Under the Montana Stream Access Law, the public may use rivers and streams for recreational purposes up to the ordinary high-water mark. Although the law gives recreationists the right to use rivers and streams for water-related recreation, it does not allow them to enter posted lands bordering those streams or to cross private lands to gain access to streams.        

House Bill 190, passed during the 2009 Legislative Session, confirmed that the public has access to surface waters by public bridge or county road right-of-way. The Department, in cooperation with the affected landowner and county, is responsible for providing public passage around or through a fence preventing such access. A typical access feature would be a stile, gate, roller, walkover, or wooden rail fence. ( http://fwp.mt.gov/fishing/guide/access/streamAccess.html ) 

A recreational miner with a pick, shovel or gold pan does not need a special permit on BLM land in Montana. A person using a suction dredge in Montana should get a permit from the Water Protection Bureau, Department of Environmental Quality, 1520 East Sixth Ave. PO Box 200901, Helena, Montana 59620-0901, phone 406 444-3080. If the suction dredge intake is less than 4 inches in diameter, a general permit is required. If the dredge intake is larger than 4 inches, a more complicated permit is required for which there is a significant charge. The Montana Department of Natural Resources and Conservation and the US Army Corps of Engineers may also require permits for suction dredging.” http://nandugreen.typepad.com/chasing_the_wind/2009/08/recreational-gold-prospecting-on-public-land.html  

 

ABOUT THE MINING DISTRICT 

HISTORY: The placers were first claimed in 1869 by French Canadian Louis A. Barrette, and have seen continuous production since then. By 1935 the district had yielded at least $2,000,000 in gold and perhaps as much as $10,000,000. Annual output between 1869 and 1935 ranges from $1,000 to $50,000, with recovery primarily through sluicing and hydraulicking. A connected-bucket dredge was reported to have operated in 1912, and some shaft, drift and limited lode mining has been done. The gold was transported from Superior, a station on the Northern Pacific and the Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul Railroads (Rowe 1911; Sahinen 1935).   

The gold recovered from the placers was considered to be exceptionally rich, ranging from $19.75 to $20.45 with a standard price of $20.67 per ounce. In 1875 it was reported that the various drifts were yielding as high as $300 to a set of timber, and that about $50,000 in gold was recovered each year from 1871 to 1873. The fineness was reported as ranging from .950 to .982 (Sahinen 1935; Lyden 1948).

The Argenta district, about 12 miles west of Dillon, has produced gold, silver, and lead, and smaller amounts of copper and zinc, mostly from lode deposits. After the discoveries of placer deposits in the Bannack district in 1862, some placer deposits were discovered near Argenta in the early 1860's, but apparently (Winchell, 1914a, p. 66) these were successfully mined on a small scale for only a short time in the 1870's. No figures are available as to the amount of placer gold produced. Lode deposits in the district were discovered in the spring of 1865 (Shenon, 1931, p. 57), and the early lode discoveries presumably consisted of rich argentiferous lead ore which carried only small amounts of gold. According to fragmentary early mining records, eight furnaces were built at Argenta in the first few years. The ore bodies were soon depleted, and by 1875 the district was almost deserted. The next 50 years was a period of dormancy, broken by brief periods of activity (Winchell, 1914a, p. 66). In 1926 the Ermont deposits were discovered and the bulk of the gold production of the district has come from them (W. B. Myers, written commun., 1947). The amount of gold produced prior to 1904 has not been ascertained but it probably was very small. From 1904 through 1957 the district produced about 65,350 ounces of gold.   

 

The geology and ore deposits of the Argenta district were briefly described by Shenon (1931, p. 44-77) and by Winchell (1914a, p. 65-69).

The Argenta district is underlain by folded and complexly faulted sedimentary rocks of Precambrian and Paleozoic age that are intruded by a stock of quartz monzonite and by sills and dikes of ande-site and dacite of Late Cretaceous or Tertiary age.

The ore occurs chiefly in contact metamorphic deposits in limestone, in pipelike bodies in limestone, in tabular shoots along bedding planes in limestone, and in veins in both the sedimentary rocks and in the quartz monzonite. The deposit at the Ermont mine, the most productive in the district, is in andesite along the Ermont fault and in shale beneath an andesite sill. The ore is oxidized and contains gold and limonite which is pseudomorphic after pyrite (W. B. Myers, written commun., 1947).

A mining claim gives the holder the right to mine on mineral-rich land that belongs to the federal government.

  

Mining claims are a tangible asset and show proof of all interests in minerals in the area. They can be bought, sold or used as collateral, just like any other piece of real estate. A mining claim can be  sold, traded, leased, gifted, willed, used as collateral or transferred in part or in its entirety just like any other real property using a quitclaim deed which is a recordable conveyance.