1. Start when it gets light. Stop when it gets dark. Or take a flashlight.
2. Keep your eyes open, even in the most unlikely of places
3. Talk to people in stores, in bars, on the street, at rock shops. You'll learn a lot. Buy stuff from these people.
4. Merge with the locale and the people. Go native.
5. Follow the rules. Leave gates as you find them. Fix what you mess up. Don't litter.
My Best Places to Find Cash and Treasure
1.Southern half of Utah.
2.Central Oregon
3.Eastern Arizona
4.Oregon beaches!
5.Anywhere with my family.
More about me...
How I first got into treasure hunting: Fourth generation rock hound, been looking at the ground since I could walk. Heavily influenced by my Aunt Dorothy and Uncle Uhlan who had a rock shop in Redmond, OR from the 50's through the 70's.My parents were also rockhounds, and we drove out west (from Maryland) every year.
My treasure hunting obsession(s): Agates and jaspers, mostly. Anything that catches my eye. Most finds are potentially incorporated into jewelry made by my wife and I.
My most exciting find: A fist sized chunk of chrysocolla found at Yellow Cat Ranch in Utah two years ago comes to mind first, but they are all amazing.
My favorite places to look for treasure: Deserts of the western U.S, although I spent some time last year looking for beach agates in OR - that was a lot of fun.
My favorite treasure hunting techniques: Check out rock hound books and websites relating to my target area, mark likely locations on highway maps and cross reference with geologic maps of the area. Kind of nerdly.
My treasure hunt toolkit contains...Estwing hammer, pry bar (gad), folding shovel, water spray bottle, 2# engineers hammer. Water. Full tank of gas. Sunscreen. Four wheel drive. Water. Food. Hat and shades. Water. Arms and ammo for focal point readjustment.
Description of treasure:Graveyard Point Plume Agate pendant
Where I found it:Chunk inherited from my great Uncle
Description of treasure:Multi-colored jasper with "lightning bolt"
Where I found it:Hell's Backbone Road, near Escalante, Utah
How I found it:This area is littered with nice jasper, some very fractured. Dig for the solid stuff.
Description of treasure:Hematite with Jaspagate? Ireally don't know - cuts like heamatite - a real mess.
Where I found it: Yellow Cat Ranch near Moab, Utah. Near is a relative thing.
How I found it:Picked up while driving dirt road with door open looking at the ground - speed hounding. Denise hates it when I do this, especially when the drop-off is on her side. Learned it from my father. My Mom hated it too.
I was just going through some buckets of slabs, looking for petrified wood to send to Tall Tom. I found about 20 pounds of Graveyard Point slabs. All very old stock material. Guess what I'll be cabbing this summer. Don
out of found this valuable.
Do you find this valuable?
"yeah doing the one hand poke stroke..LOL will be looking forward to the pics. Tom"
Man Tom, digging in this bucket is just like Christmas all over again. Besides the Graveyard, I've found bunches of Paisley agate, Montana moss agate, nephrite jade, and stuff that I haven't identified yet. This was all slabs given to me by that old rockhound that I mentioned. He's digging through that big rock pile in the sky now. I'll bet I haven't looked in that bucket in 15 years or more. Don
out of found this valuable.
Do you find this valuable?
