Friday, October 30, 2009

Hooked on Gold Gazette 10/30/09


HAPPY HALLOWEEN HAUNTINGS!





Our Winter Wonderland Yesterday at noon.
[Half of what we got for a total]
HOOKED ON GOLD GAZETTE
· Gold Spot Closing Price for Friday: $1044.70
· Spot price last Gazette: $1054.80
________________

Calendar of Events
OCTOBER
· 31st Halloween
NOVEMBER
· 3rd Election Day
· 11th GPOC Meeting
· 26th Thanksgiving
DECEMBER
· 24th Christmas Eve
· 25th Christmas Day
_______________________________________
NEWS

If you haven’t checked out the Prospecting Community Network you might want to. We have a great group started with several already blogging and getting involved. You will be able to view the main page when you pull the site up to decide if it is a place you would like to hang out at.

So, where did I leave off last week? I know on Monday I told you about the e-bay listing, and then everything went to H**l in a hand basket as Old Man Winter settled in on us with a vengeance. We have about 22 inches here at the house, and today’s temps didn’t get much above 45 degrees. I bet there I still snow on the ground for Halloween tomorrow night. BRRRR!

Gold took back some of its’ gains this last week, but ended higher than earlier with it dipping near $1030 and rising to around $1060. Yes, my friends, your gold will be worth more in the near future, so get to working those cons so you can see that yellow stuff.

New news this past week was more about the dollar and the stock market than about gold. With Halloween tomorrow night, we are entering into the holiday seasons, and gold jewelry prices should be a bit higher this year with gold demands being more and jewelers having to pay more for the metal. Many are having a hard time selling gold jewelry due to the price. Many have begun offering jewelry in silver to reduce the costs to the buyer. I have also begun to see copper crop up in jewelry this summer, so look for some jewelers to begin to use that metal as well.

I have a new store program that I am working on. I got a long way yesterday putting it together, found that one of the files had been corrupted, and had to delete the whole thing. Not only that, but I had to purge the program from the computer and upload it again to start all over. BUMMER! I had spent about 6 hours getting it set up and adding items to it before the corrupted file showed up. Starting over on a project of this size is hard to do, but I opened it up this morning and started a new one. We’ll see how far I get this time before I have a problem with it. Last year’s attempt was a total and utter disaster. I do hope this year’s program will be easier and I can finally get a decent store uploaded. If anyone ever tells you building and updating a website, or making money online is easy, kick them in the shins for me, eh? The only thing I ever put this much time and work into for so little money back was raising my kids. That was worth the years of trial, etc., but THIS is ridiculous.

Do you have any gold prospecting stories to share with all of us? Send me some in the comments box. I’m sure everyone would love to hear someone else ramble on, or do you just love ME? :>D

I don’t have any final results on the changes at Cache Creek for next year, but I will keep my ears open so when I do, you’ll know almost as soon as I do. Have and safe and happy Halloween!

(Links to our affiliates. Good deals, and GREAT folks)
You can find Panning Kits
Monthly Prospecting Equipment Specials
Basic Prospecting Equipment

Until next week…….

Good Prospecting to You,
Shirley (MQS)
Google has begun running third party ads and is requiring adsense sites to include information about this change on their websites. You can read about this on our Privacy Policy page.

World Open Panning website has this year’s world wide panning competitions listed and they add more all the time. A great site to visit: http://www.worldopenpanning.homestead.com/ . If the links do not work, copy and paste them into your browser.
If you find a broken link, please let us know
THE ARKANSAS RIVER is now CLOSED TO MOTORIZED EQUIPMENT until MARCH 1st.
_______________________________________
http://www.hookedongold.com/
http://www.hookedongoldprospecting.ning.com/
hookedongold@gmail.com contact us
PLEASE BE ADVISED: Ads that you might find on this blog or on a website using ads, may use cookies or other tracking means to track your movements on the web. Please read our Privacy Policy to see how this affects you and what you might want to do to prevent cookies being used to track you.

Monday, October 26, 2009

New Claims at Point Bar

Hey all!

Bet you didn't thing you'd be hearing from me again so soon. LOL! Well, I have more information for you on the 4 gold mining claims that were filed at Point Bar in September. The first of them is up for sale on E-bay. Going price right now is $3300.00. I would imagine the other three will find their way there in the near future. The seller isn't mentioning anything about the irrigation ditch that has a right of way on the claim, just that it has about half a mile of river, and it only costs $25.00 a year to dredge it, along with some other nice things about it. You can find this page by searching E-bay for claims; I'm not going to link it out for you. You can probably bookmark this person and check back for the other three claims if you are interested in your own place to highbank or dredge for gold. Cheers!

Good Prospecting to You,
Shirley

Saturday, October 24, 2009

Hooked on Gold Gazette 10/24/09


Panning in Fairplay with the 4th Grade
That's our setup area


We broke up into two groups
Chad & Larry helped with the panning lessons


Everyone found gold! And all had a great time.
Even though it was cold, they didn't want to stop.


· Gold Spot Closing Price for Friday, last Gazette: $1054.80
· Spot price last Gazette May 2nd: $1052.80
________________

Calendar of Events

OCTOBER
· 31st Halloween

NOVEMBER
· 3rd Election Day
· 11th GPOC Meeting
· 26th Thanksgiving

DECEMBER
· 24th Christmas Eve
· 25th Christmas Day
_______________________________________
NEWS

If you haven’t checked out the Prospecting Community Network you might want to. We have a great group started with several already blogging and getting involved. You will be able to view the main page when you pull the site up to decide if it is a place you would like to hang out at.

It’s Not My Fault! The Gazette is a day late because we were gone for two days helping Tin Pan Prospecting teach gold panning to the 4th grade class in Fairplay…..on the S. Platte, no less; in the snow; it was 22 degrees. Welcome to Colorado! :>D After staying in Colorado Springs that night with friends, we then attended Dan Grenard’s (Our BLM department head GPOC has worked with for many years) retirement party in Canyon City on Friday and were not back at home until late. Hence, the Saturday morning Gazette publishing.

Gold didn’t move much this week, as you can see from the quotes at the top. After reaching $1071 it has retreated as expected. Silver, however, is up at $17.66 and its’ long term outlook is much better than gold’s for overall price increase in the near future. It has a LONG way to go to reach that 16 to one ratio it has historically held with gold.

It snowed last week, as I mentioned, and we are expecting more snow this week here in Denver. I have had several inquiries about prospecting at Cache Creek in November, and I have no idea what it is doing up there. We were in the area but didn’t have enough time to make the trek that far north on the Arkansas on Thursday to actually see what is going on up there weather wise. If any one has info on Cache Creek, please leave a comment here for everyone. The weather is turning much colder pretty fast all over the central and eastern parts of Colorado with the western side staying mild.

And so, Point Bar is a subject that is being discussed all over, now, with the claims that have been filed. While I did blog about this a few weeks ago, I want to go back over this a little more to make sure I haven’t missed anything I need to discuss with you. First, even if there is a claim on an area, they do not own the water rights, which means the claimant cannot keep you out of the water. You can still access the water with your prospecting equipment anywhere on the point as long as the material you are using comes out of the public recreation area near the pit. Another item is that this person also cannot keep you from camping in the area. Having a claim on public land does not mean that anyone can keep you from camping on public BLM lands. This only means that no one else can prospect or mine there. You only have a claim on the minerals that might be found there and only you have the right to extract them. The claimant will now be required to properly post his area and do any reclamation of the area himself.

Several people in GPOC have asked why the club has not claimed this area for members. There are several reasons for this. First, is policing the area. The area has been an open area for prospecting for so long that it would have been nearly impossible to keep anyone who is not a GPOC member from prospecting the area. Second, once the claim is made the claimant is then responsible for any reclamation or damage repair involved with keeping the area. As an open area, GPOC can apply for grant money from the BLM to do damage repair and reclamation in public prospecting areas on the Arkansas River, and that would be money not coming out of our treasury. Third the amount of money that would be required to keep the area up would have been substantial. Look at what we go through to keep Beaver Creek claims open. When we have a plan of operation in place, damage and reclamation can cost upwards of $2,000 a year to keep up. Our dues are extremely cheap now and we would have to raise them to be able to keep up with costs on 4 claims on point bar. They were open to you the way it was. Why claim them and have the hassles. This claimant may not be able to keep up with what will be required, either and you may have them back in public hands in a year or two. GPOC’s grant for damage repair and reclamation will not have to be used in the claimants areas either, and can be used to keep up other public areas. How many of you actually used any of those areas? GPOC now has what is probably the best of those claims, and there are numerous reasons why we have those and not the others. How many of you have used those claims? The irrigation ditch is another thing the claimant will have to address as well. I also wonder how much cleanup and fire control he will have to deal with in this very well used recreation area.

I didn’t find any interesting links this week for you. Usually there is a lot going on, but this past week was pretty dead for news on gold or gold prospecting. I’ve probably taken enough of your time for now, anyway, so I’ll say TTFN and call it all good. Any questions? Comment here or you can email me. I’ll give it my best shot. If you comment here, you probably will get someone else to give their two cents worth, too. I can’t know everything….my head is too small. :>D

(Links to our affiliates. Good deals, and GREAT folks)
You can find Panning Kits
Monthly Prospecting Equipment Specials
Basic Prospecting Equipment

Until next week…….

Good Prospecting to You,
Shirley (MQS)
Google has begun running third party ads and is requiring adsense sites to include information about this change on their websites. You can read about this on our Privacy Policy page.

World Open Panning website has this year’s world wide panning competitions listed and they add more all the time. A great site to visit: http://www.worldopenpanning.homestead.com/ . If the links do not work, copy and paste them into your browser.

If you find a broken link, please let us know
THE ARKANSAS RIVER is now CLOSED TO MOTORIZED EQUIPMENT until MARCH 1st.
_______________________________________
http://www.hookedongold.com/
http://www.hookedongoldprospecting.ning.com/
hookedongold@gmail.com contact us
PLEASE BE ADVISED: Ads that you might find on this blog or on a website using ads, may use cookies or other tracking means to track your movements on the web. Please read our Privacy Policy to see how this affects you and what you might want to do to prevent cookies being used to track you.

Saturday, October 17, 2009

Hooked on Gold Gazette 10/17/09



Two pieces of equipment used at Cache Creek to muck out the beaver pond.


Mucking out the beaver pond. This is about the size the pond ended up being. It goes a ways to the left of this shot, but I couldn't get it all in.

HOOKED ON GOLD GAZETTE
· Gold Spot Closing Price for Friday, last Gazette: $1052.80
· Spot price last Gazette May 2nd: $885.80
________________

Calendar of Events

OCTOBER

· 31st Halloween

NOVEMBER

· 26th Thanksgiving

DECEMBER

· 24th Christmas Eve
· 25th Christmas Day
_______________________________________
NEWS

If you haven’t checked out the Prospecting Community Network you might want to. We have a great group started with several already blogging and getting involved. You will be able to view the main page when you pull the site up to decide if it is a place you would like to hang out at.

As it ended, the first Gazette of the Fall is a day late. I considered waiting until next week, but I have enough info to share now and an hour this early morning to get the Gazette to you even if it is a little late. Why is it late, you might ask? Well, I am painting one room upstairs while we have a few nice days and I can open the house to dry it, AND I was playing a new game. Yes, I know it is hard to believe that a new game could deter me from writing to you, but it is true. So, I am up early to atone for my wasted time yesterday that should have been devoted to you. :>D

So, what have all of you been up to this summer? Have you found gold? Won gold at a meeting? Had hail break all the windows in your house? What? Leave some comments to this blog so I don’t think I’m out there all alone. Some of you are wondering why I twitter and Facebook so much, and I have decided that it is because those places are where I have interaction with other prospectors and those interested in gold. It’s not that I don’t enjoy writing this blog, but there is very little input from you. It is hard to know what you want to read when there are no comments left for me to comment on. A blog can be almost as interactive as any social networking site, in fact they are an extension of blogs and the interactivity that was first born in blogs. So, take a minute and make a comment when you find something you like or don’t like. YOU hate it when I’m not blogging, but a blog is supposed to be two way. Give me something more to write about, and I’ll write. I’m a writing fool, as you can tell from all the sites I have, and anyone who has emailed me will tell you that I LOVE trying to answer questions.

We found gold this summer. Not a lot, but we did find gold. Helped a lot of other people find gold, too. We spent a great deal of time hosting at Cache Creek, and the BLM tells us that most people appreciated someone being in the area to help them set up equipment, teach panning and tell them where in area to find gold. The area was absolutely SLAMMED this summer, and so new regulations are being drawn up by the BLM to get some control over the area. Larry and I have been allowed to put our two cents in, and they are looking at our recommendations as guidelines. If you don’t like the new ones, you can blame us for being in there so much and people who were in there all summer moving over 100 yards of material with sluice boxes. Limits will be imposed next year, and a fee structure that will be more fair to everyone. This area is meant for RECREATIONAL PROSPECTING, which means it is not governed by the mining laws. BLM is free to impose regulations on the area as they deem necessary as with any campground, parking area that has a fee, etc.

The pond was mucked out in late September, and a couple of additional settling ponds were dug in, too. The two smaller ponds will not stop the silt from going into the beaver pond if the present amount of silt continues to run down the creek. Most people will say the highbankers are at fault for this, but from personal experience, I can say that the majority of it comes from the sluices that are run directly in the creek. Highbankers are required to settle their material before it returns to the creek, which also means the water must be diverted away from the main creek. There can be as many as 6 highbankers in the area, but on most days the sluice boxes outnumber them by about 5 to one, and I have watched sluicers move as much material through one sluice box as a ‘banker. Our average count of vehicles in the parking lot was around 28. That means on most days there were between 40 and 75 people in the area a day; every day. We ended up with two port a jons to handle the wastes, and had we not been there to get that done, the place would have been an even bigger mess than it has been in past years.

As a result of this year’s use and our record taking for the BLM, they are considering hiring a summer time employee to help regulate the Arkansas River and Cache Creek. That means that all of you who have bragged about being able to get away with anything because there is not anyone in the area to make sure you comply, have created a situation where we now have to pay a salary to keep you in line because you can’t be relied on to be personally responsible for yourself on public lands without law enforcement there to make sure you do. This means that everyone who uses the area will probably be required to pay a daily fee, and most probably have restrictions on the number of days you can use the area per season. Thanks a bunch. The ounces of gold I saw taken out of there by single or two man teams of men who worked the area all summer was substantial, and they all should have had their own claims and not using public lands in this way. All were using sluice boxes which have no fees, so they took it out for free. One team switched to a highbanker, but also stayed in the area with it for over 6 weeks. Almost all were very protective of their area and kept others out by placing equipment near and around their work areas. If you even looked like you might want to work near them they became irate and combative. Some situations were volatile enough to call in law enforcement, and there are charges still pending on at least one case. Oh, and then there was the fire, which apparently was started by a small campfire that had been left unattended above the last hydraulicing wall, most probably by prospectors. There were also reports of dredging going on and spies who watched everyone from the rock burms. Yes, we need to be able to keep people in line at Cache Creek. Some people are reporting that they feel the area is dangerous and being taken over by lawlessness. And there we were. With a sign and a green cap and a note book. There were days I carried my hand pick for defense. Yes, we need more regulation at Cache Creek. No, we aren’t happy about it, but yes, we (the public) need this regulation and support.

Another thing that came to our attention was that the GPAA put the area in their claims guide as an open area. This brought in many more people than the area was ever meant to support, and while the area was originally expected to last 20 years, the number of years left for the area could be less than 10. Long range plans for the area had included a campground, but with so few years left for use, those plans have been put on hold. Right now, everyone is scrambling to get the area under control and limit the environmental and use impact. Remember this area is a conservation area, and we are confident that had we not been there to document what was going on and help BLM understand what needs to be done, Cache Creek would have been closed this year due to extreme damage to the area and the amount of material moved and silt sent down the creek. The area was originally closed down, you will remember, due to silting of the Arkansas River, and so silting is a major concern to keeping the area open. While we are not sending silt into the Arkansas, it is sent to a beaver pond and over the dam into the conservation area below. We are confident the new regulations will give us many more years of safe use, but we NEED the cooperation of everyone to keep the area open.

I have a few links for you to follow. The first is to an animated film on youtube about an Alaskan prospector and is appropriate for our Halloween holiday coming up soon. It is about 8 minutes long http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TYqtDqE69no
Another is an article about bacteria that could be an explanation for some gold deposits. It also could allow gold to be grown in a lab and lead to new technology for finding gold http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-10/esrf-bhf100709.php
And now Oregon wants to be like California. They are now looking to ban recreational prospecting there, too. Read: http://www.sfexaminer.com/local/ap/kulongoski-wants-to-head-off-calif-gold-miners-64391782.html

(Links to our affiliates. Good deals, and GREAT folks)
You can find Panning Kits
Monthly Prospecting Equipment Specials
Basic Prospecting Equipment

Until next week…….

Good Prospecting to You,
Shirley (MQS)
Google has begun running third party ads and is requiring adsense sites to include information about this change on their websites. You can read about this on our Privacy Policy page.

World Open Panning website has this year’s world wide panning competitions listed and they add more all the time. A great site to visit: http://www.worldopenpanning.homestead.com/ . If the links do not work, copy and paste them into your browser.

If you find a broken link, please let us know
THE ARKANSAS RIVER is now CLOSED TO MOTORIZED EQUIPMENT until MARCH 1st.
_______________________________________
http://www.hookedongold.com/
http://www.hookedongoldprospecting.ning.com/
hookedongold@gmail.com contact us
PLEASE BE ADVISED: Ads that you might find on this blog or on a website using ads, may use cookies or other tracking means to track your movements on the web. Please read our Privacy Policy to see how this affects you and what you might want to do to prevent cookies being used to track you.

Wednesday, October 14, 2009

Prospecting Point Bar for Gold Gets Dicy


This is the sand bar west of the pit that we think is part of the Colorado State Recreation land

For those of you who have prospected and found gold at Point Bar in years past, you are aware that a large amount of area has remained open to the public for prospecting. This has been by design, and GPOC has tried to help in the BLM efforts to keep this area open for all.


This summer, all the open area was claimed by a person from Texas and is now closed to the public for prospecting. This does NOT include the pit and the access to the river from the pit. That area is State Land and is not claimable. However, this person did claim the State Land in error. There are 4/40 acre claims that have been filed from the bottom of Woody's claims to below the GPOC claim at Badger Creek. This is not something that can be unfiled or disallowed.



GPOC has refrained from claiming all of this area so that it could remain open for public prospecting. However, since the area was not removed from locatable mineral entry, the claims are valid and the public will have to stay off these claims in the future. The claimant should be putting up markers with the names 'Colorado Dream', 'Arkansas Gold Dream', 'Arkansas Dream Claim' and 'Ginger Girl'. Sorry folks. Your fun is over. Stick to the pit and the river access to it so you stay out of trouble. The site will be updated later this month with this info. All for now. More on other areas and information later this week.



Good Prospecting to You,

Shirley

http://www.hookedongold.com/

hookedongold@gmail.com

Tuesday, October 13, 2009

Point Bar and Other Updates on Gold in Colorado

BLM Volunteer Day at Cache Ck. 9-26-09


Coyote holes and diggings too close to trees were filled in by volunteers.

More of the crew, here. Signs were posted concerning the power line pole easements and a boundary established with a branch with sign attached. This boundary is NOT arbitrary. It is established by the power line owner and Colorado State Law.

Summer has definitely ended here in Colorado. For those of you who regularly look for the blog, I applogize for not updating it lately enough for you. My only defense is the amount of work that has been going on with Cache Creek, Point Bar and the Denver Gem, Mineral and Fossil Show. Those items coupled with closing our summer camp and getting things back up and running in the winter quarters has left me with little time to update the blog.

First up is to inform you that the Newsletter will be brought back this Fall, if not this Friday then next Friday. For anyone who does not remember it, I post it on Friday evening after all the markets have closed so you have up to date info on gold prices for the weekend.

Next, I will be bringing you new information about Point Bar Recreational Area near Salida, Colorado, and you will find out more about what changes may be in store for Cache Creek for next gold season. In the mean time, there is plenty to catch up on about what has been going on in the past month, so look forward to several posts this week and next concerning all the changes and news about gold, finding gold, and some of your favorite places to play in.

I found an interesting article today about gold nuggets and nugget shooting. You can read it at http://salars.net/treasure/nugget-shooting . More info in the next few days.

Good Prospecting to You,
www.hookedongold.com
hookedongold@gmail.com