I have prospected here in the Llano area for over 12 years now and I guess I am as close to an expert as there is. I get phone calls all the time from fellow prospectors wanting to know what I know.

I hope this page can help answer some of your questions.

First off, all you new prospectors( I was one once) You are not going to get rich or even find enough gold to make a living. You will be lucky to find a few specks each time you go out. Yes there have been some nuggets found, but they are few and very small. I have used all kinds of prospecting equipment in the area including: panning, sluicing,high-banking, dredging, crevicing, metal detecting, and dowsing. I have used all types of recovery processes including: panning, classifying, blue bowl, trommels, Camel's, amalgamation, leeching, smelting, and water filtering. WARNING IT IS NOT WORTH THE RISK TO YOUR HEALTH AND OTHERS USING MERCURY OR ACIDS LEECHING FOR THE LITTLE BIT OF GOLD YOU MIGHT GET.

There are rules to everything. To prospect on state owned land you have to have a permit. These permits are issued from the General Land Office. They are issued to an individual for a specific desribed area that is owned by the state. As of 9/24/2011 the Llano river is permitted out all the way to Junction. Some of these permit holders dont even have access to their permitted areas. I guess gold fever hit and they just wanted a piece of the pie. A permit does not mean you can trespass to get to the river. If you are interested in trying to get a permit you can check with the GLO for availability. Please don't harass these people they have been very nice to prospectors. If you would like to prospect on someones permitted area you need to contact that permit holder and get permission. Some permit holders have rules about their area. Some permit holders do not allow dredging on their permitted areas. There are also permit holders that got their permits to block people from prospecting on parts of the river.

There are rules for everything. The state has set some rules for dredging. Your dredge cannot have a nozzle size larger than 5 inches. You cannot dredge within 100 ft. of bridges and dams. You cannot under cut the bank. Your dredge cannot creat large plumes, your discharge needs to stay clear. You cannot spill oil or gas in the water.

Well as far as I can tell it is Texas Parks and Wildlife. When we got started in the state they were the ones we had to meet with. Earl, Brent and I had a meeting with TPW and then we had an outing for them so they could study the effects of our prospecting activities. Please do not harass the people at TPW they have been very nice to us prospectors.

Even if you have followed all the rules, You have your permit, you get access and you know the rules, please do not argue with an upset land owner. If you meet an upset land owner and you know that you are not breaking the rules please contact a Game Warden. Do not stand in the river and argue. There has already been an instance where this happened and the land owner pulled a gun. You are not going to find enough gold to risk this. Don't be STUPID.

I get phone calls all the time from prospectors telling me how many ounces of gold they found or I found a half ounce nugget. REALLY, PLEASE! If you found it on state owned land did you pay the state its 16%. If you are finding that much gold you are not prospecting you are mining. Better look at the laws? Please dont call me with your fish stories I am a fisherman too.

I am more interested in people that say "Hay I was on the river the other day and I found a big flake or a small nugget" or " Hey I went to so and so county and I found some color or black sand" After 12 years I have heard it all..

After 12 years I have maybe a couple of penny weights worth of flower gold, most of that from dredging. I have found 1 small 9 gr. nugget with a detector at Longs Fishing Camp. I also found what every one tells me is a stalk of silver that weighs 14 gr. I found both targets while detecting but I did not find them with the detector. I found the crack in a slab of granite that was in the creek and I got a signal. The signal was an old nickle. I spent 2 hours cleaning that crevice with dental picks and a screw driver. The crack was 20+ feet long. I also pulled a lot of lead shot and bullets out. I can go into the river with a pan and after 2 or 3 pans of dirt I can show you a 100 mesh color or 2. I do have personal access to a couple of ranches that have better gold than the Llano river. No I will not take you with me. If I do find a large amount of gold (Like an Ounce or something) you will not hear about it.. I have seen other prospectors find small nuggets while prospecting. Both were found with High-bankers. Both were smaller than an english pea. The average size gold in the Llano river is 80 to 100 mesh. I know that there is a lot of it but it is very hard to recover. The average prospector does not take the time to do a proper clean up of their cons. You can not practice panning enough. If you are not using classifiers

you are missing your gold. I recomend a 30, 50, and 100 mesh screens. Anything bigger than 20 mesh you can pan.

Most prospecting equipment is designed to catch big gold. Some say they are for fine gold recovery. I would ask what they define fine gold as. They make claims that they will catch 80, 90 or 100% of the fine gold, the truth is they are lucky if they get 50%. Before you buy the latest and greatest thing ask a prospector that has used it in the field what they think about it. A GPAA gold pan is one of the best fine gold recovery units out on the market and they are less than $20.

Man I love to dredge. This is one of the most relaxing ways to prospect and one of the most productive. Gold recovery is all about moving dirt. The more you move the more gold you get. You cant just go buy a dredge and expect to get gold with it. You need someone with experience to show you the basics. I have seen people with their dredge set up in the wrong place running full throttle, rocks flying, butt up in the air doing nothing but wasting time. Take a class or watch a video at least OR you can pay me to show you how.. I personally like the Keene tripple stage dredge once you get it set up right it can recover our small fine gold with maybe a 50% recovery rate.

No matter what you are doing panning, sluicing, dredging or high banking if you are not seeing garnet sand or lead shot you are not getting gold. You need to move or dig deeper.

Man I love to detect. There are very few options for detecting gold in Texas. Your options are the river or private property. You can find gold with a detector in the Llano River but it is going to be tuff. I am a metal detector dealer and I have used quite a few detectors. I have used a Bounty Hunter,Fisher Gold Bug II, a Minelab Xterra 70 and a Minelab SD 2200v2. I found my gold with a custom SD2200v2. I probably spent 40 or 50 hours that week hunting. I personally would recommend one of the new Gold Bugs or the Garret AT Pro Gold (its water proof), Minelab Xterra 705 or a big Minelab Pulse machine $$$$$. I will always take a detector with me when I am prospecting. I will check your tailings after you have dug a hole.

Your best bet to find gold is to join a group and go on a outing and learn from others OR you can pay me to take you out and show you what I know. This is just a Hobbie here in Texas you are not going to get rich, but you can have a lot of fun and meet a bunch of good folks.

I hope this answers some of your question. As I get more phone calls with questions I will add to this.

Thanks

Todd Pickens