated).

 

Yeah someone can come along and get some dinks or the occasional deeper nugget but when you are dealing with an actual bonded mining operation then those little bits don't mean a whole lot, it's the knowledge of where they are found that is valuable.

 

You can go back for years and pull a stray out here and there but that sort of detecting isn't relevant to the point of my comment, if that's all a claim is being used for then IMO it should be dropped anyways, mining claims are to mine not to recreate on.