New Zealand Gold Prospecting & Metal Detecting Forums Archive

gidday to all you fellow gold seekers,getting the hunger again to get out there and dig the countryside up.just need a few questions sorted prior to doing so.would appreciate some feedback on where to check out existing mining claims online.costs involved in lodging either a claim or prospecting claim would be great.any hidden charges involved with dredging?jesus the list goes on doesnt it.really looking at claiming a stretch of river somewhere so as to go about my hobby without annoying anyone.anyone in dunedin out there at all?know a few people who are into dredging and dont mind passing on a bit of info.do let me know,cheers

Ship High In Transit is all I could say when I read those fees for a Mining Licence - although it only represents an ounce and a half of gold it is tough on many New Zealanders who would love to have their own claim as most normal everyday Kiwis sail close to the wind financially with mortgages, kids at school and so on to pay it is a lot of money to find for the right to find a bit of gold in what is supposed to be our own country.

Back when New Zealand was for New Zealanders we paid what was really a token gesture for the right to have our own claim but now it has been made hard for the ordinary Kiwi to have a claim while the multi Nationals and big operators piddle in the pockets of the Government who in turn piddle in their pockets.

The fees are totally fkin (scuse me) ridiculous, makes me furious when I see numbers like this for what seems like a one person job to input some data into the system to say 'you have XX years to dig holes here'

*goes off muttering and cursing* bloody $70k to start up the subdivision process in waitakere *fume*

ok, done my bit

Hi There im currently in the process of getting permits sorted i done 2 at once. it pays to get an agent to prepare crown min application although it usually costs around 800 it is money well spent as they get everything rite 1st time and therefore makes things go smoothly.
As for getting the permits that has seemed to be the easy part next comes LINZ ,DOC,NZHPT, F&G and the regoinal councils all want there piece of the pie and seem to do their best to make you want to rip your hair out!!.
by the time both mining permits are all legit it will have cost me in excess of $10k EACH!!. like yo i started this as i wanted a place to undertake my hobby and have found the hard way it is not easy and gets costly quick.Also i started all off this in november 2010 and its still not complete so expect long waits many phone calls and debating especially with DOC . and good luck to everone out there going through the same process.
PS if you are looking at areas in otago to dredge check the orc website and see if the area you intend to dredge is listed as one of there sensitive rivers to suction dredging if it is not on there you are in luck and can use a dredge up to 6 inch nozzle without getting a resource consent and there is only a few baisic rules to follow and dosent seem to be a restriction on hp.

thanks for the link sheila.

was scared to look at it. reads as long as the list the fish and game give on where to fish.

seems nearly every water source is in this list.

ironically i notice that a stream i worked for many days on and off over a year is also on the list. i was only sluice boxing not actually suction dredging.

whilst on this stream one day a couple of heads popped up all dressed in brand spanking new gears (waders etc).

turned out they were doing a fish count. after laughing i said to them i have never seen a single fish on the stream, big or small. the reason being i pointed out to them is the giant set of waterfalls downstream that may for some reason stop any such fish getting up the stream, funnily enough.

anyhow, they proceeded to head up stream. a couple of hours later they returned, having been up as far as they could get. result, not a single sign of fish life. laughing we agreed it was a great way to spend half the day proving the obvious. i'm presuming they were either with f & g or doing a research paper with the university. hopefully this wasn't where our fishing license money was heading.

i think someone on this forum once posted a link about research done in north america concerning the use of suction dredges. they found that apart from localised effects (probably at the arse end of the dredge itself), small scale dredging actually improved many stream habitats. i noted recently some forum members mentioned whilst suction dredging they had fish swimming around them that were after all the insect life that was disturbed by their dredging efforts.

i think those in power need to realise that the discolouration of water from small scale dredging is only temporary just like one of nature's floods. unlike a flood this discolouration probably only runs the course of a working day. any disturbance of streambed material is usually similarly correlated, that is, like small floods the materials don't actually travel too far, basically in one end of the dredge and out the other.

at the end of the day a good size flood will do as it pleases, moving vast quantities of streambed materials. if some of these pen pushers hit google and did some research they would discover that we live in an evolving world, with the earth's processes constantly agrading and degrading materials on the earth's surface.

don't get me wrong, i love fishing. but i think some of this goes to far. at the end of the day a river such as the nevis would be at the high end of such a list. my point here is all it takes is a big handful of money and someone is in there suction dredging the nevis. oh, wait, they also have plans to dam the bloody thing. but that's seems ok?

lammerlaw,

yes, very true, it's amazing where you can find fish. i realise that such obstacles doesn't mean there are no fish further up. i'm always on the look out for signs of fish. i've had them swim up my sluicebox on the shotover in spring. at first i thought i was seeing things.

not sure why there are none on the 12 mile. there is plenty on insect life about with all the native bush. not too much in the water itself but if you look hard enough under rocks there are what i think are called stoners - little crab like kind of insects stuck to the underside of wet rocks.

the water is so clear out there but i have never seen a single fish. yet.

I had some small trout in my hut paddock and used to watch them for hours then one day there was a shag standing on the bank - he couldnt take off and there were no trout - I walked back to my hut to get a rifle - maybe no trout but after I had finished there was no shag either - he had eaten the trout in one sitting and was too full to take off - I have never seen that before...was I wild with it as I liked the trout there.