Beginners Luck: My First Big Garnet Haul in Montana

[@crichardson5238]

Wow, Montana is beautiful! Thanks for showing the drive and the hills around you. I live near the gem capitol, Franklin NC. So many garnets that they were kind of dismissed while in search of rubies, sapphires and kyanite. I guess it's all in your point of view and what you value. I would just be happy finding anything, really. Just seeing that view and being outside.

[@mudbrothersrocks]

I was on a work trip and wasn’t aware of anything else around. I saw the Ruby reservoir on a map and looked it up and found out it had garnets. Next time I’m up there I’ll have to go search for all the other goodies

[@hizacaine]

That is so awesome. Now you can make sandpaper!

[@mudbrothersrocks]

I wanted to use them as filler for my rock tumblers but with how much work it took to get them I did a hard pass, sandpaper sounds fun though!

[@gretchenschaumann1808]

Love this video!! ❤

[@mudbrothersrocks]

Glad you liked it!

[@CorpseBride64]

Nice job!!! A darn good haul.

[@mudbrothersrocks]

Thanks! I might make another trip to get more, now that I know where a bunch are I can spend all day there

[@pattimessenger6214]

I love garnets! Thank you for sharing!

[@mudbrothersrocks]

Of course! Any idea what to do with them? I’m thinking of making pomegranate seed earrings but other than I’ve got no ideas

[@pattimessenger6214]

@@mudbrothersrocks not sure what to do with tiny garnets. You might want to see if local jewelry makers could use them to make some nice “wearable art”. You made this video in Montana. If you want larger garnets, you might make a trip, and video, to Emerald Creek in the Idaho Panhandle. The garnets there are larger. They, some anyway are star garnets. The star shows up when turned into a cabochon, and polished. The first garnet I ever bought was a star garnet. Four beautiful rays show up in sunlight or bright light. My next purchase was a six ray star garnet. The garnets where you were were plentiful but small. Garnets come much larger. I saw a video of an Australian couple finding fist sized garnets in a remote area of Australia, and I’ve seen similar sized ones found in America and Canada. Best of luck!

[@mudbrothersrocks]

Thanks for the idea! They were very small I only have a handful of “bigger” ones. I would much rather have a few larger ones than a bunch of red sand essentially. I could fill vials and that would be cool on its own but something I could make a ring out of would be amazing. I’ll have to check it out!

[@Amanda-yf7vj]

​@@mudbrothersrocksI've found lovely little garnets like that where I live too. Best thing I can think to do with the is do a resin pour and make a pendant or something

[@mudbrothersrocks]

@Amanda-yf7vj good idea, the diamond pads will make quick work of the resin too which is nice

[@amandatownsend1512]

Looks like an awesome day!

[@mudbrothersrocks]

It was a bunch of fun! I want to go back up and get more, about a 10 hour drive from here

[@Mel70784]

Nice thanks for sharing ❤❤❤❤ makes me wanna go rockhounding

[@mudbrothersrocks]

Go for it! Getting harder to here we’re up to 110° F so going out in the desert can be dicey

[@patriciabock4299]

I have never seen a video where so many garnets were found in one spot! WOW! Glad you shared this with us!

[@mudbrothersrocks]

I was quite surprised for my first time. Now every experience after won’t be as much of a haul lol.

[@patriciabock4299]

@@mudbrothersrocks I hope you are wrong lol. Would be nice to know there is plenty out there! Great video!

[@mudbrothersrocks]

@patriciabock4299 thanks! I hope to go up there again soon. I may have found a spot near me that has them as well but still need to test and find out. Garnets are my new favorite thing right now I have to find as many as i can!

[@arongstone]

Great video, thank you for sharing

[@mudbrothersrocks]

Glad you liked it! I have another just like it coming out soon, I filmed them around the same time on a work trip. Just gotta edit the bad boy up

[@bowldawg1]

Looks like fun!

[@leslyeschoenhuth1107]

WOW ~ I didn't know you strained the Garnets that way. About 50 years ago I went to Helena, MT with a friend. We went to the lake for, sapphires. I took the small screen from my apartment bathroom.. Dug in the run-off areas around the rocky beach. Sat in the water slapping a scoop at a time. The Sapphires were not high quality, looked like pop bottle glass.. Sapphires gravitate to the center just as Garnets do. I didn't find many.. There was a guy with a sluce rocker . He put a shovel full of gravel at the top. Then dipped a bucket of water & poured it while rocking the fretted shoot.. Your trip reminded me of that day.. (Without the horrific sunburn..) Thanks for the video..

[@mudbrothersrocks]

Sapphires sound like they would be awesome to find. It’s a cool process isn’t it, I watched another person on KZbin do it and when I realized I was close to a garnet spot I just had to try it out. Super easy to get the hang of. Glad you liked the video!

[@don5062]

I went to Gem Mountain in Phillipsburg for sapphire hunting a couple of months ago. I'm not an expert but my understanding is that MT sapphires are known to be small but have far fewer flaws than ones found in other places in the world. I spent about $120 for three buckets of gravel. From that, I was able to find about one full "tube" of sapphires. The tube they give you to collect them is about 3 inches long and 1 inch in diameter. Sorry I can't be any more specific about the size of the raw gems as I haven't had them measured or weighed, so I just don't know more. My point is, the pop bottle glass you describe is spot on for what you're supposed to be looking for. Most of my raw gems are blue to green but I found some yellows, a couple of pinks and one purple! I'm really excited about getting the purple one evaluated by a lapidary to see if I can get it made into a ring! Good luck!

[@mudbrothersrocks]

@@don5062 sapphires are now on my list to collect, thanks for the tips! Some of the locals told me they could be found nearby but I had no luck

[@carolmccorry3053]

Loved the concentration of garnets. So prettyto watch. New sub as iamso impressed young man😊😊😊😊😊

[@mudbrothersrocks]

Thanks! Glad you liked tagging along

[@ViktorBörjesson-c5z]

Aah, this really reminds me of when I started collecting minerals a few years ago. So now the question is, what will you do with them?

[@mudbrothersrocks]

I will give them away as gifts for holidays and special occasions, my family and friends love them as much as me!

[@sunnydaysahead2030]

Great Video!

[@mudbrothersrocks]

Glad you liked it!

[@feraltweed]

Looks like fun and looks like cranberry sauce

[@mudbrothersrocks]

The screen I was using let some of the finer particles through so the sand after I was done looked super red. I panned it out for fun and it really did look like sauce. It’s always tempting to eat some of the rocks I find lol

[@BlazingShackles]

4:10 Pet wood. Could be similar mineralogy as garnet. Either way, they're 90% silica so enjoy.

[@mudbrothersrocks]

Thanks! I’m going to polish it up, the inside looks very red so I’m hoping it’s semitransparent when I’m done with it. I didn’t find anything else like it up there

[@PizzaMunster]

Great video, do you ever check for gold, looks like you might have had a little nugget on your palm at the 11min 45 Sec. mark.

[@mudbrothersrocks]

Thanks! I did try to find some with no luck. The area I was in does have gold but a very tiny amount. The lady at the sport store told me that they don’t like the garnets because of all the work it adds sorting through them while panning

[@MinesAndMountains]

Just Subscribed, we are hitting North Carolina hard, then heading your way.

[@mudbrothersrocks]

Everything at ruby reservoir was small, I was told there are sapphires near there as well. Make sure you bring lots of warm clothes and some snow chains it snows a LOT up there

[@MinesAndMountains]

@@mudbrothersrocks oh, it won't be until June 1. I grew up in Missoula so I know the deal. -40 degrees at school recess, ect...

[@mudbrothersrocks]

@MinesAndMountains oh you know the drill lol. I’ve lived in southern Utah my whole life, gotta work my way up to colder environments

[@GetToTheFarm]

there are huge quartz rocks up in the hills above Sheridan/Virgina City area some are 6 ft long a couple feet wide and stick up a couple feet as well

[@mudbrothersrocks]

Holy cow, that would have been good to know a few months ago lol. I’ll definitely plan another trip up there. This time I’ll stay longer and bring the right tools to get the biggest haul I can. Thanks for the tip!

[@Kanaketsu]

can I ask what you do with your garnets? Like are there places that buy the things prospectors find?

[@mudbrothersrocks]

From a hobbyist like me it would be harder to sell what I find since I’m collecting off blm land. I talked to a local rock shop and they said they could only buy it if it came from private property or a mining/placer claim. Mostly do some paperwork and you’re set. I’m doing it for fun, I haven’t made anything with the garnets yet but I’ve made a few bolo ties with rocks I’ve found.

[@mikebetti100]

What is the detail of your gem screen, size, where can I get one?

[@mudbrothersrocks]

Gem screen I was using was a cooking screen you put over your pan. I cut the handle off and taped it, I wouldn’t recommend using it that thing sucked haha. I ended up giving it to the host of the Airbnb at the house I was staying at for the work trip I was on. Their kid loved it. I would get a nice stainless steel one made completely out of metal, as far as the screen size I’m unsure.

[@rabbithole1331]

the road you were on looks like the one that goes to Virginia city, lots of Montana Wonderstone in the area, and the spot you were in looking for the schist has milk quartz and rose quatz. I have a Crystal shoppe in Butte ... Uptown Crystals & Wellness Shoppe ... stop in and say hello I'll take ya rock hounding with me brother

[@mudbrothersrocks]

Heck yeah! The road I was on was a dirt road south of Ruby reservoir, just stumbled upon it while looking for agates. Mostly blm land but there is a property on the right side of the road you have to be mindful of. There is good agate, garnet and wonderstone in the area it was heaven 45.08165° N, 112.21426° W

[@rabbithole1331]

@@mudbrothersrocks helo so check this on the other end of the res before you get to it there's a small quarry right back behind it is some garnets decent, maybe not as good as where you where at 45.26341, -112.08574 and on the same side but lil further down I think I just found rhodacrocite and rose quartz but I need tires on my rig before I go out again ...your welcome to explore the new find with me if you wanna make planes for .... montana will be getting snow again soon...

[@rabbithole1331]

@@mudbrothersrocks do you like VERY colorful river rocks? I have some great spots in 3 forks I could take ya to as well and there is pet wood and agates there too

[@mudbrothersrocks]

Heck yeah thanks for sharing! I live in southern Utah so once I head back up that way I’ll let you know! It’s an 11 hour expedition to get up there. I don’t have much quartz down here that’ll be awesome

[@rabbithole1331]

@@mudbrothersrocks Greeting there Zak, found a slightly better spot few miles from that spot , hit me up and I'll send ya coordinates by email the ground is reddish color

[@paulm965]

Cool video. I've never tried this but it looks like fun. I know that screen is make-shift but it seems like it's working pretty good. Is that what you'd recommend using? Also, looks like just a rocking motion that concentrates the garnets in the center? Is that what you're calling "pulsing"? Thanks.

[@mudbrothersrocks]

The pulsing I’d say is mostly the vertical motion, moving up and down in the water. That sifts the material and all the heavies settle through to the bottom. The rocking motion just centers everything back towards the middle. Definitely get out and try it! Such a fun time finding everything. The screen I used was an oil pop filter you’d put over your pan while cooking, it started falling apart quickly I’m going to purchase or make an actual gem sieve next time. Thanks for watching!

[@RobertSellers-v9x]

I’ve been rock hounding my whole life. The best luck I’ve ever had finding garnets in garnet rich areas would be in a streams and in that bank of dirt behind you. The garnets will stratify in layers and use a spoon to dig the layers out. I’ve seen harvesting stones like this more than 50% stones and 50% dirt. Thing is more often than not I find other precious stones with garnets like aquamarine and topaz, maybe even diamonds, not likely but possible

[@mudbrothersrocks]

I noticed that, they got caught on the rocks of the hill while the fine dirt got washed down. Next time I’m there I’m going to try scraping the surface and see the difference in material I find. Thanks for the tip

[@marylane6835]

Would you expect to find the same success at a reservoir? I'm wondering if the differences in hydrology would alter the natural stratification. With rivers/streams, there's a constant flow of water even if it's slow. The water at a reservoir would probably be more stagnant, and it definitely would not follow a consistent and uniform current. I don't know if anyone has an answer. I studied marine science, so I'm often a bit extra curious about these kinds of things.

[@mudbrothersrocks]

There is actually a huge band of the garnets at a certain level around the whole reservoir. I couldn’t get to it since the water was so high but in the summer when the water drops it reveals that layer. Unsurprisingly all the property around the reservoir was private so I could only check at the water itself and miles away up river. The garnets were all very small everywhere I went I never got anything bigger than pea size

[@kvdme]

This is right by where i live. Need to send the hub up to get rid of him for the day

[@mamawren2795]

Ruby?!?! You are right by our property. It’s the best rock hounding area!

[@mudbrothersrocks]

You’re lucky! I stayed out in ennis it’s a wonderful area I had a blast. Virginia city with cool with all of the old buildings too.

[@AziizNasution-cl5vo]

broh, how meter aboce the sea level of the spot you mined??

[@mudbrothersrocks]

About 1707 meters or 5600 feet above sea level.

[@carldahlstrom4232]

You could have used your gold pan to separate the garnets from other gravels. Happy hunting.

[@mudbrothersrocks]

I originally tried the pan but was so bad at doing it I poured out more garnets than sand lol. I’ll get in some more practice and try it next time, I think I lost ≈10% with the screening method. Plus anything that was too small for the screen size just fell right through

[@jasondelgatty3583]

You found the garnets, Probably small amounts of gold there also. Getting lost is sometimes the best option.

[@mudbrothersrocks]

I was talking with one of the locals and they said they don’t like the garnets because they have to pan through them in order to get gold

[@royolstad8532]

Schist cooled slower than gneiss, so the chrystals of mica are larger. It's layered (foliated) and super sparkly. Garnets in vugs or between layers.

[@mudbrothersrocks]

Thanks for filling me in! I learned about vugs recently when I was looking for topaz in northern Utah. I’m going to go out today and look for garnets by where I live, I don’t imagine I’ll find any but there is a lot of metamorphic activity in one of the mountains I live by so I’m gonna go pan underneath it and see what I can find.

[@St4the]

Wish I was right there with you man looks fun! This is your shortest cousin btw

[@mudbrothersrocks]

I'm going to look into the nearest places garnets have been found by us, they are so cool. It was a ton of fun I have a bunch now you should check em out

[@elisabethweaver8105]

This is so awesome!

[@julieoo7361]

Nice. Garnets are exciting to find, but they're so tiny. What do you do with it when they look like sand? Weren't there any bigger ones?

[@mudbrothersrocks]

Biggest one I found was about the size of a pea. I may fill little vials with the sand they have a very cool color and you can see into them. The spot I was in didn’t have many big ones I was disappointed, it was my first time up there and if I go again I’ll rockhound some more to find the big stuff. That’s really what interests me

[@RobinHood-bn6yg]

You can use your gold pan just like if you was panning for gold to clean the waste rocks out

[@mudbrothersrocks]

That’s what I ended up doing but it was so boring I decided not to film it. It was cool watching the heavies settle down and all the regular sand sit on top and get swirled off by the water.

[@MARYAMCassem-i7s]

Wow dude do u ever get lost? U defo need 4 wheel drive 👑⭐💎 cool garnet hunting...

[@mudbrothersrocks]

I haven’t yet lol, I have a 4Runner at home with 4wd and much better clearance than that van. Next time I’m in Montana I’ll have something better, all my coworkers and I got banned from going off-road haha

[@MARYAMCassem-i7s]

Love that 💎👈👈👑👈👈⭐👌🦅

[@MARYAMCassem-i7s]

Off road driving love that ♥️👍

[@kindacoolstuff1595]

What was the approximate value of all of this?

[@mudbrothersrocks]

I’m not sure, I never intended on selling any of it. I’m mostly going to make jewelry out of it myself for fun. They’re a almandine/pyrope garnet mix and the almandine is the more desirable one. My best guess is a couple hundred dollars if I cleaned them up and sold them a piece at a time but that could be totally wrong

[@iiniijewelry]

😂 no offense, but you really did that the hard way. Fill your classifier, then stand in the water or put it in a tub. Bounce and shake back and forth. Rotate 90 degrees and repeat. Then flip upside down on the beach or a table. Pick the big ones from the center. Toss and repeat. 😁👍🏾 same as with sapphires. We go all the time. We live very close to great spots for both. Good luck and thanks for sharing your awesome experience.

[@iiniijewelry]

Any of the sapphire places here will be more than able to help you with facet services if you find a good size (3ct+) and they don’t cost much.

[@mudbrothersrocks]

I would have done that if I had the right tools. I was on a work trip and didn’t bring any of my sieves or classifiers with me up to Montana and definitely wasn’t buying it again I’m too cheap for that lol. I felt totally naked up there. I used a cooking grease pop mesh screen as my sieve and it was a piece of crap, the nearest place to get one was two hours from where I was. Next time I’ll do what you’re saying, it sounds waaaayyy easier. And thanks! Good luck to you too, find a perfect sapphire for me!

[@allcore5172]

It’s very cold in Montana I wouldn’t want to get in that water at all.

[@mudbrothersrocks]

@allcore5172 I was there in April but it was still 40°, fine for a little bit but I had to warm up in the car later to balance it out

[@jackshinkle5464]

You drove by a huge deposit of Wonder Stone

[@mudbrothersrocks]

I didn’t know what it was at the time but now that I do I regret not stopping. That stuff polishes so well

[@DogPrinctz]

What do you do with those?

[@mudbrothersrocks]

They can be used as an industrial abrasive or turned into jewelry. I haven’t done much with them yet, I’ll run them through the tumbler to shine them up and after that it’s up in the air

[@rubyduma6238]

A black light would pick up rubies at night.

[@mudbrothersrocks]

I’ll have to try it out that would be a game changer. Do you know if short or long wave would do it? I have a long wave for scorpion hunting

[@rubyduma6238]

@@mudbrothersrocks long wave would do it

[@mudbrothersrocks]

@rubyduma6238 just tried it out, it lights them up but doesn’t look like it’s as much as it lights up anything else surrounding it. The ones I found are a almandine/pyrope mix it has iron and magnesium as the base. Maybe that has something to do with it. I’m gonna get a short wave soon and try it again

[@billywhitehorn6397]

it's called carnelian

[@billywhitehorn6397]

the question you asked at 4:14/13:30

[@mudbrothersrocks]

That makes sense actually, I found it in a spot next to a bunch of garnet bearing gneiss so I was hoping I found the mega garnet lol. It had a cool wood shape to it too

[@SallyStearns]

There's a REAL Precious GEM here in Montana that got buried when some evil clones tried to "swap" her Destiny! (And she's a Sapphire too, and an original and much duplicated concerning her Designs)

[@SallyStearns]

Started a GIANT Worldwide Hammered Copper Genre

[@porkchop5111]

tossed around and frigged up

[@mudbrothersrocks]

Howdy there pardner

[@SavageBRUH66_fn]

Ive been there

[@mudbrothersrocks]

It’s a nice reservoir, not many people went by that area I enjoyed the solitude

[@sadlad8978]

montana doesnt exist. stop spreading false information

[@mudbrothersrocks]

If Montana doesn’t exist then where do all the retired cowboys go?