Cache Creek regulations

July 24, 2007.

We visited the Cache Creek area yesterday and found a lot of confusion about the requirements and regulations for the area. First, you need an additional bond from the BLM to work a highbanker in this area. DREDGING IS NOT ALLOWED! Panning, sluicing, and metal detecting can be done anywhere on the BLM portion of Cache Creek. Watch for private property and the working claims in the area. We also found that the BLM requirements did not allow prospectors to reuse limited water sources with their requirement that highbanking be 20 feet off a water source. We assume they are talking about the actual digging. There was a report that a dredge was in Cache Creek well out of the boundaries and downstream a bit. Those of you who choose to disobey the BLM regulations and requirements jeopardize the continued use of this area. The BLM can, and will, close this area to everyone if violations continue to happen. Since GPOC has been working with the BLM to open this area to the public, I have had the information on it on the GPOC Temp page at hookedongold.com. You can find the new info that was posted today at the bottom of that page for now.

Finding Mountain Gold

Speed Panning-loading the pan prior to a competitors run


July 17, 2007.
July is going by in a blur! We are getting ready for guests and getting away for another week of fun in the mountains finding gold. The July 27th newsletter will not go out due to time and internet connections. E-mail will be answered every couple of days as we find time to go to town and download it. Are you finding gold? We will be highbanking and metal detecting this trip along with meeting with friends and other prospectors. The Colorado State Gold Panning Championships are coming up quick! They will be held the first weekend in August in Breckenridge, Colorado. Come out and see some of the fastest panning in the state, or the country, for that matter. The Team competition is a blast with each person drawing for their place on each three man team. Three days of fun! Gold is holding this week in the $665 range. Watch the rivers in Colorado. They are still running pretty high.

Gold Trip to B.V.

June 29, 2007.

Well, I have downloaded two more specialty page scripts for the website, but have run out of time to work on them this week. One is a blog and the other the new shopping cart. The gold we found last weekend weighed in at around 4.5 grains of very chunky gold. Not too bad for goldpans. Spot closed today for the weekend at $647.50. Better go out and buy some before it heads back up! We are off to camp for the July Fourth week and will be busy with many activities. B.V. has a wonderful fireworks display each fourth, and we enjoy it most years. We will be checking e-mail and reporting here every day or two, so keep those cards and letters coming. Have a terrific Fourth of July Celebration wherever you are.

Breckenridge gold

June 26, 2007.

We spent a very warm day yesterday with friends in the Breckenridge area and came home with some VERY nice gold nuggets. Everyone there was successful in picking up the "pickers", with the largest one being around a quarter of an inch long, thick and chunky. Not bad for using the bucket classifier and pans. Friday evening will find us on our way to B.V. and a week off. The demo on the weekend was enjoyable and we all found a few treasures at the show to bring home with us. Have you been watching gold drop like a stone this morning? Right now it is sitting at around $640.00.

Hooked on Gold has moved

OMG!!! What a morning! I have changed servers,and everything went so fast that I didn't get my new home page up on the new server before everything went dark! If you were on the site about 11:00 this morning, it got yanked out from under you. Also, the old site is not redirected yet, and you get a blank page for that as well. What a mess. SOOOO sorry, but the pages will be much better in a month or so. Are you watching gold drop like a stone to around $645? I hear that Spain is dumping gold like mad. They have also started a lawsuit to get part of the new treasure found off the coast of England. The last time they did that, they WON! I hear they are desperate for money and part of the gold and silver haul from the wreck would really help. path to the old site will be www.hookedongold.clicksitebuilder.com We will be helping in the panning booth with GPR this weekend at the Arvada Gold Strike Festival in ole towne Arvada. Along with the fair will be the buffalo soldiers, mountain men, and President Teddy Roosevelt. Have a GREAT weekend.

Gold in Ghana

Thanks to T.L.E. International for allowing us to photograph their extensive cases of gold jewelry and exceptional emeralds.

Ghana, in medieval times, was known as "The City of Gold". Even today 2/3 of the population own gold and buy 18 - 21K gold at least once a year.

14K gold that is common in the U.S., is not even considered acceptable for jewelry in most of the rest of the world. Try to sell your 14K gold jewelry anywhere but here and you will be offered a small fraction of what you think it is worth. While I am in jewelry booths selling jewelry at fairs and gemshows, those who buy and collect gold seriously always ask the karat of the gold in the jewelry, and will hesitate to buy a piece that is even 18K. Design and quality of stones is not as important to them as the quality of the gold. In the Souk gold marketplace you can find tons of gold jewelry for sale on any given day with very little offered below 18K, and some of that can be bought below spot. Haggling is expected, and you may come away with a very good deal from someone who mines, refines, and fashions the gold themselves. A ticker on the price of gold runs continuously at the entrance to the multi leveled marketplace so that patrons are aware of today's price of gold. I don't know about you, but I'm sure I would be on overload at the mere sight of so much gold jewelry. Can you imagine a market half a mile square filled with gold jewelry? Would the sun be brighter in that place or the glow of gold? What a sight it must be! Find your own gold by visiting us to learn how, where, and what to use.

Gold Question of the week, May 16, Summer Edition

Get your panning cons for some panning fun! Find them on the site HERE

GOLD QUESTION OF THE WEEK SUMMER EDITION

I picked up an interesting tid bit this past week concerning small miners and how much mercury they take out of the streams and rivers. In Washington, there has been an ongoing struggle with the state and prospectors over how much damage they do or do not do to the environment. Well, the small miners in Washington have been saving all of the mercury they have been collecting and in late February the Washington Dept. of Ecology was invited to attend the Washington Gold, Gem, and Mineral Show. The collected mercury was turned over to their representative at the show and the total amount presented to the Ecology Department was 73 lbs. The Ecology Dept. was said to be "impressed that small-scale miners were actively removing mercury from state rivers and streams." To date, small miners have presented the department with over 150 lbs. of mercury. What they don't understand is how much we all enjoy taking heavy metals out of the waterways. When YOU find mercury in the rivers and streams, no matter where you are, please put into a vial or jar filled with water, cap it, and save it until you find someone who can take care of it. DO NOT put it back into the water. Ask any prospector on the river you come in contact with what to do with it when you encounter them. Some of us identify areas that contain mercury and collect it at the end of a season, as it will foul carpets when you get into a bunch of it. The first silver bead of mercury I ever saw was outside of Silverton, Co. on Cement Creek. Like gold, the first time you see it, you WILL know what it is. It will look similar to a shiny, liquid, silver sinker. If it is chunky looking, it has gold in it.

Gold in Pre-Columbian South America

To your left is a modern day example of the excellent work still coming out of Colombia in gold and emeralds brought to you by T.L.E. International.

South American, pre-Columbian gold placers made it possible to produce incredibly intricate gold objects created and formed by many cultures in the region. Placer mining was done by ground sluicing, and diverting streams using stone riffles that could be built during dry seasons. Material was dug from dry riverbeds, stockpiled and "washed" through the stone riffles during the flooding season trapping the concentrates in the stone riffles. The gold was then separated from the concentrates by hand using a large cone shaped wooden pan called a "batea" by the Spaniards who found the natives using them much later.

The Waywakans of the south central Andes Mountains are accredited with being first to mine and work gold, with gold artifacts found and dated at around 1500 B.C. Annealing was devised to hammer the metal into thin sheets to use for breastplates, masks, and many other types of large objects. Considering they used stone tools to work the gold, the ability they had to make intricate adornments is, at the least, amazing.

Etching, casting, and embossing were developed by Peruvians around 200 B.C., as well as alloying and the use of mercury in gilding. Colombians perfected working with gold, refining, alloying, casting, gilding, and all other aspects of gold work. Tumbaga was their special alloy of copper and gold. It was strong, easily worked, had a low melting point, and casted very well. Its reddish color was pleasing and the surface was easily washed with acid to reveal a beautiful yellow color. As gold was not a status of wealth, but religion, some villages sacrificed gold to their deities by throwing it into nearby deep lakes.

By the time Christopher Columbus reached the New World, gold had been worked in South America for some 3,000 years. The natives of San Salvador were wearing simple crude gold ornaments made of gold from Hispaniola when he arrived there. When he reached Central America, he named the area "Costa Rica", or Rich Coast, due to the finely crafted gold the natives wore. As all know, the Spanish went on to steal all the gold they could find from the natives in South America, looting even graves in their thirst for the yellow metal.

Today, South American governments do all they can to preserve the pieces that remain. More of the intricate gold is found every year in lost and forgotten burial sites and other hiding places. Several museums in South America hold thousands of these pieces as a testament to the skills of these artisans of long ago.

For more information on gold and prospecting spend a few minutes with Hooked on Gold

Hooked on Gold was lost in space

If you missed hooked on gold yesterday, the server was once again down. Didn't find out in time to post much yesterday, but we will be switching servers this week with at least a home page to direct and redirect you until we can get the whole gold site back up and running. Gold is headed higher this morning above $670. Did all of you have a golden Mother's Day? We are ready to go to Salida this weekend for Let's Go Gold Panning Day's. Camping, prospecting, and jawing with like minded folks for a whole weekend. A FANTASTIC way to start the summer season! For more information on Let's Go Gold panning Days visit the GPOC Temp. Page See you there.

Gold Question fo the Week for May 2, 2007.

The Gold question for May 2, 2007 is:

In what century was large scale gold mining begun in India and where?

ANSWER: According to minelinks.com, "Large scale mining in India began with the Mauryan colonization of the Deccan about the end of the fourth century B.C." "Large scale" mining does not necessaruliy mean large gold mining equipment, but can include the scope of the area mined and the number of people who did the mining as well as consider the undertaking of mining for gold with primitive tools. "Large scale" does not necessarily mean the number of cubic yards moved either. India was a known source of large amounts of gold even at the beginning of the Christian era. While modern machinery and industry can produce larger amounts of gold now than in ancient times, the amounts of gold recovered during those times should certainly be equated with "large scale" mining, as the technology produced as much gold as was possible with what was known at the time.

The pendant in the picture above is a lovely piece of California Crystal gold for sale in our catalog at hookondongold.com.

Gold Question of the Week for April 25, 2007.

Gold has taken a mighty dive! It has been flirting with $672 again, but it doesn't look like it's a serious "thang".

This week's gold question takes us to the Orient and along the trade routes to the middle east. Gold was long known for being abundant in the eastern countries, and our question is about North Korea. Spend a little time looking up this answer and reading the accounts of where gold was found in this country. For the next question visit hookedongold.com. You'll find some interesting information on gold and prospecting there, too. Copy and paste it into your browser if it isn't live for you, or click on the link in the links box.

WOOHOO! Take a look at these beauties! We have many very nice pieces of gold for sale in our catalog, as well as panning sand, corrugated mini sluice, and the ocassional piece of jewelry. http://hookedongold.com/catalog244888.html will give you an eye full of really nice gold.


CONGRATULATIONS TO: JOHN for being the first, qualified, correct answer to the gold question for the week of April 25.

Hooked On Gold's QUESTION OF THE WEEK: April 25, 2007.

In what century was gold first mentioned (or approximate date) as being abundant in North Korea, who wrote about it and what part of the world was he from?

ANSWER: Abundant gold in North Korea was first mentioned in the 9th century by Ibn Khordadzbeth. He was from the middle east.

Gold Question for April 18, 2007.

WOW! Gold has been jumping around this past week going up over $692 and then falling back to around $682. Right now, gold is back on the uptick, so watch for it to go to $700(?) soon.
The gold question for this week was not a question, but a link to some interesting information that is effecting prospecting and small mining now. We first found our about this issue last year when a friend who owns a claim found he had to comply with water quality issues when discharging dredge water into the river. http://hookedongold.com/catalog244888.html will take you to the gold and panning sand page where you will find this lovely pendant and it's description.

Hooked On Gold's QUESTION OF THE WEEK: April 18, 2007.

Something different this week. Follow this link for some information on what is going on with water quality issues and small mining. We are dealing with this in Colorado as well, so be prepared for your local water boards to get involved with small mining.

www.waterboards.ca.gov/cwa401/docs/wrapp/publicnotice040907.pdf



ANSWER: No answer this week, just information you should see

If this link is not live, copy and paste it into your browser to view.

Gold Question of the Week for April 11, 2007.

Hooked on Gold's Gold Question of the Week for April 11, 2007.

During the California gold rush, what method of mining was the largest source of gold before 1884?

ANSWER: Hydraulicking was the mining method that was the largest source of gold before 1884.

The picture is from the Tuscon Show. A FABULOUS example of leaf and crystal gold on its' background rock from Nevada. This show always has some of the best specimen pieces for show and sale we see all year. A great day for gold fans.

Gold is down again

Gold is down a bit again this evening after going over $684 on Friday. OOPPPS! Now it's back up over $685. Speaking of gold being down, if you've been online today looking for hookedongold.com you won't find it. Yup, that's right. The server is down again. That means that we will be switching to a new searver sooner than we thought we would. It also means we will be rebuilding the site, so you will be seeing a shortened version of hooked on gold while we rebuild. Hopefully we will be able to find a template we can modify to redo all of the pages at once on our home computer and upload all at once as well. Anything will be better than this mess.

That also means the question of the week is not for certain this week either. Watch this blog and the site to see if we are back in business or not. Those of you who get the newsletter read about the many colors of gold and how different metals mixed with it naturally or metallurgically make the color different, but does not always mean a lower percentage of gold content.

Gold Question of the Week for April 4, 2007.

Hooked on Gold's gold question for the week of April 4th takes you to the tropics and an unusual place to have found gold. And, not only gold, but a rare type of gold deposit. Unfortunately I don't have a picture example of what this rare type of gold looks like, so you will have to be content with just plain gold from one of the cases of Collectors Edge at the Tucson show.

Hooked on Gold's Question of the week for April 4th:

When was placer gold discovered in the Tavua area, and who is accredited with finding it? Also, tell me where Tavua is located, the type(s) of gold found, and when serious prospecting was begun.

ANSWER: Tavua is located in the Fiji Islands and its modern gold was discovered by Baron A.B. de Este in 1872. Placer deposits contained visble gold, but the lodes were in tellurides. Serious prospecting was not begun until 1932. One point that I should mention is that the gold on the island had been first discovered by the natives. More infomation on this can be found on the minelinks site under alluvial gold.

New Gold Blog Look

Blogger has added some realy neat stuff like news feeds and video streams at the left hand side of the page. Check them out! I have gold panning, metal detecting,and gold prospecting videos steaming on the side for you to click on and watch. Also, newsfeeds about mining in general. You can click on the titles to change the newsfeeds to what you would like to read. Stories about mining, mining stocks, silver mines, gold mines, and more! Have some fun with this one!!

Gold question of the week for March 28, 2007.

Gold is back up above $670 this morning and it looks like it might keep rising. Or not. The picture on the left is of gold taken fron Gains Creek, Alaska, and was sitting in the cases of the Colorado Nugget at the Tucson Show in Feb, 2007.

This week's gold question takes a bit from ancient history and ties it back to today. Much of what the Egyptians knew is still used today, and many of their ingenious ways to extract gold from rock and placer areas are the same today as they were back then. We just use more modern materials. A search on the net for gold in ancient Egypt will give you a wealth of information about ancient techniques that will look and sound very familiar to the prospector. Take a trip down the Nile River in Ancient Egypt for some very interesting information on gold and how to get it.

Hooked On Gold's QUESTION OF THE WEEK: March 28, 2007.

According to the Code of Menes, what was the value of gold to silver. Compare to today.

ANSWER: According to the Code of Menes in ancient Egypt, the value of gold was 2 1/2 times the value of silver. Today it is about 50 to one.

Gold and the new age of "Green" energy

Gold is back up this morning to over $666.00. I will have a link in the Hooked on Gold newsletter this week sent to me by a reader to a video with a diferent viewpoint on global warming. I will link it here as well when I get it. The youtube version's sound is more in sink than the videogoogle. Very interesting point of view put out by the BBC, and an hour and 13 minutes long. What these scientists have to say is enlightening and profound in the end. Yesterday, here in Colorado, our Democratic controled legislature passed a bill requiring untilities to increase their "green" production to 20%. I don't know about you, but I'm really sick of utility bills going up and the power companies getting the blame. Green power isn't cheap! It is expensive to build and is unreliable as an energy source, however, those of Al Gore's ilk have decided for us that we WILL pay higher utility bills while they do whatever they can to gt their hands on more of your money to do it. Now, you ask me what this has to do with gold. Mines use electricity to operate, and this legislature has effectively made it harder for any mining (this means oil, too) to be profitable. There are now, also, too many people who used to be with Green Peace that no longer agree with their "vision". What would this world be like without mans use of fossil fuels and metals? Where would the computer age be without gold?

Beetle Kill in Gold Country

What is beetle kill in gold country? Any of you who travel to Colorado have noticed the pine trees turning reddish and then brown and then grey. Most of you are probably aware that it is caused by pine beetle that burrow under the bark of the trees and kill them by "ringing" them, thus cutting off the tree's system it uses to get water and nutrients to all of its' parts. Thus, beetle kill in gold country. There is an article in today's paper that says up to 90% of the trees in Summit and Grand counties are infected and will die, and that the infestation encompasses at least 1,000 square MILES of forest. This tragedy is due to overzealous environmentalism, which hinders and prohibits the husbandry management of forests. Environmentalists do not seem to be interested in preserving what we have, but allowing mother nature to "take her course". Well, believe me, mother nature could give a RIP about what species lives or dies. Only man cares. Only man can protect what is here, and only through careful MANAGEMENT can that happen. Mother Nature has destroyed these forests which will take decades to replace. Careful logging and management of the forests would have preserved them. Instead of using wisely what we have, environmentalists have WASTED entire forests to neglect and non management, but then I suppose fire IS better. The Haman fire we had a few years ago attests to that. I am sure no one was bothered by the smoke, and the animals that died in it were better off. Yes, it was started by man, but the conditions that existed were also created by man. What does this have to do with gold prospecting? We work in the natural environment, educate the public to responsibility, and teach how to properly engage in activities that might be seen as destructive, to be done in positive ways. Fish love us! We provide new, freshly turned spawning beds when we dredge responsibly in rivers. Gold panning, sluicing, dry washing, and metal detecting get us out in nature where we can experience and connect with it. To watch the destruction of the forests in my state is heartbreaking and irresponsible of our government. All the prospectors,large and small, put together have not damaged the number of acres that this trend in environmentalism has. 1,000 acres in two counties. This number does not encompass the entire state, which has also seen the devastation of the forests. Drive up Clear Creek from Denver and see what I mean. All those trees that are dying have already infected 5 or 6 more, and this June, those trees will infect 5 or 6 more. One thing that is certain. The beetles will eventually stop spreading. They do tend to literally eat themselves out of house and home without management, and even the U.S. Forest Service agrees that it is too late to stop the complete destruction of the forest in some areas. So what is going on now to clear the dead trees? Clear cut logging.

Gold is back down

Gold is back down this morning to around $655. Hooked on Gold still cannot make changes to the website as the server is still "upgrading". Three days is a long time to not be able to make changes or blog. Sure, we have weeks that are busy and there isn't much to say, but not this time of year. The gold Question of the week didn't go off because there was no way to post it. I try several times a day and get the same "page cannot be found" messages, and so far I haven't gotten an answer to my queries about when I can get back into the sitebuilder. For now, you have static pages to view. We will be off to the mining museum at the School of Mines tomorrow, and looking forward to seeing their excellent selection of mining "stuff". They have an excellent library. Newsletter recipients got a short discussion of global warming and some of the possible effects on mining. I read an interesting analogy on the rising seas theory. Everyone learned in school how water expands when it freezes. If global warming causes the ice to melt, wouldn't the seas fall as the water compresses back to it's liquid state? I am not sure this is the correct way to interpret this, but it is an interesting suggestion to think about. Not exactly anything to do with gold, but an interesting thought, none the less.

So, is anyone out with a metal detector or a gold pan yet and finding anything interesting? We are itching to get out, but have decided that we MUST do something about the build up in the house before this season gets started in earnest. One truck load of "good stuff" has gone to the ARC store already, and I am sure another will find it's way there soon. Motorized equipment season is about here on the Arkansas River. It wiil start April 1st, and with the nice weather we have been having, and the river still not in run off stage, it may be a really good time to hit the sand bars while they are exposed. Water quality is becoming an issue with the State, and it seems that claim owners will have another State government agency to deal with. Some claim owners are being required to pump DREDGE water to the bank for settling before returning it to the river. That's right. You read me correctly. DREDGE water. Water quality agencies are getting there fingers in. Another agency wants to get their fingers in on the permitting side too. Information on these two new agencies is being received now and more information will be coming out on these issues as time goes on, so stay tuned for more of what they will be requiring.