Illinois Gold Prospecting

Hi all,
I went out to Wyoming to shoot some harmless, but tasty, animals. After doing that, i couldnt stand being within an hours drive of the Husker #1 claim of the GPAA's in the black hills of South Dakota. I had brought some pans, buckets, folding shovel, and some buckets.
The plan was to fill 7 buckets but the creek was drier then i had hoped for but not dry enough to make dry classifying easy so i ended up with 2 buckets of -0.25 inch material to bring home. Here is the only water i found, and someone had dug down to it, it was only 2 inches deep so my test panning was severely limited.



Before i get into what i found, lets talk about the claim.
It was easy to find, easy to get to, you can camp onsite for up to 14 days according to the black hill national forest rules and it is only a 50 foot walk from a campsite to the creek.



It was absolutely beautiful country. Tall cliffs tower over the claim that is covered with ponderosa pines. The creek is larger then i thought it would be, 10-15 feet wide and jam packed with material from sand to large boulders. It is very evident that there were others there working very recently with fresh tailing piles around.







One thing i thought was interesting and i assume it has to do with the hunters not appreciating prospectors being out there during "their" hunting season, but there were a lot of deer carcasses laying about on the claim which gave the place a rather pungent odor. For the shot at some gold, i can ignore the odor but your mileage may vary.
There is some exposed bedrock on the inside of a bend but it has been worked and reworked so i decided to get some material out of a hole up from the bedrock on the inside of a different bend.



Once i got through the tailings of someone else (they seem to enjoy dumping their tailings in other folks holes) i got down to hard pack material jammed with big rocks and damp dirt/sand. It took an hour to get the first bucket filled and i bet i lost a lot of gold that was stuck to the big rocks i threw out but there wasnt much i could do.
After this bucket i decided to hedge my buckets and fill one at a different spot. This spot was 20 feet up from the previous one but was under a tree with big roots that someone put a lot of effort into getting under it. I couldnt let their effort go to waste now could I?
So i stuck my pan at the bottom of the hole and started knocking material into it. At one point i thought i Daved my pan when a big ole rock fell down into it unexpectedly, but the pan was saved.
This material was worse to work then the previous stuff as it had a lot more dirt in it but it sure looked good.





So i finished up that bucket and called it a day. Headed into Deadwood, did a little sight seeing, and ended up at a casino but that is a story for another day.
I have processed the material but i need to clean it up some before i get a picture of the final results.
Jim

Looks like a good place to prospect. How has the material worked out so far? I have never been out West prospecting, but hope to go some day.

Sounds like a good trip. I will be headed out that direction in june. I am looking for some good sites to prospect although i know folks dont like to reveal that information. I have a metal detector and a gold pan but was wondering if i should buy one of those wolf trap sluice boxes in case i have an area that has some running water. I will be leaving illinois and driving to california but may hit colorado and arizona if i knew it would be worth it. I will go to bozeman montana and down to yellowstone and deadwood and through the badlands before coming home. it should be an 18 day trip. Any decent panning or sluicing spots would be appreciated if its not too much to ask. Thanks and i hope your concentrates turn up a lot of color.