Gold panning in the u.p.... protected areas?

[Taterade]

Hello,
Im new to the panning scene. A few friends and myself are going to Michigan's upper peninsula this spring to do some panning. We also have a few sluice boxes. My question is about the rivers we plan to visit.
If a stream is a protected trout stream can you not pan? We plan to try yellow dog river, dead river, and pesheeke river. Thanks for any input and advice.

 

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[Jimmydolittle]

You will need to contact the DNR and ask them directly: DNR - Contact DNR

 

[Capt Nemo]

Anything designated a salmon or trout stream is off limits. In one county up there EVERY stream has the designation! (have to laugh when the mouth of the stream is blocked with sand at the lake and the trout can't run up it, and a lot are that way!)

Sportsman's Guide now has a map book out for the UP showing what's all public lands for hunting and fishing. It may not be totally exact on some of the boundries, but it's pretty close. What is marked public will be public, and what is marked private may or may not be private.

There's a ton of stable flies up there and THEY WILL DRIVE YOU NUTS! Bug sprays don't work on them! Try some of the fly sprays for horses that will kill stable flies. (blah blah blah about federal law about using for other purposes! If I put whoever wrote that law in a room with those bugs, they'd be wanting to use nuclear weapons to kill them in about ten minutes!) But do try to keep that stuff out of the water as it will kill fish.

 

[Taterade]

Thanks for the advice. Yea I heard those and the other Flys (noseeums?) are pretty bad in the spring. Any idea on how successful panning will be up there?

 

[jwilder23]

Taterade, How did the panning go? That area is known for Gold/Silver.

 

[russau]

Even a fish wouldn't get caught if he kept his mouth shut! My father had this sign mounted on his wall for as long as this ole F.O.G. can care to remember!

 

[Taterade]

Sorry for late response.

Found nice size pickers of silver and some gold stuck in ore and quartz. But didn't find a lot due to the fact that we didn't know what we were doing. Got around the whole protected stream thing. Found a stream that drys up in the summer, to small and strap for fish and is not on the map. We hit that one pretty hard and is where we found the most.

 

[Capt Nemo]

Where abouts? County is good enough!

 

[Taterade]

Marquette county. If you walk along the yellow dog you can find old stream beds or very small tributaries.

 

[Crabby trapper]

There is some good stuff to be found but being a trout stream you got to watch what your doing. My dad and I found a spot well up stream and used a goldhog pan and plowed through a bunch of material and ended up with 3 (5 gal) buckets of concentrate...surprisingly we picked the right spot because we ended up with 1.13 oz. Now knowing this Im going to hit this spot a few times this spring and summer.