Hiya folks! I was wondering about ethical recovery. I was pondering originally how many buckets of concentrate is ethical to bring home to work. That led to the pondering of ethics while prospecting in general. I believe this is a very important subject to touch on because it effects us all. The more damage we do to our rivers, lands etc., the more negatively others will see us. Although to some this may seem like common sense, there are those that don't give a flying you know what. I am a firm believer in preserving the land as close to as pristine as I found it. (Minus a little concentrate). So is there any advice you can give to those of us that are just starting out?

"buckets of concentrate"???
It would have to be a really really big operation to produce "buckets of concentrate" in a day.
If I work for three days at my claims... I typically return home with about 1-2 CUPS of concentrate to process later at home. I prefer to run a sluice all day and normally extract the concentrates from that sluice at the end of the day..... ONCE. One hard day for me typically yields about 1/2 cup of concentrate (using GoldHog matting).
Another example: I prospected a section of NFS last summer. In the course of 6 days worth of digging and sluicing my combined concentrates from the entire adventure consists of a 1-gal Ziploc which is not even 1/2-way full of concentrate. I have yet to process it here at the homestead. My process is typical of most miners who operate on a non-commercial scale.
The idea of sluicing (and other methods) are for the purpose of processing/reducing in the field and not bringing half of the forest home with you... which would be very inefficient as well as destructive.
Hope this helps.

Lol, yeah it does. Perhaps I was overestimating the scale of operations a little bit. I can definitely see where you are coming from. I was viewing the term "concentrate" as what you get after running your samples through a couple of screens. My mistake of terminology. So I shall rephrase my.question to look like less of.a greenhorn.
How many buckets of dirt is ethical to bring home with you to be worked and then returned to it's home?

Lol "without bringing half the forest with you". That cracked me up! But I get your drift. Thank you the ever wise Swizz!

Welcome to the forums fenixsmom! Chris gave you some great info. You can also read the "Code Of Conduct" that we wrote for everyone on the website. Hope it also helps some. Make yourself at home around the site, we have a great group here!!

Denise

hmmm... the "ethics" of bringing dirt home.
Sorry, it's just an odd question and there's nothing wrong with being a greenhorn and asking.
I don't think I've ever known any fellow prospectors to go home with even one 5gal bucket of material.... rough, classified, or concentrate. Ethics aside, It's just not smart prospecting or processing and not a common practice. Not saying it doesn't happen, just far from common.
How much dirt being removed would you consider "unethical"? Home Builders, Commercial Builders, and landscapers remove incredible amounts of dirt on a daily basis but there is an economic reward. Is that unethical? Maybe. Eye of the beholder. Moving and REmoving dirt are two different things. Typically miners "move" dirt.... not "remove" large quantities of dirt from a site. In the example of my personal claims.... the dirt that I've "moved" stays on site, only minimal concentrates are removed from site to process later. On-site tailing piles are raked flat and/or used for mine improvements. My personal mine improvements often benefit and facilitate habitat improvement as a side benefit... just ask my Muskrats and Golden Ground Squirrels. Little buggers get excited when they see me pull up.

Thank you for a link Mrs. CP! I shall definitely look at it! I highly doubt ill be taking a dump truck full of material home to work through. I suppose my main concern is since ill be mainly using public land, I don't want to greedily take a whole bunch of dirt home at the end of my stay to play with until I go back. I don't want to degrade the area either. Maybe my worries are for naught, but I figure it's best to ask rather than be shunned for taking more than my fair share.
that being said, when I am on site for the day I plan to work down my buckets and recover when I'm done. But I may want to take some home to play with later also. As long as it's acceptable.

Well, in my opinion it's best to process as much rough material in the field as possible and bring home only the concentrate. The concentrate cleanup (at home) should be waaaayyyy less than a bucket of material. A sluice greatly concentrates the material for you... that's the purpose. You sluice on site which reduces 40 buckets of material into about a cup of concentrate.
That cup of concentrate will take you hours to separate the Gold from at home. That process is called "cleanup" and uses different equipment. Depending on what cleanup equip a person uses can dictate recovery success and also effect how long the cleanup process takes. Smaller Gold is obviously more difficult to extract from the concentrate. Colorado Gold is typically very small. I use a series of classifiers and a Blue Bowl setup for my home cleanup process. A gallon Ziploc half full of concentrate typically takes me the better part of an afternoon to fully process. There are faster cleanup processes... and slower but this one works well for me. Many cleanup devices out there to choose from.
In a nutshell... if you are interested in being efficient I highly recommend sluicing in the field and bringing home only about a cup of concentrates per day (whatever your particular sluice holds in heavies after a day of running). Save those concentrates for a day when you are prepared to effectively remove the Gold from it. You could do it at home with a pan but it would take forever and your recovery success would be questionable. There are devices that speed up the process and can be more accurate than simply trying to pan it out.
So.... you should be taking home just a very small amount of heavies that you concentrated out in the field. The rest can stay there. Why work harder than you need to? Why "remove" large volumes of soil from public land? There's absolutely no reason to overwork yourself like that and leave a gaping scar on the land. There a better/proven/efficient ways of doing this... like a sluice. Inexpensive and very effective. You can UP the game with bigger equip like a trommel, dredge, powersluice, or highbanker (which are also designed to concentrate rough material in the field) but sluicing is an excellent cost-effective starting point.

I completely understand your logic! I have only a basic pan kit with 2 pans and 2 classifiers. Since I am just starting I didn't want to jump in without testing the waters first. Thank you again for taking the time to explain this to me. If everyone in the club is as kind and as informative as you and Mrs. CP, I'm in great hands!

Thanks! We like to help and I have yet to meet a rude person here.
A sluice isn't a big investment at all and I would consider it every bit as essential as a pan for the beginner who's just testing the water to see if they like prospecting. One of my very favorite sluices for sampling only cost around $50. That would be the Angus MacKirk Mini Long Tom. So easy to use and clean out, does very well for micron Gold, and probably weighs less than a pound. Just a great value for a product that works so well. I also like my more expensive larger sluices but this is the one I reach for more than the others for that quick trip. You can feed it material classified down to 1/2" all day long.

Fenixsmom, Welcome!
It is acceptable as long as you fill the hole where the dirt came from - there is usually enough loose material around to do that. Taking dirt home to "play" with is a good way
to practice panning, test new methods in a "controlled" environment (back porch, heated garage, or other type of work area) is common practice among a few people (I'm one,
and I know of several others), but it is horribly inefficient if you are doing this a the main method of finding anything. Also, after you carry just one bucket from the area you
are working, you usually will not be carrying a second, or third, so ethically, you are ok. By the way, Jeffco Clear Creek open space prohibits this, by the way - all "dirt" (not
concentrate) must remain. Check with the local parks & open space people to see what the regs are for a given area. There is also the problem of disposal - I had a garden to
do this. If it is your own claim - you can take home as much as you like, but remember, to stay within the law, you must repair the damage when you are "finished" - that
means, you must haul back/replace the dirt you took, replant trees, grass, etc., repair erosion caused by your activities, and so on. The reason finished is in quotation marks
is because that is sort of open ended, as it depends on when you are actually done with it (which could be years). Now, if you are taking pick-up loads, etc., from an open
area (or rec area) as what has happened at Cache Creek, then ethically you have a problem - a bucket or three is not significant, so I do not see a problem unless it is
specifically prohibited.

Just a note - I don't take buckets home very often - just when I have a new idea to try and don't have the time to take a day at the creek. And usually just one - those darn
things are HEAVY!

Awesome advice all around Scott! You're right about HEAVY too. I try to set my sluice as close to my digs as possible. Even if I have to move buckets more than 10ft from my dig area to the sluice I'm putting out some good sweat. Last thing I would wanna do at the end of the day would be to carry full buckets out... along with all the equip and stuff. It's just too much work.
Confession though: I've been snowmobiling in and out of the ranch (4 miles each way). Along that trail I've been seeing southern exposed dirt showing on the ancient benches alongside the snowmobile trail. I just might put my pick, shovel, and a 5gal bucket on the Bearcat one of these days for a winter bucket of rough material. Probably a fruitless endeavor but my mind wants some dirt to process this far into winter... getting the Jones. I don't really have time for that but I always stare at it when I'm going by. Hell, I still need to sit down and do cleanup on all of the concentrates I got from the ranch last summer. Maybe I'll do that while watching the superbowl this year.

I would do 2 just too see if there is anything worth it - might be a great place to drywash or run a recirc rig. Do it!

Dammit Jim, I'm a Doctor... not an ice miner

Just do it!

yep,when i go out in the summer dredgeing, i usually go for two weeks at a time. i like to cleanup my dredge at the end of every day and screen it down at the creekside.YUP them buckets would get real heavy carring if i didnt do that. sometimes i give my cons a quick pan down by the creek to saee how im doing, but they go back home with me for my finnal cleanup in the winter months.

Thank you for supporting his statement Nassau! I'm only allowed to carry 20 lbs. In my current state, so this will take a burden off my belly!

I think what I see is an inquiry about the legalities of prospecting. Please correct me if I'm wrong.
Technically a 20 lb. bucket is casual use. No claim, Notice of Intent or Plan of Operations required. IIRC the limit is 50 lbs., though Dan (et.al.) will have to verify that for me. I don't remember what the time frame restriction is, however it generally means no use of motorized equipment. In some places the BLM gets really weird about it and they may say that includes the vehicle used to access the site.

If it's not private property, not claimed, not in a state or federal park, there shouldn't be any problem. If someone owns it or has it claimed, get permission first (of course).
There is a grey area, however. If it is owned by a municipality, that may or may not be something you can do. I'm uncertain myself. I have rarely had any problems with municipalities giving me permission to gold pan (if done responsibly and sometimes offering to teach some of their curious employees or their kids how to pan helps a lot), and even a couple state parks had no problem with it.

Be open. Be honest. Be happy. Be friendly. And I betcha you should have very little trouble getting permission.

Thanks Coalbunny! I've decided I'm too darn pregnant to be mulin' dirt to and fro! I'll be workin dirt to concentrates and taking that back to work in my new finishing sluice that Chris sent me! I love it
Thank you for your reply! I'll keep it in mind though for when I'm stocking up for the winter?

BTW, one trick I learned years back is using a funnel and soda pop bottles. The bottles are plastic and light. Rinse them out good and use them to hold the concentrates.
This is great when hiking in and working several different sites. You can use any size of soda bottle you want, as small as the 4 fl.oz. water bottles to 20 fl.oz. and larger bottles. Have a marker with you to label the bottles per location. These are water proof. When you get home just cut the top off and do whatever you plan on doing with the concentrates.

That is an awesome idea!!!! Ill have to do that! My big ol butt can sit on my bucket!

Heck, drag yer old man down there and have HIM pack the concentrates out!

**sigh** if it ain't ice fishin' he ain't interested..... booger.....

I think the 20lb limitation was set by her doctor actually Carl.
You are correct about casual use (recreational classification) is not something associated with staking claims, NOI's or POO's.
Time frame restrictions are also another pesky recreational area thing. These must be kept seperate from anything discussing actual claim staking and ownership as there are no "time restrictions" for working ones own claims. Nor is it a "requirement" to stake/file claims, use the NOI's or file POO's unless a certain threshold is crossed legally in extractions. Staking your claim is a right....not a requirement!
Motorized restrictions......again, pesky recreational restritions. Claim owners will most certainly need to use motorized equipment in extractions.....remeber not to mix the two, claim ownership is the real deal!

Ahh yes! Dan is absolutely correct. My 20 lbs limit is due to pregnancy. Baby doesn't like heavy lifting!

Exactly Dan. I am aware of the 20 lb. limit being hers, and the 50 lb limit being the BLM.

I was talking with the BLM geologist out here and I told him of my plans, gave general locations, and he really was VERY helpful. And he made it clear that because of the general lack of information the public has or knows how to use, too many people are missing "the signs". So a casual use might be better for me.

The BLM has imposed a 50 lb limit?
on what?
You'll have to explain this one to me.

yep ive never heard of any weight limits on cons! and of any transportation limits (motorized) getting to a claim!

Not on the cons but for casual use. I have heard it time and time again, but never seen anything done about it.

I haven't seen any such regulation of "50lb bucket limit" for public owned lands that fall under the Mining Laws Of 1872. If you have a link that would be great. If you just "heard" it from a government employee or other, I would be very skeptical and request proof of that.
If you're just referring to some bucket rule from a Recreational Area or privately owned land other than NFS or BLM managed Public Owned land... any bucket rule can be applied, heck the land owner could even tell you what 'color' of bucket must be used for that matter. Sometimes BLM and USFS employees are contracted to enforce 'rules' (not mining laws) on privately owned lands such as Recreational Areas and Open Space designations. Perhaps that's what they were referring to?

Sorry folks, I forgot to specify anything about the "50 lb" question.
I believe what this stems from is yet another confusing recreational orientated term. There is a "rock collecting or sampling" weight limit rule that is written as "250 lbs of removed material allowed per year, per person". That is a general "rule" (not law as far as I know) that is applied to those who are just out to recreate and obiviously do not apply to the real prospector/claim owners.
They most certainly would probably exceed that weight rather quickly in their actual prospecting field work!
Yes I can see the uniforms trying to use this with gold prospectors and their concentrates in recreational settings.....no different the rock sampling is it at a recreational level?

This is a great spot in the discussion to point out how much Colorado Prospector club membership can help folks understand these differences, especially in the field when someone offers up wrong information for you to make future decisions upon!
For anyone interested in a more successful prospecting future for themselves......You can find out about the club membership and how to join by clicking on the Colorado Prospector club membership page link.
We feel if you have the right information you'll be much more successful in the field!!

Great info Dan and I agree regarding the membership. That is what took me from zero to hero when I was learning the nuances of research! And really not that long ago.
The archived information in the Protected Forum that you've posted and sticky'd is priceless. Absolutely shortened the learning curve for me and I continue to learn stuff.
Very much appreciated.

i dont do anything causual! Swizz i agree with what you posted! heck even my gas cans are over 50 lbs.!:)