Well it’s been awhile since I’ve posted any news. I guess in order to post one must go prospecting.

December was tough for us here at home. My wife’s 2 cousens woundup sick, one in ICU the othe with cancer. Her Aunt died and as you know from my last post we lost an extended family member.

I was able to get for a couple days the last week of December with Denny and David to do some MDing. We covered alot of ground in 2 different areas with varing luck. I say that because if I were to measure it in gold, not good. On the other hand, I was able to find several relics for my wife to work with in her art.

Doc and I made one trip to the claims and worked a different area. We were planning on going back in a couple days but the wind, rain, snow and freezing cold has slowed us down. Hopefully we will get back out this Saturday and finish up where we were.

I still have about 2 tons of material to drywash which has shown very good color. I think I will wait about another month before I start that project. I will stay out 2-3 days and just attack that pile.

These are 2 pictures of what a waits me for this year. I do believe its going to be a great year.

Walking through the aisles of the west Los Angeles library in 1976 I noticed a book sticking out vertically from the others which were all stacked horizontally so I pulled it and thus my life and location changed, it was called 100 trails to gold. This must have resparked an old childhood interest of finding gold and treasure on the beaches of Brooklyn, N.Y. where I was born and raised. Soon I was reading everything I could on the gold subject and In Los Angeles that’s alot. Shortly afterward I thought there must be some gold left for me to find so I moved to Angel’s Camp,CA in the motherlode in 1977. Started out panning in 6 mile creek at the south end of town and struck the yellow right away, mica that is. After many outings and much reading and talking to people I discovered what bedrock was all about,and had my best panning day ever at one quarter of an oz. in two round pieces. After two years of panning and detecting with the old Compass 59B and 94B detectors some local old time miners took me under their knowledgeable wings and invited me to their diggings at the old Carson Hill gold mine where they did asessment work for the owners. I carried 5 gallon buckets of ore and muck up and down the hill to the pickup truck and then they ran the stuff through their mill and the gold that showed really surprised and stoked my fires.One day while driving by Angels creek in town I noticed a fellow in a wet suit so I stopped to watch him work and we later chatted about this thing he called fanning. Soon after I bought a wet suit top, mask, snorkel and was off on a 4 year adventure of coins,tokens, artifacts and small nuggets, until my 9 pennyweight day in two hours of work at a spot I was chased out of and where a subdivision now resides. My water days ended with a bypass in my leg from the combination of cold water,wet suit constriction and cigarette smoking. By now, about 1981 my old mining friends, Guy Castle and Chris Porovich told me about their many finds of pocket gold in quartz veins and with no knowledge and only a carpenters hammer and chisel I ventured out the two miles to the area and began breaking out quartz from a narrow vein. I was awed at what i saw upon panning this stuff out, lot’s of small specie and plenty of fines. This is the spot I’m trying to uncover now, more than 25 years later. Found some very beautiful pockets of gold and numerous quartz species over the years using just inexpensive hand tools. Lot’s of rattlesnake, cave in, highgrader stories that could be told. The pirate boy still lives inside and these type of adventures await all who are willing to try, read, try and keep trying….Dave

I’m sure for many of you, Dave Wiseman needs no introduction. He has been around on the forums freely giving advice and sharing stories regarding the dying art of Hard Rock Sampling.

Many of us have found nuggets in washes and even traced the gold back to alluvial hillside patches. But how many of us have gone the extra mile and found the source of that gold? Sometimes the source is long gone or isn’t in the area, depending on the patch. But how many times have we left behind a wealth of gold just “beyond the tip of the pick” as Dave would say?

Dave has agreed to blog here and it’s our pleasure to welcome him. Hopefully we can all learn from his wisdom and carry on with the techniques that Dave has to share.

Dave has written a paper on hard rock sampling that has previously only been available in written form and we present it here for the first time on the web.

Quartz Sampling
Welcome Dave Wiseman!

This last Sunday was a big skunk for gold but I did pick up an interesting relic.

Here are detail pics of the tip, the length/size, the cup and the interior of the cup.

Click on the pics to see closeup. On the last one, it looks as if the rod is hollow but it is not. The hole at the bottom goes in about 1/8 of an inch.

Any guesses what it might be?

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There is a thread discussion on this relic at Treasurenet and Arizonagoldprospectors.