Welcome to the West End Prospectors

JOIN US!

If you are looking for gold or just looking for fun, then the West End Prospectors is the club for you!

We have wet and dry claims in the mountains, high desert, and on major rivers. We have something for everyone.

Why waste your time looking for a place to prospect and have fun finding gold instead!

PROSPECTING

JANUARY OUTING

Coolgardie, Yellow Gopher Claim

January 14-15, 2012

Bring food for Saturday night potluck, 5:30 pm

Bring firewood

CURRENT EVENTSGENERAL MEETING1/3/2012, 7:30 pm Norco Community Center 3900 Acacia, Norco, CA. North of Hamner & 6th St (6th St. exit off the 15 Fwy)BOARD OF DIRECTORS MEETING 1/17/2012, 7:30 pm Brunswick Lanes 1800 Hamner Ave, Norco, 92860 Hamner Ave and 2nd St.

Good times, good friends, and good gold. It's all here at West End Prospectors.

Introduction

Come and join the fun with W.E.P.C. Our club offers 10 workable claims, both wet and dry.Looking for Gold or just plain fun? West End Prospectors has both. There is something for everyone. You spend your time finding gold instead of wasting time looking for a place to prospect.We schedule monthly outings to one of our claims; mountain and river claims are Spring through Summer. We work our desert claims during the winter months. These outings provide opportunities to work and learn under actual conditions. Of course, ALL the GOLD you find is YOURS to KEEP! For those who don't have Gold Fever, you can enjoy the wonderful scenery and great camping locations.We have many activities such as Pot Luck Dinners, Games, Interesting Programs, etc...Plus our club has a monthly newsletter, members library, and you're sure to receive a friendly welcome from everyone of our members.
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Good times, good friends, and good gold. It's all here at West End Prospectors.

Meetings

General meetings are held each month. Come meet other prospectors. Share your ideas and learn the art of finding gold or detecting for coins and treasure.Listen to our interesting and informative programs.Join us the FIRST TUESDAY of each month7:30 P.M. Norco Community Center3900 Acacia, Norco, CA.Just north of Hamner & 6th Street (6th St. exit off the 15 Fwy)July & September meetings are held at the outing in Big BearNo December meeting. We have a Holiday Potluck instead.

Good times, good friends, and good gold. It's all here at West End Prospectors.

Outings

OUTINGS

We have 11 scheduled outings each year.The list below gives the dates and names of the scheduled outings of 2012.The Outing schedule is subject to change due to weather and the claims condition. Check this website for updates as the date for an outing gets closer. Plan ahead. Attend lots of outings this year. Come for the day, the weekend, or make it an entire week! We have good access and dry camping at all but the Golden Chuckar Claim. Saturday night potlucks, campfires on the desert claims, beautiful sunsets, peace and quiet, it doesn't get better than that.January 2012 Coolgardie, Yellow Gopher ClaimJanuary 14-15, 2012 (MLK holiday 1/17/2012)Bring firewoodBring potluck food for Saturday night potluck, 5:30 pmFebruary 2012 Rands Promise ClaimFebruary 18-19, 2012 (Presidents Day 2/20/2012)Bring firewoodBring potluck food for Saturday night potluck, 5:30 pmMarch 2012Coolgardie, Yellow Gopher ClaimMarch 17-18, 2012Bring firewoodBring potluck food for Saturday night potluck, 5:30 pmApril 2012Rands Promise April 21-22, 2012Bring firewoodBring potluck food for Saturday night potluck, 5:30 pmMay 2012Memorial Day Weekend Coolgardie, "Yellow Gopher" claimMay 26-28, 2012Bring firewoodBring potluck food for Saturday night potluck, 5:30 pmJune 2012Big Bear, Buckshot Claim June 16-17, 2012Bring potluck food for Saturday night potluck, 5:30 pmJuly 2012Big Bear, Buckshot ClaimJuly 7-8, 2012General Meeting will be held on the claim after the Potluck Dinner Saturday, July 7, 2012August 2012Big Bear, Buckshot ClaimAugust 11-12, 2012Bring potluck food for Saturday night potluck, 5:30 pmSeptember 2012Labor Day Outing, Member ApprieciationBig Bear, Buckshot ClaimSeptember 1-3, 2012The General Meeting is held on the claim after potluck dinner Saturday, September 1, 2012October 2012Coolgardie, Yellow Gopher ClaimOctober 13-14, 2012Bring firewoodBring potluck food for Saturday night potluck, 5:30 pmNovember 2012Veterans Day Outing Randsburg, Rands' Promise ClaimNovember 10-12, 2012Bring firewoodBring potluck food for Saturday night potluck, 5:30 pmDecember 2012Saturday, December 1, 2012Annual Christmas PartyTime: 6:00 pmPlace: Norco Community CenterHow many outings will you attend this year? Come on out, even for the day!

2012 WEPC outings 1 page.doc

Good times, good friends, and good gold. It's all here at West End Prospectors.

Claims

WEPC has total of ten claims located in gold bearing areas in the desert and the mountains and on the gold bearing rivers in northern California. The claims are proven to produce gold by dry washing and metal detecting. The river claims are great for dredging and booming. Members are free to work the claims and keep all the gold they find. There are limitations on how long a member may work a claim as it is not permissibale to live full time on a claim.

WEPC s claims are located in the following areas:

Four claims in the Holcomb Valley near Big Bear.

A 160 acre claim in the Coolgardie area near Barstow.

Two claims in the Rand Mining area near Randsburg.

One claim on the Klamath River.

Two adjacent claims on the Yuba River.

Good times, good friends, and good gold. It's all here at West End Prospectors.

Membership

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Have you read enough and want to Join?

Hurry and join now for a discount of $65 with the Recession Special! Membership and initiation is only $145 until 1/31/2012!

MEMBERSHIP

You must complete a membership application and mail it to the Corporate address with payment in full of the Initiation Fee $100.00 and first year's dues of $45.The total cost currently is $145.That will pay you in full through June 30, 2012. Your membership application will be reviewed by the next Board of Directors Meeting.If your application is approved, the membership chairman will send a new membership packet to you. That packet includes the maps to the claims and other important information.

Click on the two PDFs to the right to download the Download, Print, fill out and mail your

Membership Application and the Hold Harmless Agreement. renewal today!

How about renewing your membership with West Click on the box with the W to

End Prospectors today? print the renewal form.

Looking for Gold or just plain fun? West End Prospectors has both. We have wet and dry claims in the mountains, high desert, and on major rivers. There is something for everyone. You spend your time finding gold instead of wasting time looking for a place to prospect.

Claims: We have multiple proven wet and dry claims with good access. You can use them anytime you want, as often as you want.

Outings: Each month we have a scheduled trip to one of our claims. Besides being a lot of fun, our group outings provide an opportunity to try new techniques.

Meetings: General meetings are held each month. Join us on the first Tuesday of each month at 7:30 P.M. Please click HERE for an actual map.

Bulletin: A monthly newsletter is mailed to each member each month.

Library: We have a fully stocked library of books and videos on the art of finding gold.

Mem p2.pdf

WEPC Renewal Form.doc

Mem p1.pdf

Good times, good friends, and good gold. It's all here at West End Prospectors.

Contacts

Contacts

West End Prospectors Corporation Contacts are listed here. Feel free to email us questions or comments about the group. West End Prospectors Corp has approximately 170 members, with several volunteers which operate the group.

West End Prospectors Corp. PO Box 87 Norco, CA. 92860

President: John Gallegos

Newsletter: Pat Ashe

Membership: Pamela Fong

Website: Tim Ketterer

Good times, good friends, and good gold. It's all here at West End Prospectors.

Photos

PROSPECTOR PHOTOS

Please click on the pictures to view them.

If you have photos that you would like to see posted, please email them to the webmaster.

DRYWASHING PHOTOS

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SCENIC PHOTOS

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METAL DETECTING PHOTOS

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Good times, good friends, and good gold. It's all here at West End Prospectors.

Discussion

Discussion

Good times, good friends, and good gold. It's all here at West End Prospectors.

Gold Fever

Gold Fever

How did you find WEPC and start prospecting for Gold your first time?

GOLDSTRIKE!What a trip it was!! We are new members to the club- Jeff and Vickie Fish and here's our story:: Dredged for 10 days straight on the Yuba River on the new claim. We found a quarter ounce of gold( see attached photos) Met some really nice people ( Garry, John, Don Stan another 2 Don's and many more that showed up) We dredged all day sat around at night waiting for the Deer to wander through the camp, mostly got to see the Fox ( who supposedly followed the Bear)Yes a Bear- he really liked Don and Stan's camp they were kind enough to leave the Bear their Coffee and a few other things! Oh Stan I am still waiting to hear the joke about the mice and the elephant LOL.On Saturday when Our trip was coming to an end Jeff took the day off from dredging and decided to go and metal detect a canyon everyone was talking about. It was a trail that was quite overgrown with poison oak and a killer Rose Bush!! Vickie was attacked by that Rose bush. We saw a few Rattlesnakes beautiful in color and just minding their own business.No sign of the Bear. We hiked through this canyon all the way down to the River where we found some Square nails in Excellent condition and OH Yeah forgot to mention along the way while metal detecting Jeff got a pretty good signal and decided to dig-What to our surprise! Thinking we were digging another old beer can or piece of metal we dug up a GOLD NUGGET ( 8.9 PENNY WEIGHT) SEE PHOTO.Talk about exciting!!! Jeff also just got this metal detector as an early birthday present. I guess we were the talk of the camp. Everyone wanted to see and hold that Nugget ( that was Jeff's largest nugget found to date).All in all the trip was GREAT and we cant wait to get back up there again.- Thanks Jeff and Vickie Fish, Palmdale CA

GETTING STARTEDMy gold prospecting started with my son Brian. He and I used to watch the GPAA show every Sunday morning.Old Buzzard , George Massey would crawl into a cave or hike to a little stream and sure enough he would come up with a nice nugget in his gold pan. It looked so easy.My boy Brian must have been 14 or 15 years old and that show sure gave him the gold fever. He ordered the GPAA membership with the gold pan, miners guide, snuffer bottle, sure fire panning methods tape and he even got a GPAA shoulder patch for his jacket.Brian asked me to take him out to a gold claim and we tried several. The first attempt was in the Rand Mining district. I borrowed a puffer box from a friend and ran it for about a half hour before it froze up.A friendly man who had been watching us showed us how to run the concentrates through a set of screens and then how to pan the material one screen at a time. We learned a lot but found no gold.We tried a GPAA claim near Julian California. We had purchased our own drywasher. It was a small one powered by a small 2 cycle engine.The claim was located in a deep canyon. We carried all our equipment all the way down a steep trail and by the time we got to the dry riverbed at the bottom of the canyon I was beat. Brian had pleanty of energy though and we eventually ran quite a bit of soil through our new drywasher.We hauled all the equipment back up the trail but this time we had a 5 gallon bucket of concentrates to carry up that goat trail. About halfway up the trail some teenagers caught up with us. Seeing the load I was carrying and my obvious state of fatigue one of the boys grabbed the five gallon bucket and bolted to the top of the trail with it.I caught up with Brian and the teenagers at the top of the trail I thanked them and we went home. We panned a handful of the sandy soil at a time but unfortunately didn't find any gold. Then one day we were in a local Prospection shop and the owner told us if we wanted to find some gold we had to go where it had been found before. He gave us some information about West End Prospectors Inc. He told us they were a good bunch of people and there was gold on their claims and suggested we attend the mext meeting. We did attend and I decided to buy a family membership.The first outing we attended was a couple weeks later and it was in the desert north of Barstow California. Driving there I thought for sure we must be lost but sure enough we came around a corner and there were motor homes, trailers, pickups and tents.We set up our tent and made ready for bed It sure got dark early in the winter and it sure was cold that night. We were befriended by a member who reminded me of a desert hermit or maybe a desert hippie , I'm not sure which. Anyway the next day he showed us where the best place would be to drywash. We set up the equipment and started throwing dirt.I think I finally got tired and told Brian we were going to do a cleanout. We brushed the material off the riffle box into a plastic pan and Brian took it to the truck where We had set up the panning water.I stayed behind to gas up the blower motor and prepare another pile of soil for processing. I didn't expect to have much luck in the small dry creek we were digging in. It seemed to have more rocks in it than soil. Then I saw Brian jogging down the slope toward me with a huge grin on his face.He had a nice picker and several other smaller pieces of gold in a glass vial and he couldn't wait to tell me how the biggest one almost went over the last trap on the pan and into the brown water. I will never forget the look on his face and the excitement in his voice as he held up our first piece of gold.I guess I don't have to tell you how we dug like an army of backhoes for the next couple of hours. We did find some more gold but that first piece, that first picker, was the most memorable one.Tim KettererPresident (2004-06) WEPC

Getting Started
ADVENTURES! One time I was Drywashing in a little district by Lake Elsinore.There were about 30 mine shafts in this one little valley, all of which were fairly shallow. I found this one in the bottom of a dry streambed, it cut into granite bedrock chasing a quartz vein.I saw some material lining the bottom, so I started crawling in on my hands and knees. It was partially dark, so something told me to turn back.As soon as I got out, 6 inches to my left a four foot rattlesnake crawled into the small tunnel. That was the first and last time I ever thought about crawling into a shaft.What the material contained lining the bottom of the shaft may never be discovered. On the other hand, a snake bite may have been bad news in a secluded area.Brian Ketterer

Good times, good friends, and good gold. It's all here at West End Prospectors.

Links

LINKS

Public Lands for the People

New Cal Gold

Keene Engineering

Micro Sluice

PackWasher Mining Equipment

KellyCo Metal Detectors

California Mining Journal

Eastern Western Treasure Magazine

Huell Howsers California Gold Television program

Treasure Secrets Gold Mining Newsletter

Treasure Depot Metal Detecting Discussion board

Coin Collecting

Make Your Own Gold Bars

West End Prospectors offers links to many external organizations, such as educational institutions and non-profit associations, as well as businesses and other Clubs that share some of the same aspects and goals of West End Prospectors. While we offer these links for your convenience, please be aware that these sites do not share our stated Privacy Policy. In addition, we cannot attest to the accuracy of the information provided by these sites. Our linking to a website does not constitute an endorsement of that site, or of the organization it represents, or of the content or products it offers, either by West End Prospectors or any of it's members

Good times, good friends, and good gold. It's all here at West End Prospectors.

West End Prospectors

Corp.

Home

Introduction

Meetings

Outings

Claims

Membership

Contacts

Photos

Discussion

Gold Fever