Detecting where you "SHOULDN'T" be

I had always believed that a lot of part time or visitor prospectors have been prospecting on Active Tenements when they had no right to be there. Why do I think that, firstly travelling many kilometers most of the good dirt is on Active leases. You can certainly go on these, and detect providing you have the right permissions etc... You can drive through these as well.

Lets take an example of a tourist, you lob into Kalgoorlie, get your miners right. Have a quick chat to the people at the desk. Great all I have to do is look at Tengraph to see what is taken. Firstly Tengraph is a PITA to work with, very slow not user friendly and unless fairly experienced PC user you would give up after about 10 minutes. Providing you can even get past the registration etc... You ask is there an easier way, they may say something like "Sure the mine 20k's down the road is ok with prospectors just keep away from the mine itself" great. So you forget about Tengraph.

Out in the bush you have a Topo map, probably (hopefully) and if you are real pro you may have a Geo Map as well. Certainly nothing about tenements. You can see some old mines on the Topo and decide to head in that direction. You come across a nice outcrop that looks like too many haven't already gone on it, so bang out with the detectors and Bingo a nice target. Wow this is easy. A little later you have a fair bit on board and decide to head back into town.

So that is a typical scenario I reckon for a lot of the tourists, how about the regulars. What would they do ? Reading an old Gem and Treasure magazine I came across an article that like most of them is just written with fairly loose descriptions of where they go. For obvious reasons. It wasn't until towards the end with talk on Google Earth and then a picture showing points on the map. That I was able to pinpoint exactly where they are referencing. So it was either an as example - or a screen shot of where he had looked through, I tend to think the later. So I looked it up and all around these spots are active tenements, not a square inch of spare dirt. To make it more interesting there was a least 10 or so different tenement holders. So to get permission from all of them would seem highly unlikely.

So what is the go, if they haven't the right permission and it was where they worked. They have around 20oz of someone else's Gold. Times that by a few hundred more "ignorant" is bliss prospectors and this will add up.

It certainly makes it hard for us guys trying to do the right thing.

So those of you that do go out there, do you know if you should or should not be where you are !

 

Sounds to me you were a rarity then, and even more now. I realise people are hesitant to admit it, so perhaps the better question should be how many actually look at tengraph and know what to do ?

 

I just went to the one permissible spot in Gympie and paddled around in the water with the leeches and cow urine for a day. Absolute waste of time and I got sunburnt.

The only place I ever got lucky was in Kalgoorlie and that was at the Mine Museum where they had a panning area. I got sunburnt there as well.

To be honest the number of vague rules and regulations has put me off bothering.

You have to buy a ton of equipment and then you have to get a licence and even then you can't actually do anything.

You somehow have to go on the allowed fossiking area, which obviously has nothing left worth looking for or find some land owner who is going to let you look for gold on his property and probably take half of everything you find anyway.

Just sounds like way more trouble than it is worth, we wanted to spend a weekend detecting as a bit of fun but won't be bothering. We might go with a club instead, at least they know what they are doing.

 

Thanks Jis I agree a club or some type of tour is a good idea. For a lot of reasons, one being where you should be is a big one.

The more I look the more I feel there is a lot not being done, one of the major problems is the mining companies put such huge lease sizes on land. They blanket an area of potential and claim it.

The little fella does not really stand any chance in finding virgin ground by going to usual spots.

 

No virgin ground where I go looking.

Just better equipment.

 

Agree EM unfortunately most of the guys over here walk around with 4500-5000 so already had a lot of working over, but you certainly can find it

 

cough:try a small coil:cough

 

WIthout going off on too much of a tangent, i was told by several detectorists that you do not require permission to enter and detect on leasehold land.

To me that's always been private property and a no-go, but others don't care and go in anyway without asking the farmer etc.

I also can't believe in such a huge land, places to freely detect are so limited.

 

in Tassie we have had a few good wins this year for prospectors opening up country to us that does not impact on any existing tenement. Exploration release areas ERA that have been reliquished by the mining companys both large and small and have a 2 month window of non tenement, opening it up as a small scale prospector to.. um, fossick over. i noodled next to mount lyell beconsfield "the actual mine itself in its last week of operation, so very historical to us" and a few in the north east last week using exactly that way in to prime ground. Its some of the best ground we have. and cost me nothing... cool huh

Approch your Mines Department and see if they will let you too. they should. If you have pegged it and someone is ratting it.. then thats a different story. and im sure you approch it the same way an opal miner would