A claim that is more than 20 acres is considered an associated placer claim. Associated placer claims take a locator for every 20 acres. You will find that there is less cost to locating an association placer. The fees for maintaining it is the same unless each of the locators have ten or less claim then a small miners exemption can be filed. Total of all the acreage on the association placer is only considered one claim to each locator so each of you can have more claims. Claim owners on contiguous claims can file one small miners exemption and list all the claims so the association placer does not make a difference. Be sure to check Platte maps and historical index to determine land status of your exact plot you are interested in before locating.

our mining team has a few claims in montana. stay away from the small miner exemption . it will bring you nothing but a big head ache. make sure the area you want to claim is not closed to mining. the BLM and forestry are two different agency make sure you know where your claim will be. also remember you have to file a notice to locate with the county recorder in the county your claim will be in. you can file the 80 acre claim by yourself but you will have to file each 20 acre claim seporate 20x4= 20 so you will end up with 4 claims

How to stake my own claim in california

Bernadette-

Go to LR2000 or contact your state BLM office (BLM handles all mineral claims for both BLM and USFS).  Once you have found if the area you are interested in (by Township, Range, Section) has claims on it, plot them out and see if your spot is claimed (LR only breaks out to 1/4 section). Also check with the county recorder to see if anything is recorded that has not hit BLM yet.  If not, prospect it and see what is there.  If you come up with the yellow stuff, get a copy of the claim location notice at a local big book store.

If everything comes up clean, get a claim location notice form, fill it out, record at the county, and send with fees to the state BLM office.  Make a couple of copies and post one on the claim, in a waterproof container, in plain sight.  I use a piece of PVC pipe capped at one end and a screw cap on the other, paperwork in a ziplock bag (location notice and map), and some small steel cable and cable clamps to attach to a tree, with room for growth so the cable doesn't cut into the tree..  You have 60 days to record from date of location and 90 days to file with BLM.

BLM can send you a packet with all the fees and such if you request it.  Right now I'd wait till after the first of Sept to file a new claim, as BLM goes by location date for collecting fees.....ie. - if you file now you would pay fees for this year, and unless you file small miner's exemption with it, you get hit again by Aug. 31st for next year.

Hope this helps, good luck.