New Zealand Gold Prospecting & Metal Detecting Forums Archive

Chris,
I am not sure, but I assume the members police their own areas; they are the ones paying for them after all.

Speaking of forests, there is good Au in the Hogburn recreational area, this is under the company Ernslaw one no good for pinecones, it is all larch and fir :) It would make an ideal fossicking area, same with the Shag river rest stop 12km west of Palmerston.

I would never advocate claim jumping on a private persons claim. I do homework on Crown minerals and The Companies Office, find out who is running the show and where the money goes, a few river claims are owned by small speculative/agents, NZ registered company's under much larger foreign entities. I am not worried that I am breaking the law and
poaching from the larger exploration permitted areas, or that I am not sticking to the public fossicking areas. I see my self as an historical reenactment in my natural landscape. My family had the fortune of arriving in Dunedin, may 1861, GG Grandmother was born under canvas at Bluspur, while the other side drove bullocks to the fields. I feel a great connection to gold mining and will go as far as to say it is a right, that we all should be able to dip the pan as we please.

As for Danseys, it is under private claim so I will respect that. If I had been going there for a casual box an a pan with a beer for many years, can understand why people might be upset, if I was told I could no longer delve in my favourite spot I would be gutted. I would the approach the claim owner when the time was right, maybe by the river with some refreshments ;) and explain your history with the spot and your methods of working. It's not over until the fat lady sings.

Always respect the environment. Some diggers and dredgers are really showing their true colours, shear greed. It is obvious in many areas now that a few fellas have new toys and are rip shit and busting up any easily accessible river sites, especially the river banks are taking a hit, removal of the overburden, which is strewn all over the place, rubbish and shit, lighting of fires on private property and poaching of farmers animals etc. Not on eh! There are some who preach the law as gospel and are holier than thou, sitting on a high horse behind a computer screen, who definitely do not practice what they preach, you will find these are our worst offenders. Keep it green :) See ourselves as the earths dentist and the gold as plaque, work as carefully and as methodically as a dentist, conserve energy by not throwing rocks all over, but place them nicely, leave the place as you found.

I wish everybody a successful start to the season, if there is such a thing, my season started before I was born with mum and dad panning in the Mt Ida water race ;)

Thats what we were talking about in the posts just above yours Aotea. :)

There are many places where you can stop, spend some idle time and absorb the soulful peace and solitude of Danseys Pass.

FFS media are just as stupid as illinformed fishermen and panning poofters. If dale franklin dosent get consent granted then I hope he holds onto the claim and never surrenders it to stick it to the whinging pricks, poor buggers gunna get put throught the ringer by f&g now. I think its about time f&g councisl and doc go police all gold bearing rivers for illegal prospecting activities, its about time you whinging pricks get stopped before yous ruin it for EVERYONE not just claim owners.

Audredge is right, just look at whats happened in California, its now starting to happen in Oregon and Idaho, and the bearing sea gold show has made Alaska tighten things up too. Bad media will completely ruin our hobby, best these people just get over it.

Edited by user Wednesday, 21 August 2013 10:26:49 AM(UTC)  | Reason: Not specified

The claim holder is going to have to move a mountain of gravel to make a buck and the gold is mostly very very fine, he will be earning his money returns after costs!

Everybody else had the same opportunity to do the same as he has done.

I am or will be very surprised if he gets all the permits and paperwork done and a ready to start work date set!

He is not the worst problem for fossickers in the area it is under close scrutiny from a lot of other greedy singular interest parties currently!

It will only get worse if anything IMHO.

Edited by user Wednesday, 21 August 2013 2:57:40 PM(UTC)  | Reason: Not specified

From what i no from spending a bit of time one the ph and lots of mouse clicking is that in the same river just further up above the pass hotel a man who has since passed away earlyer this year ... Alan Dunbar who was the NZ agent for Proline Dredges ran a home stay holiday home and an active claim one that is still active now !

And folks he ran dredges of all shapes n sizes and a potential buyers could try there dredge n then drive it away and he had no concent at all .
Why its a permited activity in otago check ( page 206 - 208 of the otago regional water plan ) and left realy no foot print the more i read about these gadgets , the more i look at my on box n pan method and think that im doing the wrong thing as we all build rocks around our boxs to get flow and not all of us remove these when we go , but when flow drops fish can not head up river , a dredge operator would only go to where heavy rock types are not puting mud dirt ect in the river , as we know gold is near 20 x as heavy as water why you u be sucking up dirt off the bank hes not a retard !
esp if it has a compressor and most do and if the ODT quote is right , ud get a fucking mean dredge for 20k nz depending on the US $ as if its like when i got my harley from the states shiping n our own customs rape ur pocket .
I'd be down in a deep hole on bed rock as the river will leave it there every flood . I no fish n game and have been told that most belive it has much less impact than hand mining and that some guys have a food fight off the back of a dredge as theres creeper snails ect n the water .

And simon and gogold and well a lot of people on here seam to know there shit n it looks like making a mountain out of a mole hill maybe being made by a small few upset they havent played by the rules and are angery that its not them , and i feel for Mr Franklin as hes held a fish licence nearly every year since he was a kid as i no a fella who reckons the guys a fishing nut n it looks though the people who wanted to twist his words on face book havent looked at his photos as there are a lot of pixs from all about the place in the waitaki and central otago so i doubt he will destroy one river n love one just beside it?
I gather theres a lot of out doors types on here and we all know deer hunters that use game trail cameras , ive got 3 n they cost about 150 to 450$ to buy from hunting n fishing and they take time laps photos on movement day n night so if hes most likely a bit smarter than the average bear , even more funny if you have been there causeing trouble or damaging property im sure ul have fun explaning that if he felt he needed to present these to the police ,
What a funny bastard .

I hope the odt do more stories to follow up as it has discredited Mr Neil Thorp who has said he has openly profited from his own illeagle activity advertising paning and used it to fill his camp ground , what dose NZPAM think of these activitys , he must of known that he was out doing this as on the same river, Alan Dunbar did and he claimed around his holiday home stay .... Why would u admit that to a reporter ???

I hope he is going to stand his ground and put these people in there place , this one topic is gathering steam in favour of they guy whos played by all the rules of law .

Hope the next story reads man finds 50 ounce nugget while mining and following the rules.

As quoted by a farmer up there whos got one half of a farm in otago and the other E can . Ive rung ecan on a farming matter today , and as advised by them today there is a large gray spot there they couldnt tell me what the law was if any that is written into their laws as there is in otago .... But i guess he will do as you have and have a better idear than us all either way no permit no activity .

But ive comented on talking to ecan and due to that info so ecan and may be a little like ur refferance to f&g to diffrent stories from the same office.... ?

I have a copy of ORC water plan as part of my day job and gave the page number for members to view in there own time :)

as stated in an earlier post it pretty much costs the same and the same amount of paper work to do for a big or small claim why not make it worth while?
also how long has it been since it was last claimed if ever? (someone else may be able to answer that) so its not like there was a giant cue for the area so why not claim it? more country to explore more chances of a good payoff. have you found gold every single pan you've done? dredgings the same hit or miss youre not gunna make $$$ in every spot.
really F&G should piss off dredging dose fark all to rivers and fish/bugs etc. stirs a small amount of silt up for a small distance, quite often you see the fish around the nozzle and at the end of the sluice enjoying themselves. a lifetime of dredging will do less harm to the river then a couple of inches of rain.

I don't know why the camp ground owner would publicly state he advertised and allowed illegal activities to take place, I hope the right person reads that and makes an example of them.

Edited by user Wednesday, 21 August 2013 9:13:14 PM(UTC)  | Reason: Not specified

Aotea i dont no if im mis reading ur last coment but ..

As for ORC v ECan, the areas are based on catchments. I spoke to ECan a number of times about this claim as I was helping out a friend from overseas to get it.

Are you saying ur doing this for people out of love as a non profit group .
Are you doing this for friends from overseas for free as well ?

If we were to you use u to get a claim how much will it cost all up ??

Im confused a little as to how come nzpam didnt give u a permit if f&g gave u a green light ?