nevadad00d

I have his first two books. Although I haven't owned any of the Gold Master series, I may get one in the near future. I bought them and read them as I have with many different books on detecting, just to gain as much knowledge as possible on the subject. There always seems to be more to learn or another way of looking at things etc. Each author has his own methods and philosophy and it never hurts to know many when confronted with some challenge you haven't before. Not only that, just darn good reading when there's too much snow and the ground is too frozen to dig.

For the average person to understand better, why the Sierra is the way it is today and what has happened to it over geologic time, I like to read things about it as much as I can. From magazine articles to books on geology. In recent years I have watched a number of videos on youtube, The History Channel, Discovery Channel etc that explain how different mountain ranges etc became the way they are over time. There is a pretty good series that's been re-running on the History Channel lately called "How the Earth Was Made". They have different episodes of different well known areas such as the Grand Canyon, Rocky Mountains etc. It seems I saw one on the Sierra as well. There is also one they did on Gold in the Western USA which included California and Nevada that was pretty good. Keep an eye out for any of these shows, I find them quite interesting and they are explained in layman's terms so are easy to understand. The more you know about an area you are interested in for prospecting the better your chances of finding something.

I wonder if it was a name White's was considering when developing the new detector the MX Sport. Who knows, maybe they have other new models coming out as well.

I ran across this letter last week that Gov. Sandoval had written to BLM on the subject back in last July, there is mention of travel restrictions in there as well. So, we may see road closures in this deal too. http://www.blm.gov/style/medialib/blm/wo/Communications_Directorate/public_affairs/sage-grouse_planning/documents.Par.56871.File.dat/NV%20%20Governor%20Consist.pdf

More news on the Sage Grouse Mining Withdrawal: http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2016/01/28/us/ap-us-sage-grouse-nevada-governor.html?_r=0

So, I take it the only way a guy can be sure about California is to hit the County Recorder's Office before doing any detecting to be sure you're not on someone's claim?

After doing a little more research: We have to close off mining in the northern parts of all three of these counties (Washoe, Humbolt & Elko) for sage grouse yet, there were sage grouse hunts in 2015 in all of these areas in the three counties that border the north end of the state. 011 Washoe county, 031, 033, 051 Humbolt county, 061, 062, 066, 067, 071, 072, 074, 075, 076, 077, 081 Elko county, all within the proposed withdrawal. These areas pretty much cover just about all of the withdrawal in Nevada. The amount of area that mines exist in the withdrawal probably dont even make up 1% of the land they want to close. I call BS. Nevada Upland Game Hunts for sage grouse in lower half of regulations: http://www.ndow.org/uploadedFiles/ndoworg/Content/Wildlife_Education/Publications/2015-16-Upland-Game-Brochure.pdf Nevada hunt unit map: http://www.ndow.org/uploadedFiles/ndoworg/Content/Hunt/Resources/NDOW_HuntUnits_2013_ArchD.pdf

"The BLM has not been forthcoming about the details of this withdrawal. Much of what they have published is very misleading. That's why Land Matters has spent so much time and effort to squeeze the facts out of the BS being presented." I agree with that. When getting to the story of this withdrawal on the BLM site, it links to the maps I posted in their article with state specific maps listed first then at the bottom of the page there's a link to the actual withdrawal map. You would think that the state specific maps above would be the same as the withdrawal map, just for each state but, isn't according to the withdrawal map.

OK, I found your earlier post on this here and turned on the withdrawal which appears to be the same as one of the maps I posted. I just hope that everyone knows it will effect a lot more area than just were current claims are. Possibly areas where others may have plans to detect for nuggets. BLM/FWS says they want to limit surface disturbance to 3% or less. I'm not sure if that would effect nugget shooting but, I wouldn't like all this area closed to it. Anyway, thanks for giving us all a heads up on all this and we will maybe find out in the near future what decision they will make tomorrow Jan 15th.

Iin the 9th paragraph in your first post here, you state: The new custom interactive Sage Grouse Proposed Withdrawal Map shows just the claims affected with all the claim information normally found only on the Land Matters Mining Claims Maps. If this is a map of "just" the mining claims effected, what about all the rest of the area effected that isn't currently claimed? It appears that this proposal would close off a lot more area to future claims or possible other activity such as metal detecting for nuggets. I still haven't found what all activity would be effected. Scary

Down near the bottom of this page http://www.blm.gov/wo/st/en/prog/more/sagegrouse.html it says: To see a map of proposed mineral withdrawal areas in Sagebrush Focal Areas, click here and this is the link to another map, this one: http://blm-egis.maps.arcgis.com/apps/webappviewer/index.html?id=45b2d7896c36467aac3990b739d75a26 all three are different. The first map I posted was the one you get to when you click on Nevada at the link at the top of this posting. On the page it comes up on, you can download in a pdf or jpeg at the lower right. All I can say is, I hope your map is right and these are something else because, these cover a lot more area.

PS: This is the title of the map their link goes to: Greater Sage Grouse Proposed Plan Habitat Map

I did a google search on the title of the withdrawal. Went to the BLM site and the story about it, to try to find more info on what all activity it would effect. It had links to this and other state maps of other states. I'm not sure if something has changed since you first posted the Land Matters map or something changed since this map was made by them.

Here are the areas that would be effected in Nevada and northeastern California . If you go to the BLM site you can download a map of other states effected as well. http://www.blm.gov/style/medialib/blm/nv/wildlife___fishes/sage_grouse.Par.17552.File.dat/15-05-27GRSG%20Proposed%20Plan%20Habitatmap.pdf

Clay Diggins, "No gold there or anywhere near there." Yep, that's what McKenna said. "The Lost Adams mine is 187.56 miles away as the crow flies." Dang, I knew it, right smack dab in the middle of Lake Powell. :|