panning or prospecting help in trinity county ca!

[TreasureHunterChuck]

Hi I've been living in junction city ca off an on for the past 15 years but I am new to gold panning, I've metal detected for many years for relics and coins but finding gold is new to me. in the past year I've spent almost all my free time when the weather would allow panning. I started by walking through the woods with a bucket looking for river rocks and digging that material and carrying it back to my car where I could drive to a place with river access. Then taking that dirt and panning it. Then I took dirt from under tailings and beaches on the bedrock. I've moved over 200 5 gallon buckets spent at least 150 hours and have found hundreds of little pieces of gold maybe thousands but all in all I've only collected a weight of 2 grams. I'm self taught and always work alone and I'm thinking I'm not doing something right or I don't look in the right places. It would be great if someone that knew what they were doing could show me what to look for or maybe go out panning with me or point me to a place where I could find something larger I'm not afraid to work hard. I don't hardly know any places as I keep to myself up here.I've mainly just panned in and around Douglass city in the public areas, but I'd like to find something on the junction city side of Oregon mountain. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

 

Amazon Forum Fav 👍

Agony and Death on a Gold Rush Steamer: The Disastrous Sinking of the Side-Wheeler Yankee Blade - Grab it through Amazon!

[63bkpkr]

Welcome to Tnet! There is information on here in some 'old' posts about how to read a river to best locate deposits of Heavy materials (nails, lead shot, fishing weights, mercury & gold) as well as how to pan and when 'classifying' your raw sample is really helpful. AS you are finding fine gold and you still have it in your pan you are likely doing a good job panning though, like me, you may be slow at it. There are some helpful devices for quickly going through a rough sample of dirt (Doc's device, can't really call it a pan but it suffices for one) as well as others. Prospecting is all about moving more dirt in less time and still having fine gold left after going through the entire raw pile of dirt. Simple things still work just fine as long as a Prospectors use of it is proper.

200 5 gallon buckets is a lot of sample! That would tend to make a person weary if they were to have gone through it in one week's time!! A buddy of mine, Hefty 1, and I ran ~ 30 or 40 buckets once through a type of sluice box and we were both quite tired afterward! The gold was quite lovely!!

Best of success with your Adventures.................63bkpkr

 

[Goodyguy]

Sounds to me like you may want to look into joining a prospecting club.
Lots of hands on training could be available during club outings.

Plus having more fun and safety.

GG~

 

[goldenmojo]

Two grams sounds like my first year. Before the end of the second year it looked like this. Fists Full of Gold by Chris Ralph is a good read. Good Luck

 

[TerryC]

Research. Where has the gold been found before? Are there any CA Mines And Minerals papers for your county/district? Take notes. Is the river/creek deep and slow, shallow and fast, sandbar or rocks? Find out WHY you should be finding gold there as apposed to elsewhere. Is there a SHELF next to the water, indicating where the river once flowed? Try digging there. Don't dig huge holes in one place. Test pan every 20 feet or so up the river. Just one pan full. Then test again.... 20 feet. Gold will collect in "pockets". If the bedrock is exposed in the river, test around there a little better. Cracks or fissures in the bedrock? It's there. Now do some research and find out why. As Mojo said above, Chris Ralph can give you GOBS of ideas. TTC

 

[anzayounggun]

Hey Chuck I'm live and work in Salyer if you wanted to meet up, im new also but two backs makes light work. Pm me

 

[TreasureHunterChuck]

Nice

 

[Garrote Gold]

haha, try doing some panning next to Ridzingling, then donate your finds to the big stupas..... there whole property was hydro'd and massive tailing on that side. Denny has some good gold too, nice nugget shooting while picking morels this spring lol Im a more south fork smith pack mule type guy myself