By Sarah Reijonen
For the GPAA
It was part jam session, part bed and breakfast, and part nugget hunt, of course.
The Gold Prospectors Association of America Round Rock Chapter out of Round Rock, Texas opened outing season with a prospecting trip April 11-13 at the Halliburton property outside of Llano, Texas.
"After such a hard winter, the days turned out to be warm enough to get into the water of the South Llano River and pan up a little gold," said longtime GPAA member and Gold Prospectors magazine columnist David "Boo Coo" Haas.
Nearly 100 people showed up to the first outing of the year. They must have heard about Hoby Halliburton's mean breakfast tacos on Saturday or the brisket he was fixing later on in the evening.
"Hoby and Deana put on a great taco breakfast and one hell of a barbecue dinner with all the trimmings," Haas said.
Whether it was for the grub or the gold, prospectors flocked to the 10-acre piece of private riverfront property, which Halliburton opens up to the Round Rock Chapter for outings throughout the year."It's one of the few rivers in Texas that is known for finding gold," said GPAA Round Rock Chapter President Nick Garza, who has been a GPAA member for nine years and a Lost Dutchman's Mining Association member for three years. "We don't do as good as people in California, but we do fairly well. It's slim pickin's, but we have fun in spite of it."
A little elbow grease and the right equipment can do the trick, Haas said.
"Texas is not known for having an abundance of gold, but with a pan, sluice, gold dredge, highbanker — along with hard work — you can come up with some Texas gold," Haas said.
And, he's not talking the crude kind.
"When all was said and done, we had fun, with maybe some gold in our poke," Haas said. "Like mowing the yard, it's not that hard, but finding gold is no joke."
With the weather beginning to heat up in Texas, Garza said it was the perfect day to be knee-deep, or neck-deep, in the water. "The river was crystal clear," Garza said. "You don't even have to be a prospector, and you can enjoy getting out and playing in the water. It's neck-deep at the deepest, five and a half feet. It's beautiful property as far as prospecting goes…and it's one of the few places you can still dredge. I've got a four-inch dredge I'll take down there and let people use."
Garza said he always brings his dredge to outings and lets fellow prospectors test it out, as well as any other equipment.
"We do offer a lot of hands-on training with our participants at the outings," Garza said. "We always have extra equipment on hand ... and we give instructions on how to run it, clean it and everything else."
Prospectors at the outing also had the opportunity to shop for new gear. There were several dealers who participated by selling metal detectors, gold pans, sluices, highbankers and bags of concentrates, Haas said.
And, a Texas outing isn't complete without some tunes from Boo Coo on the mandolin. Haas and Garza burst into spontaneous song offering fellow prospectors a taste of the duos' musical musings.
"We also had a guitar picker, the president of the club, playing music with me on my mandolin, ripping off a few songs, and I mean, between the two of us, we tore 'em up," Haas said. When Haas started in on the mandolin, Garza couldn't resist jamming along.
"I always bring my guitar and Boo Coo always bringshis mandolin," Garza said. "I just played along with the songs he was singing. I don't even know those songs, but I just played along. It was fun. You never know who you're gonna jam with."
That's what it's all about — wrangling everyone up for a good time.
"It is outings like this that bring GPAA prospectors together to meet one another and allow the kids to be outdoors and enjoy the fresh air and sunshine," Haas said.
The GPAA Round Rock Chapter has two outings a year, one in the spring and one in the fall. For their fall outing Garza is planning something a little different. "For our next outing, I'm going to put together a metal detecting hunt," Garza said. "There's a big sand bar near the property; that's where I'm going to have the hunt. When I do stuff, I overdo crap. I go way overboard, ask my wife. I'm gonna lose money."
But, money is no object when joy is the investment.
"I just wanted to give everyone something different to do," Garza said.
Garza said he also wants to share a few gold prospecting trips beyond the borders of Texas.
"I also want to try to organize some out of state trips," Garza said. "I have plans — that's why I wanted to be president — do a few different things, take us in different directions."
Sarah Reijonen is a freelance writer based in California. She can be reached at sarahreijonen@yahoo.com.
.png)
