Hoss and the Rattlesnake have given you some good tips.

Generally speaking the upstream end of the bar will catch the coarser gold and the downstream end will catch the finer stuff--although I have seen exceptions both ways and if you have another stream intersecting it, you may have gold all over the bar.

As the Rattlesnake said, the bigger gold drops out with the bigger rocks. It's a lot harder digging in the big stuff, but can be much more rewarding, and make sure you clean those big rocks off carefully--rinse them off with water into a tub(so you can pan it later), especially if the larger rocks have clay on them(a stiff bristled brush helps with the cleaning as well). If any of them are jammed into sockets in a clay layer, or tightly packed area, break the clay sockets and tight packed material up and sample it--I've found nuggets that way, and so has my son. If the area is a coarse gold producer, you'll probably do better if you can get to the bedrock(unless, as mentioned earlier, you run into a false bedrock clay layer).

In my area we have mostly fine and flour gold. It drops out on the bars with rocks that are about fist sized. In the area I work in the summer, the nuggets drop out with the rocks that are football to watermelon size. On the bedrock bust open any cracks you find, especially if they are full of tightly packed material, or packed material with clay. Watch for color changes in the material in crevices--it could signal rusting black sands or high, natual iron content silted sands--all good indicators. Watch for color changes in your bar, especially if you think another channel intersects it. The color changes signal different runs of river material. One color may carry gold and the others may be barren. The color that carries your gold will be your pay layer and that's the one you remember and chase. Sample, sample, sample--the three golden rules of prospecting. Good luck.

Later,

Lanny in AB

• Re: Where Do I Look? Robert Sammons 06:43:53 4/15/99 (0)