Any gold in Rifle Colorado?

[Mikey1975]

Hey guys, new to the group here and I'm spending the summer in Rifle Co. out from California. I got bit by the gold bug and wanted to know if anyone knows of any good spots in my area? I was given a chunk of quartz with gold running though it and that just made me itch worse. I hear Rifle creek has some placer up past the fish hatchery but haven't been able to go yet. When I got here the Colorado was raging and now that its down I desided to grab a small amount of dirt to see if there was anything there. All I have is my pan so it's gonna take a bit to go through it all. So if anyone knows about the Rifle area and some good places to go that would be awesome. It will give me more to do while the fly fishing is not going so good.
Happy prospecting.

[JasonG]

Not much that I know of. I work on one of those rigs you can see dotting the hills around you and I've tried panning a bit here and there and haven't found a single fleck. It's all sandstone and shale around here unless you get higher up into the mountains.

There are some fines in the Colorado river but not much worth any time in my experience, better to drive a couple hours into the mountains and get to better gold. I've heard about Rifle creek too, but have never been there, so dunno?

One interesting thing I've noticed is that we drill through about 100ft of old buried river channel quite often, we get river gravel off and on (and hit granite boulders which is not native rock in this area) in our returns down to about 350ft. I keep wanting to go check out the shaker tables but this is pretty much my busiest time. Anyways, might find some old terraces or outcrops where this old channel is exposed that might be worth prospecting??

[nebraskadad]

Hey guys, new to the group here and I'm spending the summer in Rifle Co. out from California. I got bit by the gold bug and wanted to know if anyone knows of any good spots in my area? I was given a chunk of quartz with gold running though it and that just made me itch worse. I hear Rifle creek has some placer up past the fish hatchery but haven't been able to go yet. When I got here the Colorado was raging and now that its down I desided to grab a small amount of dirt to see if there was anything there. All I have is my pan so it's gonna take a bit to go through it all. So if anyone knows about the Rifle area and some good places to go that would be awesome. It will give me more to do while the fly fishing is not going so good.
Happy prospecting.

Mikey, heard tell of color in the area, but likely in high country. Spoke with a guy this summer who had been fishing in high country and the fish weren't biting but the gold bug was, and taking the pan and sluice was worth the time and weight.

[Mikey1975]

I've talked to a few locals and they say that there is some up here. So last night after fishing I grabbed a few hand fulls just to see what was there. Going up higher to fish today so of course I'm going to take my pan, and my nephew so he'll be the pack mule.