Your Recommendations For Remote Location Detecting In Nm, Az, Nv, And Ca Desert

[blackjack]

12 hours ago, GotAU? said:

All the posts I’ve seen about people successfully finding nuggets in the US these days mentioned digging in areas with trash and pellets. Steve also mentioned recently that presence of trash and pellets was a good way to know an area hasn’t been thoroughly detected.  It doesn’t come easy, and that’s been something I started learning as well.

This is a really good point, if you're finding lead then you are on the right track, I had to find three bullets before I found gold. But I knew I was on the right track, lead is relatively rare in a lot of the West Australian fields, unlike bloody boot tacks !

[blackjack]

On 4/23/2023 at 4:28 PM, geof_junk said:

All seven areas have gold. Just keep clear of my patch. ?

 

Hey g-j, Canberra is the biggest square, what are you trying to tell us ?

[geof_junk]

31 minutes ago, blackjack said:

Hey g-j, Canberra is the biggest square, what are you trying to tell us ?

BJ the 7 areas are the states, note I included Tasmania ?

[blackjack]

12 minutes ago, geof_junk said:

BJ the 7 areas are the states, note I included Tasmania ?

Ha, the penny drops g-j, I was looking at Hobart, Melbourne etc. Thanks for not leaving Tassie of the map. Judging by the way  property prices have gone recently I think the secret is out, we were happy to be left of the map.

[FarTraveller]

23 hours ago, dig4gold said:

As we know, no body gets it all [the gold in hard hit ground]. But by going to places where gold has been found before it can just be a matter of going a little bit further out from the fringes of the hard hit areas. Maybe into deeper ground with a larger coil to get better depth. 

The guy obviously took offence to what I said but by his response I think I hit a raw nerve... ...There are no free lunches out there & like I also said, no gold is easy gold. You need to do the hard yards & foot miles & walk over the gold.

We all have our preferences about what kind of ground we like. I explained that I steer clear of patches that have been dug time and again over the decades. I agree that there is still gold. Have at it. That's not the gold I'm after.

Now you mention the fringes; if by fringes you mean "a few canyons over", then again, I'm with you. I'm not the sort to start sweeping were I notice the last unfilled hole in a patch. To me, that's still a heavily worked site full of shot. If there's nice gold still to be found, that's great for people who don't mind high trash ratios in well travelled ground.

I'm not betting on finding the one auriferous draw left that hasn't been dry washed.

I like to imagine the thirsty OTs dragging their equipment and arses miles from water and roads. There is plenty of coarse gold that was too hard to get to be worth it in that time. So OTs would scratch about, get a little easy gold, and move on if there wasn't enough to survive on. They would have got more if they had the tools and tech I have, but they didn't.

Finding that abandoned gold 5 miles from the nearest donkey trail is rewarding to me. And yeah, if there was rich gold there, there would be a road leading right to it, obviously.

When someone says "I don't like heavily worked areas, even if they have good gold, I prefer to roam extremely tough places far from roads even if it means I have to work harder for less gold", you probably shouldn't immediately blurt out "hey, do your own work, there's no free lunch, stop trying to freely exchange general ideas with likeminded people on a very specific forum that exists for that purpose!"

According to my original post, someone might answer something like: "California side of the Sylvania Mountains. There's no active claims, but it has produced small amounts of native gold and won't be full of trash because it never warranted heavy traffic. There's not much for access or water, but that's what you asked for right?". To me, it seems a reasonable question and rational reply. Maybe I'm missing something.

[GotAU?]

On the MRDS website, you can download location KML’s of historic mines per state that had gold recorded as a primary or lesser metal producer.  Put those on Google Earth and you will be able to find remote and roadless areas between them. On USGS you can download KML’s of geologic maps and also put them on Google Earth. Look for patterns in all three. That’s how I’d start if remote virgin patches were my goal.

 https://mrdata.usgs.gov/mrds/

Download/Select: search data using a form

Pick State, with commodity

Choose format: Google Earth

Get Data

Download data file: the one with .KML at the end.

Open the .kml file on Google Earth

 

 

 

 

[FarTraveller]

On 4/23/2023 at 1:39 PM, Redz said:

Fartraveller,

It may help a little to know what state you are considering. From your references/tools used you are in the southwest US correct? But there are a bunch of states that have 6000+ elevation.

I am with Norvic - hunt ground where there are no big mines, more chance of nothing, but more chance of untouched spots. They are still there- old timers didnt have detectors, and older detectors cant handle ground modern ones can. Geology map will show the right ground

I am winding through AZ, NM, NV, and the CA desert. My route isn't set yet and will be flexible as I go depending on weather and whatnot.

I agree that hunting gold in areas where none has ever been found would be the best way to not find any. I don't work tailing piles or patches that are detector hot-spots even if there is good gold still there. That said, I do like to hunt "two canyons over" from proven ground. There, I expect to find 1. nothing or 2. a bit of gold that was overlooked or not worth the effort of OTs working the rich diggings two canyons over.

I do use all the tools recommended in this thread. The reason I asked opinions about a places that match my criteria is that I thought "crowd sourcing" might be one more tool in the tool box. It was worth a shot. Unfortunately, a few people didn't understand that I'd never be interested in rooting around in their holes and thought I was asking to do just that.

Hard to get to places with little gold is what I'm after. How would I know there's little gold there? Because gold was found, but not a lot, and so there's no beaten path leading there and little reason for others to hunt since what was little to begin with is less now. That said, even in such cases I still won't hunt the garbage heap that coughed up little gold, but rather, I like to cast about two or three canyons over.

I don't dream of prospecting in ranges where no one has ever found gold, or where people have found millions of ounces. Motherload area CA, ranges where a trace of gold has never been found, Superstition Mountains, and in or around LSD or Rich Hill are perfect example of a places I'd never sweep.

[Norvic]

Gold detecting is like fishing about 5% get about 95%, the reason being simple that 5% take little notice of the consensus, they hunt with a mindset discipline/purpose, was that way at the beginning of the electronic gold rush is still that way now.

[Steve Herschbach]

Use 1950s USGS topo maps to find mine and prospect symbols in gold bearing locations. Do research to see if they are claimed or not. If not, check them out, if they are, contact the claim owner and make a deal.

Chewing people out for asking advice is really not what this forum is about. I’ve given people pointers over the years, and if you can’t or won’t do the same…. silence is just as helpful as the lecture. Especially as regards new people who come here because this is supposed to be a place where people help people.