How to Pan For Gold

As if I needed yet another hobby, I got interested in gold prospecting several years ago. My travels around the West often took me to old mining towns and mine sites where the pioneers had made a living by pulling the yellow stuff out of the ground. Eventually I got the bug too. Gold fever is a terrible thing. There is no known cure. It leads you to work harder on your vacations than you do in your normal working life, and all you have to show for is a little dirty, yellow metal.

The principal behind gold panning is really simple. Gold is heavy. Just about everything else is lighter. If you load a pie-pan shaped container with gold-bearing gravel and sand, proper agitation in water should cause the gold to sink to the bottom, while washing away the lighter stuff that rises to the top. Eventually, all that is left in your pan is the heaviest minerals, including (hopefully) some gold. It really is about that simple. Of course there is more to the story than that.

More photos and details can be found on my web site at http://www.mdpub.com/prospecting/

Step 1: Equipment Needed for Gold Paning

First off, you are going to need some equipment. This photo shows about the bare minimum of equipment you need to be a successful gold panner. I bought a lot of my equipment on Ebay. The rest came from the hardware store. None of it is difficult to find or terribly expensive.

Start with the water-proof boots. Gold panning is done in the water, usually icy cold mountain streams. You'll want to keep your feet dry. Some nice warm socks (maybe a couple of pairs) also helps to keep your feet warm in that cold water.

The green thing is the gold pan. There are lots of different types of gold pans. They all work. so don't spend too much time obsessing over getting just the right kind of pan. I buy my gold pans on Ebay since there is nobody near me that stocks them, and it is usually the cheapest place to buy them.

Inside the gold pan is the sniffer bottle. It is used for sucking up little bits of gold out of your pan. More on that later.

The purple thing is a classifier, also known as a sieve or strainer. It is really optional, but I find it to be a great help. I'll talk about why later.

Next, you need some digging tools. A full-size pointed shovel will be real useful (remember what I said about this being hard work?). You'll also want a smaller spade and either an old screwdriver or some other skinny tool for cleaning out small cracks and crevasses in the rocks.

The small white plastic pail is used for collecting concentrates. You can use just about any sort of container for that. More on why this is important later.

Big five gallon buckets come in handy for lots of things. I usually carry several. You can pack a lot of the other equipment in them along with some water bottles and other supplies, and carry it all down to the creek. Once there, a bucket makes handy stool to sit on in the creek to do your panning and another serves to carry your paydirt from where you are digging it to where you are panning it.

Other nice to have accessories are gloves. A nice pair of rugged leather gloves to protect your hands from blisters while working the shovel and protect from cuts and scrapes while digging out cracks and crevasses with the smaller digging tools. Also a pair of rubber gloves to protect your hands from the cold water while panning. Also, a pair of tweezers to pick the larger bits of gold "pickers" out of your gold pan, and a glass or plastic bottle to put them in will come in real handy.

Naturally you'll want to take all the usual stuff you would take for any outdoor adventure in the wilderness. Things like a first aide kit, warm clothes, drinking water, mosquito repellent, sunscreen, etc.

Comments

[boom man56]

Where do I get the sand?

[knexinventer]

this wont get you much because most of the gold on the surface was grabbed during the gold rush

[AlternateLives]

Sorry if I'm resurrecting a dead thread, but how would you fare selling the native gold on the scrap market?

[Schmidty16]

sluicin gis easier

[Schmidty16]

there need to be more prospectors on here

[Aerospaceman]

The one thing you'll learn about panning for gold is once you start it's hard to quit. I have found it to be relaxing and a definite escape from hustle and bustle of the concrete work world where all your stress resides. Take your family and enjoy the outdoors as we have somehow forgotten our roots. We began in the wild and to the wild we should return if only to help repair the damage we have done over time. Speaking of damage, when you do visit the outdoors always leave it cleaner than when you first arrived, everyone will appreciate it a lot more when they visit. When you begin as a novice, you can pick up tips from everyone and believe me everyone will happily tell you their way and there are many ways to accomplish the same task, get gold. By the way...less than 10% of all the gold on earth has been recovered so a LOT is still out there waiting you to find it and catch more of the gold fever! There is a wide variety of equipment to assist the modern day gold panner or 49'er such as pans with and without riffles. Pans that have built in concentrators, pans that are round, triangular, octoganal, metal, and plastic. Each pan must be cured before its use to reduce surface tension. You can use shovels, pick axes, suckers, there is a lot of specialized gear to use depending upon the situation. Concentrates for example can be recovered using all kinds of tools and techniques. If the idea of going out gold panning doesn't get you...the price of gold is over $900 an ounce. So if by chance you just get beginners luck and end up with a gold nugget near an ounce...that's a pretty good days work versus what you would have to do all week long at work. There are many benefits to gold panning of which the biggest is bringing the family together to have fun.

[moreforles]

and also to you list of items... add a couple more empty buckets, they're not heavy and having an extra one either to sit on, carry other items, concentrates, trash collected and cleaned from the water/gravel/dirt, like lead sinkers, bullets, broken glass, plastic and rusty metal... not only helps the environment, but could also be worth a little money from recycling it.

[moreforles]

about collecting concentrates to pan out later, another reason to work that way, is all the changes the government is trying to make about prospecting and being in the out doors in general. They're trying to make it more difficult and even illegal to prospect, So the less time your out there, the less time you have for a run in with egg headed eviromentalist or law enforcent, rangers or even fish and game officials, which have nothing to do with mining or even access to public lands.

[moreforles]

While not an expert in any way shape or form, one thing I can suggest about prospecting is.... While out in gold bearing areas, process all the material you can, pan down to when you see mostly black sand, the empty your pan into a bucket, and finish panning it when you get back home and have more time. In theory, the more material you go through, the more gold your likely to find. If you don't happen to live near a gold rich area, in fact even if you do, gather all the concentrate you can. It doesn't matter if your using a gold pan, sluice box, high banker, trommel, dredge or metal detector, gather all the material you can while your out there.... And when at home or else where doing your finish panning, pan into a tub, save your concentrates, go through them again when your bored, there's a lot of gold still in it, even after you don't see it in your pan. Plus the black sand can be worth something in itself, from landscaping, shadow boxes, black sand hour glasses...etc. Also after the items already shown the next item you might want to add to your tools, is a metal detector, even a cheap one is better than none at all. but spend as much as you can afford, you can always get another, but if you get a decent one to start with, you can get a lot of use from it before you need to replace it. As for which one to get, I'm still wondering that myself.

[aristide202]

I'm not an expert neither but I completely agree , no one would sleep that night thinking of gold gone back in the river while panning . The biggest part of the whole process is to find the spot and get rid of boulders, roots and gravel, wash away dirt and see the black magnetite and and red garnets concentrating . A good magnet, may be from an old hard disk, in some kind a plastic box will help quick checking for magnetite and get rid of it after. Anyway I keep that stuff because I want to melt it some day in some thermite mix Magnetite as garnet is just quite heavy that's all , you're not looking for iron ore but black sand is a good signal indeed in most areas. I suggest a high power goldsmith lens and a low power pocket microscope to examine very thin sediments and whatever.

[Aron313]

Where do you live that you are getting the gold?

[jsean]

A video from Mama's Minerals

How to Pan For Gold - courtesy of Mama's Minerals and GPANM.org

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cxAFGt7pN0U

Lots of great info & www.MamasMinerals.com sells panning and prospecting equipment and sand with gold in it. Enjoy!

[woody558]

Besides the ridges, the pan looks just like a plate. Would it be possible to pan for gold with a plate or maybe even a pie tin???

[jhonny]

Is it better if the pan has more ridges?

[thepelton]

A pan with ridges will help you get more gold out, but you can still do it with a plain smooth sided pan. I think it is best to learn with a smooth sided pan, because you may not always have the tools you wish to have. I have actually successfully panned for gold with a Frisbee. Yes, I said Frisbee.

[tnt.thomas]

No one worried about the environmental damage caused by panners going too far, adding silt to rivers? Hmmm, if I put up an 'ible about hunting I'd get run out on a rail. But silting up rivers, no big. Food for thought. Oh bit offended by flaming owl pic for a Canadian... I am Canadian... with lego robot as my pic. Should it be Molsons??? Pffft!

[tnt.thomas]

I am reading "The Forgotten North" by Coates and Morrison. Good example on a grand scale of how our mindset creates bias and suddenly if it is our behaviour, it is fine.

[sokamiwohali]

the amount of silt associated with this small scale of panning for gold is rediculously minute compared to other means of silt making its way down the river...such as surges from rain and snow (if applicable)

[ilike2make]

Or at least a beaver

[snoopindaweb]

=///////===============> - How many feet do You think it takes for the silt to settle...? ==> ogPanning isn't Hydrolyic or something, Huggies.! G-G

[LoveandTrash]

Hey, we're running a contest and your skills look like they could make you a contender for the prize...

http://loveandtrash.com/2011/01/contest-project-power-down/

[I_am_Canadian]

Here are pictures of the only place I think there may be gold. What do you think?

[vincent7520]

I don't know about gold, but these pictures sure show beautiful country ! …

[I_am_Canadian]

Welcome to Canada :-)

[vincent7520]

Thank you … I remember traveling to Montreal and from there to the US via the northen shore of Lake Superior and then to Duluth and Minnesota … 
It was way way back (1971 ?… good gosh) and it was beautiful. I still have some images that pass through my mind ! … 
:)

[thelandlord]

Be aware that around Ontario the were once (and may still be) Uranium mines... and Uranium is very heavy too, although you'd normally only find it as ore rather than metal... you 'may' be panning in among (natural) low-level radioactivity. Wikipedia mentions Uranium in the area around Elliot Lake. My wife is Canadian and they used to mine uranium close to her home alongside Lake L'Amable too, when she was small. A bit of local knowledge might avoid 'unfortunate' finds...

[I_am_Canadian]

Many thanks. I'll keep that in mind.

[mdavis19]

Can't tell from just the photos. Not all streams have recoverable amounts of gold. What is the name of this river, and does it have a history of gold mining?

[mdavis19]

mdpub.com is my web site.

[sev17]

thats hilaruos. he blames without knowing a thing. then the truth comes

[sev17]

i am amazingly scared

[fwjs28]

attack of teh script kiddie who can't even spell before...*sigh* , what has the computer world come to...

[I_am_Canadian]

It is a stream coming of dogtooth lake in southwestern ontario. It is in a public park. I dont know if there is gold mining around here, but there are many mines about 100km west of the place in question.

[thepelton]

Panning is low impact. You might draw unfavorable attention to yourself if you brought in a big motorized high banker, but a pan... I don't see any problem unless someone objects. The worst they could do is tell you to try somewhere else.

[Valas Hune]

Hey man. I actually live in Toronto :) a fellow Canadian hahaha. I was just wondering where is dogtooth lake? Gotta ask, have you heard of any places near Toronto?

[I_am_Canadian]

I dont think so. But you can have a look at this map, its at the tiny blue square.<br/><br/><a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.ontarioparks.com/english/rush-maps.html">http://www.ontarioparks.com/english/rush-maps.html</a><br/>

[I_am_Canadian]

Only place I can get to*

[thepelton]

In the picture taken in the winter, it appears that the current of the creek is running away from you. In that case, I would be panning the sand on the far side of the rocks.

[Notbob]

i would have to say avoid the fast moving streams, as it does not give the gold time to fall to the bottom.

[I_am_Canadian]

There are slower parts of that river though, and lots of eddies...