Prospectors are a tight lipped lot so the early birds who know a thing or too are not saying much. There is gold in both of the new GPA's but you need to be prepared to put in the effort as the areas are huge with few tracks. You can't just drive up to a set of diggings and start swinging in sight of you car like the other areas. Going by what I've seen both locations are slightly off the main fault line so are not riddled with diggings, I call this type of ground fringe country which is my preferred prospecting areas.
Fringe country tends to have quite big areas with scattered pieces and then there will be a major gold drop out point away from any known patch, the old boys easily missed these because of the lack of gold leading up to it or in the surrounding areas (remember they had to dig by hand using only a dish as a guide, perfect country for metal detectors).
I've detected the 4 Mile West GPA on 3 occasions and found gold each time just targeting areas that looked productive. First occasion I got 3 1/2 grams in 4 hours and the last two just pointers but all in virgin areas with the potential for more with more time spent. Last time I went out I stumbled upon some virgin diggings in a creek with no dig holes, more work is needed to find where the gold is bleeding out of the surrounding hills.
There are people who have had no luck after a fair few attempts at the new GPAs which like any gold area can come down to many factors. Just like fishing just because you have a river with barra in it does not automatically mean there is going to be a barra on every snag, having an eye for the right locations to spend your time to cut down on wandering around in barren ground goes a long way to improving your chances. If you do not have the skills I recommend not spending ALL your time in the new areas but instead break it up with trips into known ground to get your gold fix to keep the negativity out of your excursions.
The new GPAs are vast tracts of ground with tight scrub in places and few navigable tracks, if your not comfortable getting out of sight of your car its probably best to stick to the better known parts of the Clermont GPAs.
There is gold in the new areas, I have customers who have found 1 ounce plus virgin runs, I've heard of a 1 ounce speci, 8 grammers, patches of smaller pieces etc but like any new area people are going to be tight lipped so you will only hear from the people who have become frustrated.
JP
arty:.
