Small-scale miners in California’s Mother Lode are watching history repeat itself as California State Parks tries to implement a hands-and-pans-only rule along the American River in Auburn, Calif.—again. “We’ve been through this rodeo before,” said Gold Prospectors Association of America River City Prospectors President Jim Hutchings, adding that the last time the state parks attempted this ban on other prospecting practices within the Auburn State Recreation Area, the gold miners crashed the parks’ system because it was so inundated with responses in protest.