There was recently a broadcast of a short piece about prospecting in metro Denver with long time fellow prospector and friend JJ Long and me. The local TV station, KDVR 31 runs special interest stories about cool things across the state. When they decided to talk about gold prospectors, they reached out to my friend JJ who has been a very visible leader in our prospecting community for the last decade. JJ asked me to join him, which I was excited to do of course!
If you’re curious, we shot this at Arapahoe Bar Prospecting Park on the west edge of Wheat Ridge in metro Denver. I arrived about 30 minutes before the TV folks and barely had time to get everything arranged so not much actual prospecting was done that day but it was still fun. Great to be digging with JJ for the first time in a couple years and always good to spend a little time with my feet in the water and specks of gold in my pan. If you are curious, read my original post about Arapahoe Bar here: https://findinggoldincolorado.com/arapahoe-bar-tips/
Anyway, here’s the TV story by KDVR’s Dan Daru: https://kdvr.com/video/coloradans-still-have-gold-fever/8539065/.
The sluice you see me using is my 12+ year old Angus Mackirk, Expedition model. It’s an easy sluice to set up when river flow isn’t great, or there isn’t much pitch to the riverbed. It also makes for good video since you can really see what’s happening in the riffles. They are available online or sometimes at Cabela’s. The newer ones may be made of black plastic instead of gray but it’s still the same great tool. If you don’t find the Expedition model, don’t sweat it, just get whichever one they have. All good! Learn more about their sluices here.
True confession: all that gorgeous gold you see me show off in the video isn’t from that site, it’s from my mining claim in the mountains. The local gold is really too small to be dependably visible on TV so I did a little upgrade lol! That said, we did find gold that day, even though we seemed to spend more time getting the video shoot done than digging. I guess that’s TV for you!
A fun side fact, if you watch closely, you’ll see me in two different hats during the TV shoot. One is a baseball cap from the Gold Prospectors of the Rockies club that both JJ and I are in. The other was handmade by my mother-in-law for one of her grandchildren. I hadn’t delivered it yet so I wore it just so she could see her work on TV! I ended up liking the hat so much, I asked her to make one for me for my birthday. If you want a cool knit cap like that, email me and I’ll see what she can do for ya! (I’m sure her fees are very reasonable 👍)
If you would like more information on places to go gold prospecting across the state of Colorado, check out my books. Between the two, they cover over 450 public access prospecting sites!
Finding Gold in Colorado: Prospector’s Edition – the definitive guidebook to the gold rush history of Colorado and where to dig for gold in the wild now.
Finding Gold in Colorado: The Wandering Prospector – the sequel to the Prospector’s Edition. This book adds over 100 more prospecting sites from five regions of the state that didn’t participate in the big gold rushes of Colorado. IT also adds almost 170 more prospecting sites to the 18 regions covered in the Prospector’s Edition! In total this book covers 270 prospecting sites across 23 regions of Colorado.
