WestMTnuggetsniper

thanks for the heads up, It looks like you have an article in there too!

Hey everybody, had a great weekend spending two days in a row exploring the backcountry. I have been looking for a place to claim that is within 50 miles of home to work for the summer. We found a cool quartz vein or two and some nasty ironed out ore. I also have a couple gallons of good looking placer dirt to go through from the weekend. Take a peak from my adventures if you like, maybe not if you are scared of a curse word or two... nothing too bad. http://youtu.be/p6TlUnt97aQ

that was only the second time i had visited that hole and the only time i have dug there, that is all someone elses work. I agree it is not a safe hole. I am looking for good ground to put another claim on. i spend whole days removing overburden with wheelbarrels and mattocks to access a good line of dirt safely. This was the first day above 30 degrees in a month. that dirt wasnt going anywhere so i felt safe checking a few bucket to see if it was worth returning. I returned to the area with my metal detector just two days ago and it has been much warmer, trust me the only thing that went into that hole was head of my metal detector. I figured out on that trip as well that the line of dirt was definately hardpack and not tailings. i found two different old operations on the hill that appears to be hydro blasted... there is also a spot where it appear a wash plant had set. There is a ton of garbage around. There I saw so real tailing piles and was able to distinguish between the two easily. There is much less snow up there right now. As i stated i really do not intend on processing dirt at all anymore, i want to start finding nuggets with detectors and sniping. I metal detected with my Gold Bug Pro for about 4 hours but was unable to come up with any nuggets. There was not too much open ground though. There is so much snow and water here that I wonder if buying a VLF detector was a bad idea for my local gold districts?

Hey everyone my name is Chris and I live in the wonderful community of Missoula, MT. I have lived here since 2001 and moved here because of my thrist for adventure, but mostly to satisfy my flyfishing addiction. As of July of last year most of my free time has been dedicated to gold gold gold. I started prospecting a few spots that are within 50 miles of home. I found gold the second time out and have been hooked ever since. I was taught how to find gold and how to pan and sluice by an expert named Dan, who is an ex-marine and has been prospecting for something like 40 or 50 years. He teaches prospecting with his wife in Wisconsin and he comes to western MT in the summer. I met him in the woods at a dig site. He taught me alot and i have be able to find gold everytime i have gone out with sluice and pan. If anyone knows of Dan and can give me his info that would be sweet! he is not a metal detector guy, but he knows gold ...ANYWAYS... I have been doing as much research on gold mining as humanly possible over this winter... as most of our gold country is buried in snow. I bought a claim within 50 miles of home, and i just bought a Fisher Gold Bug Pro so I cannot wait for some more country to open up! here's to an early springl! I have found these gold forums lately looking for masters with the machine i purchased, and it looks like finding TrinityAU was very useful. I PM'ed him and also read everyone of his post so here's to knowing my machine a little better! Thanks for all the great info! Here is a video of me talking to myself and doing what i have been doing out here in Western MT. Now that I have a metal detector I intend to mostly high grade now though. Cheers looking forward to sharing some adventures