Should I be finding Gold

[bigblock]

Well it warmed up the other day enough for me to go panning at a stream close to home i am new to prospecting but i have been reading a lot of books,forums etc so as i am trying to read the stream i find an outcrop of bedrock in the stream that to me looks good so i start panning behind the rock down stream side and start finding lead bird shot so my question is if gold was in this stream should i have been finding any in relation to finding lead what do you think what would you do go deeper go somewhere else or what? your thoughts any ideas? Thanks

[Goodyguy]

Well it warmed up the other day enough for me to go panning at a stream close to home i am new to prospecting but i have been reading a lot of books,forums etc so as i am trying to read the stream i find an outcrop of bedrock in the stream that to me looks good so i start panning behind the rock down stream side and start finding lead bird shot so my question is if gold was in this stream should i have been finding any in relation to finding lead what do you think what would you do go deeper go somewhere else or what? your thoughts any ideas? Thanks

Since gold is denser than lead if there was any gold in the material that you panned you most likely would have captured the gold as well.

Test panning is just that, you keep panning different areas of the stream testing the material as you go until you find color. Then you follow the color hopefully to a rich pay streak.

Bird shot was deposited way more recently than gold so it hasn't had thousands of years to settle as deep as gold so you may have to go even deeper and down into the cracks and crevices in the bedrock to find any gold. Use pry bars to get under any large boulders and to open areas of bedrock. Sometimes there is false bedrock that is actually just hard pack, so break it up and get underneath.

You really have to work hard to get at the gold, get used to using prybar's as well as a pick and shovel. Unless you are in virgin territory located in gold country, you can bet the easy gold has already been taken, no more just panning loose gravel and finding gold, those days are long gone. The exception being freshly deposited flood gold but it's usually really fine and hard to locate in any appreciable amount.

What area of the country are you in? Has gold been found in that stream before?
GG~

[bigblock]

Hi GoodyGuy thanks for your reply kinda what i was thinking if lead settled out then gold should or would in the same area and may be deeper.My location is in N.W.Ga. as far as gold being found i found some very small stuff down stream from this place mentioned very small and very little.The gold i found was very shallow and appears to be very coarse under 10x magnification.We did have some pretty bad floods awhile back and i think it is from the flood so that is why i moved up stream hoping to get closer to it's origin.This is also a very small stream and as for it being worked before the person who owns it stated someone else several years back had asked permission to pan it but there is a larger stream to work on the property but i did not find anything in it as of now.Thanks again any and all input very welcome!

[Goodyguy]

Hi GoodyGuy thanks for your reply kinda what i was thinking if lead settled out then gold should or would in the same area and may be deeper.My location is in N.W.Ga. as far as gold being found i found some very small stuff down stream from this place mentioned very small and very little.The gold i found was very shallow and appears to be very coarse under 10x magnification.We did have some pretty bad floods awhile back and i think it is from the flood so that is why i moved up stream hoping to get closer to it's origin.This is also a very small stream and as for it being worked before the person who owns it stated someone else several years back had asked permission to pan it but there is a larger stream to work on the property but i did not find anything in it as of now.Thanks again any and all input very welcome!

The extreme northwest corner of Georgia is not the most productive. Your chances are much better along the Dahlonega belt and Piedmont belt which lie in a south westerly diagonal from North east Ga.

Don't give up on your area but you need a way to move more quantity of material faster. Such as a sluice or highbanker.


Shows your best areas for placer gold

[bigblock]

Fortunately i do live within the gold belt.This stream i am talking about does not have enough water to run a sluice i have been thinking of taking my sluice and converting it into a highbanker or something of that sort.I can't give up after seeing that gold in the bottom of my pan for the first time I'm hooked ! Once you see the real thing you know it !!

[Goodyguy]

Fortunately i do live within the gold belt.This stream i am talking about does not have enough water to run a sluice i have been thinking of taking my sluice and converting it into a highbanker or something of that sort.I can't give up after seeing that gold in the bottom of my pan for the first time I'm hooked ! Once you see the real thing you know it !!

Awesome!

It's pretty easy to convert a sluice to a highbanker. Go for it, I would. Heck if you're in the gold belt maybe you need to do some core sample drilling, You may hit a gold vein anywhere on your property for that matter.

GG~

[bigblock]

Now that i am not familiar with.I will Need to read up on that.

[Goodyguy]

Now that i am not familiar with.I will Need to read up on that.

I don't know what it would cost to have a geological survey done on your property but perhaps it's worth looking into.
How many acres do you have?

GG~

[manorman]

get to bedrock, find the cracks in the stream bed and clean them out.
Good luck.

[bigblock]

H i GG the property i have been workig is not mine i have 2 tracts of land just north of the gold belt it is just above the north line.

[bigblock]

Hi TAKODA could you expand on this ? Thanks

[63bkpkr]

bigblock,
I found a spot last year with gold in it BUT I also found three lead bullets down in there with the gold, .22, ~ .25, .45. Now finding lead does not automatically mean you will find gold as the lead comes from people shooting and the gold comes from being where God an Mother Nature put it. Lead indicates that 1) you did a good job panning as you did not loose the lead (or at least not all of it) 2) the location you chose is holding more dense material (gold is much more dense than lead but not as dense as I am some times) so you picked a spot that is gathering dense materials 3) if there is gold there you would find it possibly a bit deeper but at some point you should see some fine gold even if it is very fine or else 4) there is no gold there indicated not by the lead but as you've not found any "color" in your pan. I've attached a picture of two of the lead pieces, some magnetic rocks and the first of the gold I found last year.

Now you found gold downstream from the lead shot site so you know there is gold in part of the creek so that's good information as you know where some gold is. You might work you way back up creek from the site where you did find gold to see if it stops showing up and then begin to work both sides of the creek at the last spot you did find gold. This takes time and energy as you've found but it is all part of the game. The high banker idea is GOOD so stick with that and do the conversion, even a simple highbanker does yards more washing than could ever be done with just a pan.

Have fun and stick with it, 63bkpkr

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[bigblock]

Thanks 63bkpkr that's what i was thinking not that gold will be with the lead just that lead is heavy and i must be in a spot where the heavy stuff is accumulating.As soon as i can i will go back and go deeper to find some color or move back down stream a bit.

[Goodyguy]

Thanks 63bkpkr that's what i was thinking not that gold will be with the lead just that lead is heavy and i must be in a spot where the heavy stuff is accumulating.As soon as i can i will go back and go deeper to find some color or move back down stream a bit.

Oh, I misunderstood.

I thought you were questioning your panning skills
My reply was just to confirm that if you had any gold in the material that you panned then the gold would have been captured along with the lead bird shot due to its heavier density.

GG~

[bigblock]

Hey GG~ at my skill level i question everything ! Trying to grasp all the knowledge i can!

[FiresEye]

Around a cold, dead fire, a thunderstorm loomed within grasp. an old prospector told me about his experiences gold prospecting in north Georgia and his ways and methods. Nearby the feeder creek meandered trickling along the way to the slow moving river that empties into Lake Lanier we stood, discussing the methods to get to the gold. Since I had already found gold, I knew the deeper I went, the more gold I'd find.
SG=18
PSI=

[FiresEye]

I'm not saying a fire is a necessity, even in the cold and wet, but it's dang sure nice, and if you look long enough you'll fine a huge turpentine sap deposit, that will burn material, even in a hurricane!
And I mean natural, no gasoline or other BS. Look for the sap deposits in logging territory, they are nice light golden colored sap deposits of highly flamale material.
And when you can pan by a fire instead of a not fire. X outweighs Y especially if X-y equals suck. Thus, if you use X and Y you can win! If you win, you may not even be playing a game, which can jeapordize the notion in the third place.

[bigblock]

I do be live you are referring to a pine lighter knot ? I use them quite often for my fireplace insert.Best dang thing in the world to start a good fire and cheap too !

[russau]

everytime i do a cleanup with my 4 inch dredge i find bullets,lead shot, fishing weights and such! it all goes into a tincan for recycleing at a later date.

[bigblock]

Hi TAKODA thanks for your reply looking at all aspects to finding gold i guess what i was asking is am i reading the stream correctly and if so finding the lead means the heavy stuff was accumulating in that spot then it would be possible that gold could be accumulating in that spot and i was reading the stream correctly because this seems to be the hardest part for me. I can be quite dense at times and get stuck one one train of thought.