Idaho Outdoors

Life is Always Better with an Outdoor Adventure!

  • Home
  • Maps
    • ID Land Status Map
    • Idaho Mining Claims
    • Idaho Hiking Maps – REI Hiking Project – Adventure Hiking
  • Rec. Category
    • Hiking
    • Hunting
    • Fishing
    • Outdoor Sports
    • Prospecting
    • Shooting
    • Survival
  • Hidden Idaho Treasures Series
  • Write for Us!

Gold Prospecting Idaho

March 24, 2016 by Jim Lewis Leave a Comment

Hidden Idaho Treasure Series

Interested in Gold Prospecting Idaho?

My Son and I Gold Prospecting in 2006.
My Son and I Gold Prospecting in 2006.

So it’s a new year and you are bored with all of your current hobbies. Well if you are considering picking up a new hobby, you should consider gold prospecting. Idaho has a diverse landscape with many things to offer adventurous people.

Every year people flock to Idaho’s BLM ground or Idaho National forests to camp, rock hound, fish, boat, hunt, four-wheel, hike, take photos, bicycle, and swim. Why not pick up gold prospecting when you are on one of your outings with your family this year. Prospecting can be a very inexpensive hobby or a very expensive hobby depending on the equipment you use to prospect with.

The Required Equipment for Gold Prospecting!

Beginner prospectors need a couple of different sized pans, a few classifiers (we recommend a 1/2″ classifier and a 1/4″ classifier), and maybe a sluice box if you are willing to part with the cash.  Buy some vials and at least one sniffer bottle.  Now you can make your own sniffer bottle with a plastic straw and a plastic bottle purchased at your local craft store.

You will need some buckets.  Best way to pick up buckets is; call up your local paint contractor. They should have buckets for next to nothing as they will have tons of them left over from projects.  Your other option is to buy buckets from your local hardware store.  Make sure to pick up a rock hammer, a couple of shovels and a strong back.  Gold Prospecting is hard work.

We made due for several years with very few prospecting tools. Our Tools included a sluice box, some gold pans, classifiers, a sniffer bottle, some vials and a shovel or two.

Gold Pans

Gold pans should be 14″ and the green seems to show the gold and not mark up as bad as the black ones.

Classifiers

Classifiers can be made by purchasing some screen from your local D & B store, building a frame and securing the screen in the frame. Glass stores may have little pieces of 1/8″ screen they would give away for next to nothing. If you are looking for a few classifiers to purchase please see the ones we recommend at the left.

Sluice Boxes

Sluice Boxes come in every shape and sized you can imagine.  If you search Google for wood sluice box plans, there are many do-it-yourself plans to making a sluice box.  We believe that you can not go wrong with a metal sluice box made by Keene engineering, Jobe, or Royal.  The one that we recommend extends to 50″ which allows for great gold recovery.  Shorter backpack sluice boxes are not all that great for gold recovery.  They do not allow the gravels to be washed long enough to pull the gold out of them. The longer the sluice box the better.

Rock Hammer

Rock hammers can be purchased at your local prospecting store or you can find an Estwing E3-22P 22-Ounce Rock Pick
that can be used as a small pick on amazon.com.

Misc:

Sniffer bottles, vials and other misc. gold prospecting accessories can be found at your local prospecting stores, Amazon, or a multitude of other websites on the internet.

Where do I find Gold?

My wife and I looking for new places to go gold prospecting in 2006
My wife and I looking for new places to go gold prospecting in 2006

That is the magic question.  You can find gold in many places.  Most prominent places to find gold are along streams and rivers.  To be more precise, on the inside corners of streams and rivers.  As the spring runoff fills the streams and rivers every year the massive volume of water make them run more violently.  As rapids become more violent they pick up dirt, debris, mud, clay and of course gold.

As water picks up gold in a river or stream it will not stay moving long.  As a river turns the waters will move into an inside corner or an eddy.  The slower moving water will drop the gold in these locations. Other locations you will find gold is behind large trees that are below the high water mark.  Behind and under rocks that are located on an inside corner or at the end of an island in a stream or river.

Where Specifics

Now when we are talking about gold prospecting on an inside corner of a river or stream.  Please don’t make the same mistakes we did.  We spend countless hours prospecting in locations that had no gold to speak of.  We simply did not understand where on the inside corner to dig.  Rivers and streams will slowdowns all the way around an inside corner.  The location you will need to find is the one where the corner starts.  Where the water starts to slow down.

The Weight of Gold

Just to give you some reference.  We all know how heavy lead is?  The specific gravity of lead is 11 times heavier than water.  Black Sands that gold is found it is also 11 times heavier than the specific gravity of water. Platinum, on the other hand, has a specific gravity 21.5 times heavier than water.  (According to Wikipedia: Specific Gravity is the ratio of the density of a substance to the density of a reference substance.)

The specific gravity of gold is 19.32 times heavier than water.

The weight of gold is what makes it fall from suspension prior to just about any other material.  This is the reason to look in the first place gold could drop while you are gold prospecting.

Sluice Box Setup

When you set up your sluice box it should be set at a slope of 1″ per 1′.  When your sluice box is set up, make sure it is filled up with water flowing through it at least 2/3 full.  Also, test a little material and make sure the water is flowing fast enough to wash the gravels you are going to prospect.

Classify the material that you run through your sluice box to at least 1/4″. This allows the sluice box to capture more gold when you run it.  If rocks that are too large are put into the sluice box the water will great an eddy around them and wash gold out of the sluice box.

If you would like a lesson on gold panning watch this video on youtube.

Where do we go gold prospecting in Idaho?

You can find gold in just about every region of Idaho.  This gives gold prospectors a wide variety of places to go.  Captain E.D. Pierce leading a group of 10 prospectors found gold in what is now Pierce Idaho in 1860.  In 1862 George Grimes with a party of prospectors founded the Boise Basin mines.  From 1860 to 1865 people flooded into the Florence and Boise basins.  As more people claimed lands in the Two gold mining basins. Prospectors were having to travel greater distances to claim their own lands to mine.  With the influx of people moving all over the state, people found gold in almost every major stream and river in the state.

If you are looking for places to go gold prospecting today, you can try the Coeur d’Alene river, the snake river, the salmon river, the Boise River and most of their major tributaries.  One of these four rivers is within a short driving distance of just about every town or city in Idaho.  This leaves your options to find a place to go gold prospecting open.  We have prospected on the snake river, the salmon river, and the Boise River.  We have found gold on all three rivers.

Good luck gold prospecting and remember ☠ marks the spot!

  • Click to share on X (Opens in new window) X
  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window) Facebook
  • Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window) LinkedIn
  • Click to share on Telegram (Opens in new window) Telegram
  • Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window) Pinterest
  • Click to share on Pocket (Opens in new window) Pocket
  • Click to share on Tumblr (Opens in new window) Tumblr
  • Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window) Reddit
  • Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window) Email
  • Click to print (Opens in new window) Print

How to Select a Reel for a beginning Angler!

April 8, 2015 by Martin William Leave a Comment

How to Select a Reel for a beginning Angler!  (Foxy the Fish Dog!)
Foxy the Trusty Fishing Partner!

How to Select a Reel for a beginning Angler.

If you want to learn how to fish or you are planning a family fishing trip and have children along.  It is best to purchase the right reel or your kids are not going to enjoy fishing. If you want your children to enjoy the sport of fishing, it is best to not hand them your pro reel as they will not be able to cast the line and will soon become very uninterested in fishing.  With a little bit of planning you can prevent yourself a ton of work fixing reels.

Fishing reels come in different shapes and sizes with mainly five groups including closed face spinning, open faced, electric, fly, and bait casting.  The best option for beginners are closed face and open faced spinning reels with open faced as the second choice. Some children may be able to handle other reels however it is best to start with the cheaper and the easiest to handle of the two options. You may have been fishing for many years and may not realize just how hard it is to cast that first line. Your children will want to do their best and have fun at the same time, so you want to ensure they can handle the reel you

Boat by the Lake. Image provided by Martin William
Boat by the Lake. Image provided by Martin William

choose. For young children, you may want to stay with a cane pole, but once they reach anywhere from four to nine years of age is time to give them a pole and reel that is closer to what mom and dad use.

In order to choose the right reel, there are three things that need to be considered.  Skill level,the type of fishing you will be doing (or the species of fish you will be chasing), and where you will be fishing. If you are a beginner, it is recommended that you begin with a closed face reel as they are easier to use and less expensive.

The closed face reel is so easy to use, you do not need much skill to perfect this as a beginner.  This will also reduce the chance of tangles in your’s or your children’s reels making your fishing trip a more pleasant experience.  If you have children going on their first fishing trip, then this is a much better reel for them. The spool holds the line as well as covers all the mechanical parts with one button on the top or possibly at the back of the reel. In order to use this type of reel, all you do is press the button as you begin the cast and let it go as you finish casting.

Idaho Free Fishing day is right around the corner, we hope this shows you how to select a Reel for a beginning angler so you can get your children out enjoy some fishing.

To learn more about the best fishing supplies for the novice or even the pros, visit SeaGear Marine Supply.

  • Click to share on X (Opens in new window) X
  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window) Facebook
  • Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window) LinkedIn
  • Click to share on Telegram (Opens in new window) Telegram
  • Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window) Pinterest
  • Click to share on Pocket (Opens in new window) Pocket
  • Click to share on Tumblr (Opens in new window) Tumblr
  • Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window) Reddit
  • Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window) Email
  • Click to print (Opens in new window) Print

Rock Hounding Idaho: A Map of 99 Locations in Idaho to start finding Gemstones!

June 12, 2014 by Jim Lewis Leave a Comment

Rock Hounding Idaho
Rockhounding and Prospecting Tools

Hidden Idaho Treasure Series

So you are interested in Rock hounding Idaho?

Please note: The map is at the bottom of the Page!

Idaho has a rich geology with many types of gemstones found across the diverse landscapes. For those of you that would like to do some rock hounding Idaho, a full listing if Idaho gemstones by county can be found at The Idaho Department of lands Website.

My wife and I have spent many years prospecting and rock hounding Idaho. It is very rewarding for us and a fun activity for the kids, especially when you find “treasures” as we like to call them.

A few years back we purchased a book Rock hounding Idaho: A Guide to 99 of the State’s Best Rock hounding Sites (Rock hounding Series) by Garret Romaine. Even though it was a little dry reading, as a reference book when we were trying to find new places to explore, it was great.

I took the time to go through the book two years ago and enter all of the GPS coordinates, and meta data (locations, descriptions, and types of minerals found at each location) into an excel spread sheet. Then I spent the better part of about three weeks trying to figure out how to change the degrees minutes and seconds to decimal degree GPS coordinates. This was all so the information could be imported in to my ArcGIS Mapping program. I know boring!

The punchline is last year Google came out with the Google Maps Engine. This allowed me to use the same spreadsheets to upload data to a google map, and then embed it here for every one to use! Cool Huh!

If you have any questions or are looking for some tips where to go, just look me up on facebook or google plus.

Also if you like this map, please like us on all of your favorite social media sites. If you like this article please subscribe to our website, there will more great content just like this in the future.

For more information on Idaho Rock hounding, you can purchase Garret Romains book from the link above or you can download the BLM Rock hounding in Idaho Guide!

  • Click to share on X (Opens in new window) X
  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window) Facebook
  • Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window) LinkedIn
  • Click to share on Telegram (Opens in new window) Telegram
  • Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window) Pinterest
  • Click to share on Pocket (Opens in new window) Pocket
  • Click to share on Tumblr (Opens in new window) Tumblr
  • Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window) Reddit
  • Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window) Email
  • Click to print (Opens in new window) Print

Please Like Our Facebook Page

SuperWebTricks Loading...

Please Subscribe to our Website

Welcome to Idahoutdoors.com, we would love you to become one of our subscribers. Please enter your email and hit subscribe. We will send you a notification every time a new article is published.

Thanks!

Join 618 other subscribers

Copyright © 2025 www.idahoutdoors.com · Owned By · JH Enterprises / Lewiville.com All Rights Reserved
Built on the Genesis Framework · Powered by Wordpress

Copyright © 2025 · Magazine Pro Theme on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in

We use cookies on our website to give you the most relevant experience by remembering your preferences and repeat visits. By clicking “Accept”, you consent to the use of ALL the cookies.
Do not sell my personal information.
Cookie SettingsAccept
Manage consent

Privacy Overview

This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. But opting out of some of these cookies may affect your browsing experience.
Necessary
Always Enabled
Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. These cookies ensure basic functionalities and security features of the website, anonymously.
CookieDurationDescription
cookielawinfo-checkbox-analytics11 monthsThis cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Analytics".
cookielawinfo-checkbox-functional11 monthsThe cookie is set by GDPR cookie consent to record the user consent for the cookies in the category "Functional".
cookielawinfo-checkbox-necessary11 monthsThis cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookies is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Necessary".
cookielawinfo-checkbox-others11 monthsThis cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Other.
cookielawinfo-checkbox-performance11 monthsThis cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Performance".
viewed_cookie_policy11 monthsThe cookie is set by the GDPR Cookie Consent plugin and is used to store whether or not user has consented to the use of cookies. It does not store any personal data.
Functional
Functional cookies help to perform certain functionalities like sharing the content of the website on social media platforms, collect feedbacks, and other third-party features.
Performance
Performance cookies are used to understand and analyze the key performance indexes of the website which helps in delivering a better user experience for the visitors.
Analytics
Analytical cookies are used to understand how visitors interact with the website. These cookies help provide information on metrics the number of visitors, bounce rate, traffic source, etc.
Advertisement
Advertisement cookies are used to provide visitors with relevant ads and marketing campaigns. These cookies track visitors across websites and collect information to provide customized ads.
Others
Other uncategorized cookies are those that are being analyzed and have not been classified into a category as yet.
SAVE & ACCEPT
Go to mobile version
 

Loading Comments...
 

You must be logged in to post a comment.