Uwharrie National Forest for gold

Anyone ever pan for gold at Uwharrie National Forests in North Carolina? Any tips? Thanks!

I'm about 35 miles south of there, heres 4 hours in my creek on the property, but, yea ....Uwharrie is supposed to be prime real estate for nugets and dust, it's right in the belt

Please send invite =P

Alpha you still around? it's getting spring again.

I love uwharrie River, found some nice gold there. Access is getting weird though. Seems low water bridge area is now leased and they dont want us (miners) there even with hand methods. Was there a few weeks ago sluicing and some guy from the hunt club said I had to get an entry permit. I told him I thought the river itself was state property. He told me I was wrong.

Jerry

No, but I went there in Ranger School and I didn't like it very much. HAHAHA

Best-Mike

I love uwharrie River, found some nice gold there. Access is getting weird though. Seems low water bridge area is now leased and they dont want us (miners) there even with hand methods. Was there a few weeks ago sluicing and some guy from the hunt club said I had to get an entry permit. I told him I thought the river itself was state property. He told me I was wrong.

Jerry

You can't own a river. Even here in NC, where you don't have the gracious laws of SC regarding every navigable waterway as public property, all navigable waterways are still public access. What you run into, is the jurisdiction of the property on either side. If you are in a National Forest, it doesn't matter if it's been leased out for logging or whatnot; the law still applies.

I would be interested to know where this happened, and if it was in the national forest itself, I'd like to go out there and see who approached me. I'd be curious to see which prevailed; his "entry permit" or the state seal in my badge. If I were you, I would have challenged him to call the local sheriff.

Now, if you were on private land, it's a different story. You can navigate ONLY; nothing else.

Here is a map of the area. The land on both sides of the river access is leased to a private hunt club by a landtrust company that supposedly bought it for public recreational use. I didnt think you could have private leased land for hunting inside the national forest. The area is populated on route 109 and surrounding state roads. Here is the website for the landtrust, the land in discussion is the bingham lands. Their website used to promote it for fishing, boating, and prospecting. http://www.landtrustcnc.org/

Anyone looking for more than flood gold in the uwharries should work the areas around the old mines. They are many mines in the forest both lode and placer still producing gold today. I have lived in the area all of my life and used to play around the old sally coggins mine as a kid which is around 1/10th of a mile s/w from the eldorado outpost. This mine is on private property and was a lode mine which also involved hydrolicking.
I have been prospecting the uwharries sense 1997 and have found quite abit of gold over the years. I also manufacture the uwharrie gold maps, stanly county gold and the sniper hand dredge in uwharrie. There is alot of easy diggings if youre looking for flood gold, it accumilates in alot of the inside bends and exposed bedrock. Most flood gold in the area is less than 6 inches deep and can be classified  and run through a sluice box in a short time which is the quickest way  to extract this type of fine gold. As far as prospecting at the low water bridge area, both sides of the bridge have a right of way and as long as your in the river and not on the bank your fine and can challenge anyones disagreement. Although there is gold at and around the bridge your best bet is to move up or down stream from the bridge 100 yards and is best for dredging. Also alot of prospectors are missing some of the best prospecting you can find on a weekend at and around the 109 bridge between eldorado and uwharrie. There is a couple hundred yards of really good material down stream from the bridge and is perfect for dredging and highbanking. Up stream the water level is alitte deeper and there is not as much river to work as the UNF land is closer. I have never had any problems with land owners although you should pay attention to the UNF boundary signs as this could pose a treat from the rangers if passed without notice.