Players travel winding mountain streams searching for traces of gold which perhaps might lead to pay dirt "The gold nugget". Novel construction of Prospecting makes every game different. To play the game the prospecting cards are shuffled. Before beginning there is a knob that is lined up with a red arrow. This creates a new game each time it is played because turning that knob decides which locations will have potential gold on them. Players attempt to travel the board goin up canyon streams until the player reaches a "dig here" spot. There may be gold at that spot or the spot may have already been worked and so there is no gold to be found and the search will have to continue using some other path. The game ends when the "Mother Lode" nugget is found and that player wins the game