My first gold..

eddie13

Jr. Member
Mar 19, 2016
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I think it all started with youtube clickbait. Up late, click this, click that etc. etc. and I happen upon Ask Jeff Williams.. Needless to say I got sucked in. Now I have watched and enjoyed almost all of his videos along with many others such as Dan Hurd who has excellent videos teaching I believe a high school elective class and also Hard Rock University has been excelent. I have watched pretty much ALL of there videos and many many more. If you haven't heard of them you should check them out.
So yeah I have the fever now and have tried to educate myself as much as I can..

Around January I ordered myself a garrett supersluice gold pan and got to stare at it for a couple months until the snow went away. There is still snow (northern lp Michigan) but I have been able to put a bunch of earth through my pan by now. I tell ya what those guys on youtube make it look easy but all that stratifying is pretty hard work.

My VERY FIRST pan I went to the side of my driveway once there was actual dirt available in it other than ice in places with a 4' snowbank behind me. I scooped up some dirt around the side of a puddle where there seemed to be a blackish ring from the waves washing. On that VERY FIRST pan I got a FLAKE!! It's really tiny, about the size of a grain of sand, but it is also really really flat so it stays put very well among all the other material in a pan. I still have it and have had it in and out of the pan over and over playing with it practicing and observing how it stays and everything else moves. When I found it I showed it to everybody. They all think I'm crazy now I'm sure.

I think I only did a couple more pans that day and found nothing else. The next time I tried I did about 10 pans in a different puddle with dirt from the puddle and from under the pines and found nothing. Now everybody that went down my road that day thinks I'm crazy too out there panning at the end of my driveway, lol.

I figured my first pan first flake in the driveway was a fluke so I set up a tote by my water faucet outside full of water and ran a good 5 gallon bucket of dirt out of a deep hole out back. I think there may have been a couple of tiny specs of gold in that but nothing big enough to tell it was gold or attempt to recover and keep track of. I tried dirt from holes my dogs dug and dirt from here and there and found nothing other than my first pan first flake. Must have done 50 or so pans over many days but I didn't get discouraged.

Today I decided to try the driveway again. I went out to the biggest puddle (dried up now) and dug right in the middle of it and found dirt mixed with gravel. I ran another whole 5 gallon bucket of this center puddle dirt and got another piece of gold!! It is approximately twice the size of my first original piece in diameter and isn't flat like the other but rather actually has some height to it too. It was very exciting!

Yeah I know 2 tiny little pieces of gold are no where near worth all that work but that's not the point. If the little kids can play in the dirt so can I..

I have a sort of little station set up where I pan in my yard now with the tote full of water, something I use to classify to about 1/2"- into my pan, then pan it down to about a quart of material, then a window screen to classify it down very fine, then pan it out the rest of the way. I also have a few other bowls and kitchen type pans there that I use to scoop and separate things like keep my black sand and stuff.. I have gone through my black sand collection over and over just practicing and sometimes putting my little first flake in there for practice.

I haven't gotten out to any rivers or streams around the area yet but that is next on the list. I just started in the yard to practice with a pan and evidently find out how much work it is but I hope to be able to get out to some other areas and find more rich ground to get me more than a couple flakes. I can hardly wait..
 

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winners58

Bronze Member
Apr 4, 2013
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nice write up keep at it. maybe the gravel in the driveway was brought in,
is there a sand and gravel company close to the river that this may have come from?
 

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eddie13

Jr. Member
Mar 19, 2016
85
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It's possible that material was brought into the driveway 10+ years ago but not since any of us were here. This "gravel" was more like round rocks as opposed to road gravel. We shovel rocks and stuff into these low areas all the time.

My theory is that when cars go through the puddles the waves push light material out of them but the heavies remain down in the bottom moreso. I also got 2 garnets out of the middle of the low area in the same pan with the bigger gold piece and a lot of heavies compared to the average ground. Everything around here is all sand.

I tried the neighbors driveway too in the middle of a big puddle, his is much worse than mine, and it was obvious that clay was brought into his. I really had to break up the material by hand and getting it was like digging in cement.. No gold there, not that I found atleast..

Where I live there are a ridiculous amount of rivers. Tons of them everywhere.

I have done some research and it suggests that pretty much all the gold here was brought in by glaciers. I have been studying maps of glacial end moraines and have picked out some tributaries to prospect that run off of these end moraines literally within 2-5 miles from my house.
 

motohed

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Dec 27, 2015
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Sounds like you are well on your way. There are plenty of people on the Forum that can give you some good advice . You are right too follow the geology of the area you are planning to work . You could also check some old new papers to see if any Gold was found by others previously in the area you are looking . Check out myland matters , here on the site ,they have made a lot of information available .
 

KevinInColorado

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Jan 9, 2012
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