Prospecting 101

We often talk about lessons we’ve learned through the years.



Castle Creek looking chilly!

 Before we go there, I want to extend Seasons Greetings for gold in your stocking (ouch!) and nuggets in your pan!

I will share with you some stories. I often say that the only place to talk about how much you drink is with the bar crowd! Likewise, the only people to appreciate our prospecting stories would be prospectors!

Bob had done some prospecting when we started dating so I was the real greenhorn, but he had not started working in the mines so we both had a lot to learn. We had my two girls, ages six and three. During the summer months we had his boy and girl, ages six and four respectively. Yeah… we ended up raising four teenagers all at once!

We were both working, so we started taking drives through the Black Hills when we had time. Bob always had his trusty metal gold pan.

The first lesson we learned is that no matter how cold it might be, no matter how cold the water might be, kids will find a way to get wet! Here in the Black Hills we might get snow in June and the creek water may be frigid to the touch until July 1. I knew this well because childhood summers at Iron Creek Lake had taught me, after repeated tries, not to swim until after the Fourth of July. Bob’s family had a cabin in Spearfish Canyon so he learned a similar lesson.

We did manage to forget the “repeated tries” part… within ½ hour of being within ½ mile of any water, the kids were wet and cold. We started taking an extra outfit, which took another ½ hour to get wet! Grandma then contributed her coat/jacket while she shivered, and of course they got wet also.

Needless to say, before the Fourth of July, we never got much more than an hour or two of digging before the kids were ready to go home.

We had a good claim in those early years, close-by the Iron Creek claim we have now. Gold was good and there was usually enough water to sluice.

I hadn’t started panning yet, so we would set up the sluice and start running material. Everything went through the sluice box, from the grass roots down. What that boiled down to was about the time the kids got wet and cold we were getting to a nugget or two!

Now this particular creek had a layer of reddish clay, gravel-like material followed by some very slimy (ask any mom of a newborn and you’ll catch the concept of consistency) yellow clay. We scrubbed every rock until our fingers were pincushions from the quartz in the creek.

We still have a couple of the nice-sized nuggets recovered on that claim.

Hindsight is 20/20… what we would have given for the deep-V ribbed matting we use today! Those pretty little nuggets would be displayed spectacularly!

I would have saved a few items of clothing… a metal gold pan is no good unless it’s weathered and it takes some real coordination to hike in, juggle a gold pan, buckets and shovel without getting rush on something. A wet rusty pan is even worse! The newer plastic pans are also a lot lighter and the size I use tucks nicely inside the concentrator for carrying.

Further, we would have panned layers and quickly identified the zone between the two clay layers as the pay zone and not worked two-four feet of overburden! In retrospect though, I was too busy hauling wet kids out of the creek and changing their clothes!

We would know that the gold settled on top of the yellow clay zone and not run the risk of putting the clay through the sluice to rob our gold! If we did want to run clay, we’d clean the matting first, then go for it!

If the material was dry, we would have used a concentrator to screen and clean bigger rock and saved a few fingers from scarring!

Once you poke through that clay layer, do you know what happens? Water in the hole, then we’re all wet, muddy and ready to go home!

We’ve prospected a lot with kids and grandkids. I know to take extra clothes and not let them change until we’re almost ready to go home. Kids’ boots are a waste… they will find water deeper than any boot! We always have a blanket they can wrap up in… until it gets wet. Plenty of refreshments and snacks are necessary for all. I love those small shovels when we find a pay zone. Get more than one… kids can dig too!

Last but certainly not least… Every kid and probably every adult you ever take on your claim will kick over a gold pan at least once! Patience is a learned trait.

We usually make about four-five hours on a claim now and can’t say we’ve been “skunked” (no gold) for quite some time. We’re older and wiser (less labor, more gold), but we’re still driving the Hills and scouting out new prospects!