G'day
Over the years I have always been happy to share my spots and have helped many people get their first gold but in some instances I have also paid a high price for my generosity, regardless of what you may think I can tell you from first hand experience that people do change when gold is involved, your spots become theirs and then their friends and so on, I have been back to a number of old patches that I originally found and have shared with so called friends, I do this from time to time to try out new gear as its the best way to determine if say a new coil is an improvement on a previous model and so on, when I have done this in the last couple of years I have found many of these spots have been recently worked so I know that one of these people or the friends they have shown the place to have been there.
Some people are what I call lazy prospectors and will just spend all their time going to spots that others have found and shown them, but never actually doing what I do which is spending time and money looking for places, sometimes I have spend days or even weeks walking areas to find productive spots just in the end to have others just hand it over to anybody they know, one particular bloke invited anybody who would listen in the Cue caravan park out to one of the spots that I showed him to big note himself, I know this because another mate was there and told me about it, he was with us the day we went there and also heard me say that to keep it to yourselves, not that I begrudged them going there but in this day and age any productive spot is becoming rare and if you tell too many others next thing the place has been vacuumed clean as was the case in the end.
I went to a remote area recently where I had several old patches, this was not a place well frequented by others, but lo and behold every spot had been recently worked and holes left unfilled, I know who it would have been and this sod is a greedy lying ass wipe with no scruples, and to top it off he's a millionaire but so so hungry for the gold, he would sell rats bumhole to a blind bloke for a wedding ring, so you cant tell me that even well off people cant be affected by the greed that gold infects people with.
My advice is keep it to yourself unless you have no intention of ever going back there, if you do want to revisit these spots then you can have the pleasure of going back to your places without the sinking feeling that comes from seeing these places flogged to death.
cheers
stayyerAU