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Detecting In The Cargo Muchacho Mountains


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Nice job, Randy! We should ask Bill to have our next outing there 😉

Andreas

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Great hunting and good story about the hunt!

One of these days I hope to be hunting those nice nuggets as well.

Wish you more luck in the future.

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4 hours ago, Randy Lunn said:

This past weekend I participated in my first outing with the Southwestern Prospectors & Miners Association (SPMA) club. We met at a gas station off I-8 and headed to one of their large claims in the Cargo Muchacho Mountains west of Yuma on the California side of the Colorado River. It takes just under an hour on desert dirt roads to get there but the drive was not bad. There were six other guys and we all bonded well. After discussing the area we split up with half trying their hand at dry washing and the other half metal detecting. I suited up with my GPZ and tool belt and headed out. The rugged terrain with 104 degree temperatures was challenging but felt great. I have not been able to get out much this year. I got lucky. On a moderate slope about four inches down in a crevice of schist I found a 2.1 gram nugget. Yahoo! My best and one of my few nuggets for the year.

1988256754_SPMAArazClaim-2.1gmNuggetFound.thumb.jpg.0cf5f3fd374f104b49dd2283a2799c4f.jpg83932914_2.1gmNuggetwithDime10172020.thumb.jpg.bbffd18a57151f855431affeeb074fed.jpg

The history of the area in interesting (from westernmininghistory.com):


Mining was first done in this region by Spaniards as early as 1780-81, when placers in Jackson Gulch and oxidized ores in Madre Valley were worked. This is believed to have been the first gold mined in California. Later, mining was resumed under Mexican rule. The district received its name of Cargo Muchacho, or Loaded Boy, when two young Mexican boys came into camp one evening with their shirts loaded with gold. American miners became interested in this district soon after the end of the Mexican War in 1848. Mining became firmly established in 1877 with the completion of the Southern Pacific Railroad to Yuma. Large-scale mining continued from around 1890 until 1916 and again from 1932 until 1941, with intermittent activity since World War II.

Happy Hunting!

 

 

Nice little solid nugget you got there Randy, I bet that was fun to find! Looks like the little guy was moving around quite a bit, it’s nicely rounded and probably has more friends around there too. I was just curious, what coil were you using with your GPZ?Congratulations!

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Randy,

Any nugget over a gram makes me feel like a king these days.  haha

I've found a few nice nuggets west of Yuma on the SPMA claims a few years back.

Fred Mason gave me a pointy finger one time.  He said look under the power lines and I found gold!  I told Fred he gave good directions and then he told me I had gone to a different set of power lines than his directions.  He went to my power lines a couple of times and got gold in the parking area ...

Gold is where it hasn't already been found.

Mitchel

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