Detecting in WA

havent been to wa forr 10 years whats it like now i hear most of the moning companies wont let u on,,dont know why, detecting is not getting any gold they would get

anyway all they can do is chuck u off if its a small operator well you should keep off.

Claimpeg wrote:

anyway all they can do is chuck u off if its a small operator well you should keep off.

I gather you haven't been subjected to the act of being held upside down by your ankles and shaken to see if any nuggets fall out of your pockets. The small time operators will do this to you if they catch you on their claim. And they tend to confiscate any nuggets they find in your car too. This was the age old method of the "shake down" that was used generations ago before stretch jeans were available.

You're right though, more mining companies want to keep the surface material as well as the deeper stuff. It wasn't always like this although they sure don't like Victorians and NSW detectorists over there for some reason.

like i said you should keep off a small operators claim, to detect gold off an operating claim is just pure theft.

but for a big mining company that intends to put a massive open cut in, they have no interest in nuggets, so it is just pure selfishness and stupidity to chuck a detectorist off, and after all most of these areas were found originally by small prospectors.

Gday


In my opinion a smart mining company would come to some sort of agreement with detectorist and offer access to their leases in return for gps locations of nugget finds, this sort of information can only be found by doing what we do, and it is true that many of the big mines now in operation were first found by detectorists, boy are they slow to catch on or what.

Like a lot of detectorist over the years I have worked so many areas that I still believe will produce large quantities of gold if you had access to the machinery and mining expertise, there have been many patches both my own and other peoples that have been worked and the sources never found, there must be a percentage of those spots that will still have the source intact.

cheers


stayyerAU

do most people these days get permission or do they just go anywhere?

Morning Claimpeg,
If you want a hassle free trip the right approach is to contact the EL holder and pastoralist to seek permission. As you have rightly mentioned, keep off private leases.
If you know of an area you want to spend extended time on then take out 20A costing $20.00, lasting 3 months and this gives you 10 graticular blocks which equates to an area approximately 800 x 1000 metres.
Needless to say this would takes many moons to search thoroughly.
Prospectors who arrive in the WA goldfields, who have done their homework, have their WA Miners Right and a member of APLA are mostly welcome.
It is the cowboys & girls who arrive here and abuse the system that has brought about the stricter rules. Countless times we have come across campsites where someone has camped over night and then driven away leaving all there rubbish behind.
It is mostly a myth that Eastern Staters are not welcome, thousands of $'s spent by the prospectors in outback goldfields towns are welcome.
eg: Cue, Sandstone & Menzies are currently upgrading their caravan parks to try and accomodate the 2011 pilgrimage. These parks are currently bulging to their boundaries.
Catch you down the track one day.

Cheers
Peter

Gday


Firstly you have to have permission to detect on a lease, but you dont have to have permission to have a look about, some areas may look interesting on a map or on google earth but not so good when you are actually there.

So with this in mind you may visit many areas with the idea of just doing a recce to suss the place out, by the amount of people I have spoken to in the field there are few who have permits or even permission to be there so many people just consider everything to be fair game and the system of getting permission and applying for permits a waste of time.

If you are planning to work an area and want to do so without the fear of being run out of the place then you need to apply for a 20a permit, this accords you certain rights, but you are still restricted to detect only on the the area that the permit covers, often the permit is applied for only so that the party can camp in the area and then venture here and there at will.

cheers

stayyerAU

Gday


Absolutely right Peter, I was writing my response while you were doing yours, it is very true that things have started to tighten up due to people doing the wrong thing, but sometimes the mining companies may need to consider the bigger picture and see that there are other things that are effected by their decisions too.

On my last trip I spoke with two couple who were warned away from areas in the vicinty of Cue due to the mining company tightening their controls over it, I believe these are areas to the West of Cue, but I may not have heard it correctly, anyway small towns like Cue benefit greatly by prospectors who stay in the caravan park, buy fuel and food etc etc.

Apart from the staff on some of these mine sites going into town on occassion my guess would be that the company itself would not contribute much to the local economy, with most of its supplies coming from elsewhere, so the truth may be that the visiting prospectors and tourist are bringing more money to the town over all than the mining company, start to scare them away from town and the effects will be felt by the small local businesses, there must be some truth in it as out of the three separate groups that I spoke with in Nannine two of them said the same thing.

I hope that I am wrong but if this is going to be the trend where people are going to be scared to go out for a bit of a bip close to town and have to go further and further out then the obvious thing is they are going to start going only to the areas that are a bit more prospector friendly and avoid the places that are not, or simply avoid the towns and stay out in the bush instead.

cheers

stayyerAU

I have found differently to others in dealings with 6 mining companies in W.A. having returned from my 3rd trip in December 2009. Some of those companies are the largest in the State.
With A.P.L.A membership, I had no problems receiving access. I hasten to add there was an amount of leg work to get to that stage.
All written applications included my A.P.L.A membership number, miners rights number, an offer to provide a Form 5, and to provide GPS headings of all finds. I made the offer before they asked.

I found absolutely no bias toward Eastern State visitors.

I don't think the large mining companies want the small amount of alluvial we find on their leases. In fact, them asking (in most cases) for GPS locations of finds show they acknowledge the input of responsible detectors.

Stay in W.A. for a while and hear the stories of illegal poaching and damage by cowboys, and you will understand their reluctance to allow us access.

They aren't the ogres some make them out to be.

In Clermont for instance, we have rights and legal obligations to be in designated areas, and in W.A it's no different on leases and tenements.

Go West young man....it's a ball

Regards,

John

whats a form 5?

The Menzies van park has been closed since mid june bcoz the health dpt orderded it unfit

ill probably never get to go back to wa

Im was planing a trip for this year which may have to be put off until next year due to the approaching summer, but if i do manage to get over there this year ill go for about a week and a half, i would be looking to get out far from the common areas away from mining leases and population centres, i will first asses the areas on google earth and geological maps and then if i can remember my pass word for tengraph ill check out its mining statis, i would be camping in the bush for the time spending 2-3 days in each spot, if i cant find anything in those 2-3 days i would move on. If i buy a land rover freelander the fuel cost for the return trip and driving around WA should be about 1 grand or even less, i was also looking at ford explorors they are priced fairly and have decent fuel consumtion.

Claimpeg i think we have to bite the bullet theres no point bemoaning the fact all the easy legal gold is almost all gone from Vic, we can ether sit back and moan and hear of gold being found by others in WA or we can go there ourselves while the goings still good, keep in mind the old timers would not hesitate to move when the gold runs out in one area as soon as a richer area was found they would move off and it is no different now.

thats very true gollstar!! thats the difference between a fossicker and a prospector

G'day Claimpeg.
A Form 5 is what the tenement holders ask you to fill in when you finish detecting.
The gist of it is, you give them all your costs of being on their leases, and they claim that as an operating expense I assume.
The format varies a bit.
Some suggest $250 a day..............wish I found that every day lol.
Others use mileage to and from the lease and your meals etc.

Make the trip mate before global warming melts all the gold

dont think i could afford to ever go back.

How much do you think it would cost, i think id be having a 5 star trip on $1500 for 2 weeks including fuel there and back ill try and work out what its going to cost me. the biggest expence is going to be fuel just getting there so ill be steering away from any gas guzzlers ill be looking at 4wd's that consume between 6.8-11 litres per 100 k's so ill leave maybe $1000-$1200 for fuel and then i just have to buy meat when there ill bring a bottle or 2 of somthing to help me sleep and bob's your uncle.

even if you can get there and back on $1200 in fuel, you'll want atleast 4 times that in reserve and every concievable spare part incase something doesnt go to plan...last thing you want is a breakdown out there else they'll find your bones next to an empty water bottle and a large HELP sign made out of rocks

And a huge pile of nuggets next to my bleached bones, fug