While experienced hunters thoroughly enjoy a good day of garnet hunting, you don’t have to be an experienced hunter to find these dazzling gems. In fact, they are probably the best stone for the inexperienced hound to start looking for. These delightful gemstones are quite common and can be found in many US states and countries around the world. The rock that contains the garnet is often studded with stones as well, so once you find a good area with garnet you will easily be able to take a very healthy cache home with you.

Garnets come in many varieties and the type of rocks in the area you choose will determine the type of garnet you collect. The most desirable crystals will be a deep wine red to bright purple, pink, or green. Even the smallest crystals are quite distinct in their natural form and you will be able to recognize them when you see them.

Your first step in finding garnets, as with all gemstones, is to consult your maps and guidebooks. When it comes to garnets I never worry too much about a place being “picked up” as the stones are usually very abundant in any garnet area. Next, you’ll want to make sure you pack all the gear you need to collect the stones.

You’ll want to grab your rock pick and mallet and a small screwdriver (a 1/8-inch blade is good) or chisel for any stones you find in the array rocks. I use them a bit in garnet locations, as every now and then I see a stone still embedded in the bedrock that I just can’t let go of. Many times the rock containing the garnet is soft and the stones can be easily removed with a small flathead screwdriver or bladed knife. A sledgehammer can be used to break the rocks and find the stones. However, this is the hardest way to get the garnets, and I don’t normally resort to bothering with the rock itself. The tools I use most often to search for this particular type of gemstone are a spaghetti strainer, a screen, and a collapsible army shovel.

Over time, the garnets eroded from the parent rock. By collecting the dirt in the area of ​​the rock containing the gem and sifting it through the strainer, you can easily find handfuls of gems. I use a strainer for gem hunting as the holes are just the right size to drop stones that are smaller than I care to keep. If you want to spend money at a hardware store for special screens, they have different size meshes that will allow you to choose how big the gems need to be to get caught by the screen. If an area appears to have been scooped up, by digging deeper you can usually find the stones that fell and were covered over before the area became popular with hunters.

After “exploring” the rock area, I also like to explore the nearby streams for the gems. The garnets will wash

downstream of their source over time and are not as heavy as other minerals, so you don’t have to dig too far to find good quality stones. However, currents of water can erode the natural facets of the stone, so many of the crystals in the water may be much smoother than those in the actual area of ​​the rock, depending on how long they have been there. When I choose a spot in a stream, I use the strainer again to check the quality of the gems and the size of the stones.

The normal size screen I use for concentrated gem areas in streams where the stream bed is literally pink with little garnets. You will see this in many areas of garnet. Most of these small garnets are not gem size or quality, but they do make excellent craft materials. I pick these up on the screen and just put them in a bucket. Later at home I separate the pebbles from the rest of the sand while I watch TV or talk on the phone.

Once you’ve found some nice gemstones to wear in jewelry, you’ll want to read up on panning for gold so you can find a nugget with which one of your new gemstones will look good in a ring or pendant.