There's No Gold In Missouri!

[MidMoTreasure]

Gold fever is not a disease that typically affects Central Missourians like myself. We are a good day’s drive away from the closest gold-bearing regions in Colorado and Georgia, and this geographic isolation is a good natural defense to the fever. Other treasure abounds. I caught the treasure bug at the age of six when my great-grandfather would take me for walks in the fields and creeks to search for arrowheads. For years, head hunting was my primary treasure hunting activity and I got pretty good at sniffing out points in the Missouri streams and fields.

When the recession hit, the price of precious metals began to sore faster than my blood-alcohol content on a Wednesday night during college. I had been a coin collector for a while, and I got cranky that I could no longer “afford” to buy common-date silver coins. I knew that people used these weed-eater looking thingies called metal detectors to find coins in the ground — for free!! — so I ordered a cheap Bounty Hunter and an even cheaper garden spade and hit the dirt. After a month of digging nails and beer bottle caps, I was about to give up when BAM! I pulled a silver dime and an Indian Head cent. More followed, and I upgraded to better equipment. More silver and old coins surrendered to me and then I started finding Civil War artifacts. Treasure is awesome!

So what does this have to do with gold prospecting? It was 2013 and my interest in gold at that point had been confined to the few pieces of jewelry I had found metal detecting, and the hordes of gold coins I dreamed of digging. I was watching some detecting videos on the Youtubes when I saw a recommendation for videos by a strange looking fella in a buckskin shirt named Jeff Williams. I clicked and enjoyed his goofy persona and antics (the bourbon I was drinking probably helped too). After many videos, I found I was actually learning a little about prospecting and panning and developing a mild gold-cold, so I ordered the Garrett Gold Panning Newbie Kit and Brisket Recipe (recipes not included) and some crappy “super rich awesome good mega” paydirt from Amazon. I panned through it in a wash tub in my back yard, found some of the salted fines, and kept those pretty colors in a vial. I ordered some more dirt from one of the big-name companies.

Somehow, life happened and I never got to pan that out. The dirt, my spoils from the earlier dirt, and my Garrett kit ended up in a cabinet in my workshop. Fast forward to this year (2017), I was watching one of the TV gold shows with my kids — not sure which one because I watch them all, with copious amounts of bourbon of course — and my oldest daughter told me she wanted to find gold. My gold-cold that had been laying dormant suddenly raged, and I remembered the pans and paydirt I had squirrelled away. I got it all out, filled up the old wash tub, a little squirt of Jet Dry, and we were a-panning away. When I got down to backwashing the black sands and that beautiful yellow color began showing through, I felt the fever hit. I went through the old spoils and found gold that I had missed. The color was there in the pan, winking and blowing kissy-faces at me.

I educated myself as best as I could on proper panning, prospecting, and bad karaoke, all of which I felt would be necessary for a prospecting trip to a gold-bearing region in the beautiful U-S-of-A. I was set on Georgia, and began doing research. Somewhere in my perusing of Dahlonega rock porn, I came across a blurb about glaciers and how they kindly push gold from the Canadian Shield down to otherwise barren parts of the country. Suddenly, Georgia seemed way too far, and I zeroed my research in on my home state. I read some stuff about GPAA chapters in Missouri and how they find this glacial gold north of the Missouri River. I read tales about this mysterious Missouri mineral miser named russau on TNet, and how he finds the color in his beloved “Misery.” I saw actual videos of Missouri folk finding the gold in streams that I had walked for arrowheads in the past. Then I learned that Chuck Lassiter had literally written the book on Midwest glacial gold. I read everything I could, twice. I watched videos, lurked on forums, studied maps, and scribbled down sheets of notes, mad-scientist style.

The fever called to me like a plate of chili cheese fries when my wife has been force-feeding me salad for a week. The only cure was seeing color in my pan. I studied the local geology and zeroed in on a spot not too far from my home that had all the trademarks of a Midwestern glacial gold zone. The only thing left to do was get boots on the ground and material in the pan. The weekend forecast looked stunning — all happiness and sunshine. The wife and kids were up for an adventure. It was time I surrender to the fever and become a real-life prospector. Well, as close as a Missourian can be anyhow.

My name is Bryan, and I am a Missouri prospector and treasure hunter. Pleased to meet y’all.

 

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[bobw53]

The color was there in the pan, winking and blowing kissy-faces at me.

That's funny.... Cuz its true.

 

[INDEAD]

That's funny.... Cuz its true.

If the Gold mining doesn't work out for you, look in to writing......... cuz you are funny!

 

[Capt Nemo]

If you have a Menard's locally, Mastercraft playground sand is mined around Eau Claire, WI and has better gold than Quik Crete mined in GA. Lot less mica and pyrite too.

 

[nsdq]

They may need writing for the Chigger

 

[MidMoTreasure]

Thank you all for the comments and for reading my ramblings. Prospecting is new to me and I'm not sure where this is heading, but the ride has been pretty dang exciting thus far.

If the Gold mining doesn't work out for you, look in to writing......... cuz you are funny!

If you think my writing is funny, you should see how I look! I'm just glad my wife is nearsighted.

If you have a Menard's locally, Mastercraft playground sand is mined around Eau Claire, WI and has better gold than Quik Crete mined in GA. Lot less mica and pyrite too.

Yes, we do have a local Menard's. I have always wondered about gold in hardware sands. Thanks for the tip, I will try this out in the future when I get something thrown together to handle that volume of material, and when I need some sand. Once the kids see me hauling bags of sand home, I fear they will insist on an outdoor beach and neighborhood kitty litter box.

They may need writing for the Chigger

I tried to get a hold of the Chigg's people, but apparently his "people" is really just a souped-up Roomba that can't take down a proper message.

 

[Prospector70]

I too am a sucker for kissy faced gold!
Welcome!

 

[russau]

No gold in Misery? Then I wonder what this stuff is I've been getting ?? it's small but .................... No gold you say?? The streams in upper Misery have what your looking for!

 

[MidMoTreasure]

The Saturday morning began like every other Saturday, with the two-year-old singing loudly in her room. I stumble out of bed and open her door, which is my silent permission for her to go wake up everyone else in the house. As if anyone could still be sleeping through an extra-loud rendition of “Wheels on the Bus.” I tell our family about the big plans today. There is a parade and festival in town that we will enjoy for a few hours, and then we are going on a secret adventure! The kids try to guess with their best logical answers. Metal detecting? Fun, but no. Fishing? Nope. The beach? There ain’t no damn beach close to us! We are in Missouri for Pete’s sake!

At the parade, the five children work together like a military platoon to efficiently amass a large quantity of candy. We walk to the festival and browse the craft booths, do some activities, and pet the animals at the petting zoo (that cow looked freaking delicious). We meet some friends, chat, spend a fortune on lemonade and corn dogs, and I splurge on a beautiful fresh bag of kettle corn and a bag of Cajun pork rinds – sustenance I will surely need for the prospecting ahead. It is awful warm for late-September Missouri, and I grew almost giddy at the thought of the cool creek water that lie ahead. The festival soon lost its allure, and I announced to the clan that it was time for our surprise.

I had not told the wife and kids what we were going to do this afternoon, only that we were going to have an adventure. They are accustomed to surprise day trips, it is something I enjoy doing with them. I covertly stocked my hiking pack with the prospecting necessities – a shovel, a Tupperware tub for the concentrates I was sure to collect, my snuffer, a scoop, my Garrett Super Sluice pan, the Garrett ½-inch classifier, and toilet paper. Gotta have toilet paper. I loaded a cooler with drinks, hot dogs, and s’mores ingredients for the young ‘uns. How we managed to fit all the gear and the five children in a Nissan Pathfinder is a testament to my man-brain’s secret of spatial organization – put the large stuff in first, stack the small stuff on the large stuff, and squeeze until everything latches shut.

Once we hit the road, I became immediately aware that we left the giant, fresh, and no doubt delicious bag of kettle corn at the house. Some bad. And the pork rinds too. Oh well, no road snacks I guess. Thankfully, the drive was only about forty minutes from the home base. Most of it is by nice, smooth, divided highway upon which I drive very responsibly. When we got to the lettered blacktop state route, my inner teenager emerges behind the wheel. There is something about leaning into the turns and hopping those “wheeeeeee!” hills that makes me and the children smile. The blacktop turned to gravel, and soon we were winding our way down to the creek I had scouted as a glacial gold honey hole.

We parked and piled out of the Pathfinder like clowns exiting a Volkswagen. I made sure everyone had on their water shoes and had their water bottles, and we climbed down the banks onto the creek bed. This was my first time ever in this creek, and I liked what I saw. Bedrock with cracks. Large boulders. Colorful sands. I explained the rules to the kids (stay within ear shot, don’t harm the animals, don’t harm each other, don’t use your superior numbers to frighten any hikers in the area). They love rocks so I explained to them that they could find fossils and crystals in the creek, and encouraged them to do so.

I walked about 20 feet downstream and found a large boulder on the inside bend side of the stream in a bar of fist-sized rock and sand. I figured this was as good a place as any to get my prospecting on. I put my pan and classifier on the ground, moved away the big rocks immediately downstream from the boulder, and shoveled material into the pan till it was full. Due to the drought, the stream that normally flows at a mild trickle had been reduced to intermittent pools. Luckily, one such pool was near my boulder spot. I picked up the material and heaved it over to the pool of cool water, saturated everything, and shook it like a dollar stripper trying to earn a two-dollar tip.

Once I was satisfied that everything that could be washed into the ½ inch holes was in my Super Sluice, I pitched the large items into a pile for the kids to rummage through. I put both hands into the pan and kneaded the material around, then I picked it up and commenced to stratifying everything. It must have looked like I was having a seizure. The best line I remember from the old Jeff Williams videos was “Ya gotta work your hiney to find that shiney!” I worked slowly at panning off the lighter material, probably too slow for a Super Sluice pan. Got down to the backwashing phase and I spotted a gorgeous purple crystal staring me down. A garnet! Wow! I washed more and the black sands emerged. You gotta be kidding me! In the back of my mind, I guess I never truly believed that I could find this stuff in Missouri.

I swirled and washed the sands, then did a little tap-a-roo on the pan. The sun was to my back, fully illuminating the crease of my pan. Tap tap tap, and then BAM! There it was. One, single, shining, tiny, beautiful flake of GOLD! I hollered for the wife, and hollered for the kids. Come look what daddy has! We all looked at that glittery speck in wonder and amazement. I have prospected my first fleck of real gold in the real outdoors dragged down to Missouri by real glaciers. I guess the Ice Age really did happen. That means dinosaurs are probably real too. Ditto for Sasquatch.

I did three more pans at this spot and found a few more tiny flour pieces of color, and a broken Middle-Woodland arrowhead to boot. We all hiked down about a quarter of a mile from that spot, with the kids finding some neat shell and crinoid fossils along the way. I spied a bedrock formation that looked like a sluice box, and commenced to scooping the material out of the cracks. Pan, pan, pan, tap, tap, tap, more gold! The kids are having fun chasing the frogs and trying to catch the fish trapped in the pools (they never could, slippery little critters). My second pan from this spot actually had two colors in it, a first!

After a few more pans, I stash my concentrates, pack up, and head back to our put-in spot. The kids gather fire wood and I cut some weenie roastin’ sticks. I show them how to start a fire without using paper or dryer lint (like we use for the wood stove at home). Pretty soon we are cooking our supper and enjoying the waning sunlight of this beautiful Missouri fall day. After devouring the hot dogs, we roast some s’mores with the super jumbo marshmallows. I teach the kids how to un-sticky themselves in the creek water. We pack up, defy the laws of physics once again by fitting everything and everyone back in the Pathfinder, and head for home.

The kids unload their fossils and gems, and head off for a proper washing. After bathing the kids and drinking a few victory beers, I pan out the concentrates and the contents of my snuffer bottle. I count twelve or so colors that I can see. I carefully put my golden treasure into a vial, and marvel at what I had done. Missouri gold. I am satisfied, but I can hear the fever whispering to me ... “You know, there’s more out there.” Yeah, I know. And I’m going to find it!

 

[KevinInColorado]

What an awesome story! I love your writing style too congrats on doing real prospecting to find your own gold!!!

 

[MidMoTreasure]

Thanks Kevin. I am trying to develop some level of skill at finding the sparse glacial gold here in Missouri so that some time in the not-too-distant future, the family and I can get a copy of your book and head to Colorado! Plus, Missouri prospecting is cheap family entertainment. The fossils, rocks, frogs, and Sasquatch tracks (probably just a big dog, but I told the kids it was bigfoot) kept the kids active and amazed for a few hours.

 

[arizau]

Nothing better than a live rocky stream and it's denizens to keep young'uns occupied and having a great time when on an outing. Your unsaid question for future outings "Now how do I convince them to do my digging?"

Good luck and have fun with your family!

 

[Johnnybravo300]

Looks like you're onto the old gold there. I bet there are some nice concentrations in the bedrock cracks and pot holes. The natural riffles on the bedrock have been catching that gold since the glaciers receeded.

 

[MidMoTreasure]

Despite it being fall in Missouri, the heat and humidity of summer doesn’t want to loose its grip on us. The wife and I get up early on a Saturday morning for a day of treasure hunting with the two-year-old. We pack our metal detectors and the prospecting equipment. This will be my second time ever prospecting, so I am naturally an expert. I remember to bring along some buckets and my 1/8-inch classifier this time. Pro move! Oh, and I tote along a rock hammer and a wire brush for working the crevices. Next level prospecting!

Before the daytime heat takes hold, we detect for a while. We find a few bucks in modern coins, but no old coins and no silver. The heat approaches Jamaican-level so we load up and head back to the same creek that we successfully prospected the weekend before. My metal detecting and arrowhead hunting experience has taught me that lightning always strikes twice in treasure hunting. Gold prospecting has to be the same.

Once at the creek, we walk a few dozen paces upstream this time until we come upon anther bedrock sluice box formation. I fill a test pan and then hand the shovel off to the wife to fill the buckets with material. The two-year-old commences to splashing in the water and chasing after frogs. Pan, pan, pan, tap, tap, tap. Bust. What have I done wrong? This is the same creek! I fill another pan, same results. No shiny in the black sands. My inflated ego shrinks; I stare blankly at the empty pan. I ask my daughter where the gold is at. She points to the other side and says “Over there!”

She is a two-year-old genius. Silly rookie prospector – I had been sampling the high-pressure outside bend spot of the bedrock. Physics, you are my nemesis. I whacked myself on the head as punishment, and scooped up a pan from the center area bedrock. I worked the material down to the heavies, gave her a few taps, and up crawled two tiny pieces of Missouri gold! I worked through the buckets of material with both the Super Sluice and the Banjo Pan, trying to get a feel for which was the fastest way to catch the most gold. Let me tell ya, that Banjo Pan is really something. You can move a lot of material in a little bit of time. And for a goofy hillbilly like me, the name really fits!

We stowed the concentrates from this spot and I even had a couple big flakes in my snuffer bottle. Missouri pickers we call them, though they are just 20-mesh flakes to the rest of the gold prospecting world. The ladies took a lunch break and I chugged some Gatorade and water to replenish the fluids that had been oozing out of my body in this muggy 89-degree heat. We walked a little more upstream looking for more sluice box formations in the bedrock. It didn’t take long to find another one. To my delight, one of the limestone “riffles” emptied into a natural hole in the bedrock that was about as big as a five-gallon bucket in both circumference and depth. My eyes zeroed in on that spot, and my shovel instinctively followed suit.

I was able to He-Man a large slab of loose limestone to the edge of the water so I could have a seat to pan from. The two Blanchard’s cricket frogs that were residing under said slab were not happy with my decision, and I swear I saw one of them give me the finger as they hopped away. I had put up the Banjo Pan, so it was all Super Sluice for this spot. I fill up the pan with material from the hole and lug it to my perch. Shake shake shake. I dump the washed rocks from the ½-inch classifier and notice there is a lot of material there. Shake shake shake some more. There is a ton of stuff on the 1/8-inch screen too, more than I had seen in the cracks downstream.

I knead the remaining material in the pan and begin working away. I notice more larger chunks of garnet and black rocks, and wish I had thought to bring along the 20-mesh screen. These bigger, round heavies are tough to work off. Tap, tap, tap. Five (5!!) colors crawl up the edge of the pan. I yell for my wife to come see and sit there, mouth agape, staring at the sight. I quickly wash it all into my concentrates tub as it would take way too long to separate the gold from the sands and larger heavies in the field.

I resume the assault upon the hole with my shovel like it was an evil dragon and I was the brave knight trying to rescue the golden princess. Another pan, another five colors! The sands are gorgeous too, black and purple from the tiny garnets. At this point, we are all tired and wet, and the baby is nearly taking a nap on the limestone. She is covered in sand and creek gunk, and clearly in a state of exhausted happiness. One more pan, I promised them. Once more into the gold hole. Scrape goes the shovel on the decomposing limestone as chunks of it hit the pan along with the material. Shake shake shake. Pan pan pan. Tap tap tap. Four colors! Holy Missouri paystreak Batman!

True to my word, we pack up and head home. I have my snuffer and my precious bucket of cons, and the wife has some nice pieces of quartz and citrine. The baby is passed out before we hit the black top. We stop to grab some groceries and a bucket-o-chicken and between the three of us, four pieces of said chicken don’t even make it to the car. Once home, I classify with the 20-mesh and pan through the concentrates with the help of a little Jet Dry that I forgot to take along to the creek (some brilliant, experienced prospector I am). I get nearly triple the gold specks that I got the last trip, and I guarantee that half of them came from the hole. I want to go back, I must go back. The fever burns, and the color calls to me. Just like a chigger bite, scratching the itch only makes it worse. This gold has waited 400,000 years since being forcefully relocated from Canada. I will have to wait a few more weeks to go find some more.

 

[Capt Nemo]

Nice!

 

[Icewing]

Worry not my friend I live in Arcanslaw and they say there is "less gold here than is dissolved in sea water", which makes no sense since we have the exposed limestone bedrock with glacial scalding, quarts, and a few other signs that there at least should be gold. I've tried panning near the sources of some springs and such and it seems they were right, no gold. I just think it's funny how many people know, or know of someone who claims to have found a gold nugget by chance, or how they used to find civil war relics just walking the creek beds.

As for hardware store sand, I figure if there was enough gold in play sand to be worth anyones time, the folks who quarry it would already be running it threw a trommel before they bag it. I'm not saying it isn't possible, just that it's likely going to be hard to find profit in store bought sand.

So best wishes to you, I hope you find more gold than you can carry and report back when you do.

 

[arizau]

Despite it being fall in Missouri, the heat and humidity of summer doesn’t want to loose its grip on us. The wife and I get up early on a Saturday morning for a day of treasure hunting with the two-year-old. We pack our metal detectors and the prospecting equipment. This will be my second time ever prospecting, so I am naturally an expert. I remember to bring along some buckets and my 1/8-inch classifier this time. Pro move! Oh, and I tote along a rock hammer and a wire brush for working the crevices. Next level prospecting!

Before the daytime heat takes hold, we detect for a while. We find a few bucks in modern coins, but no old coins and no silver. The heat approaches Jamaican-level so we load up and head back to the same creek that we successfully prospected the weekend before. My metal detecting and arrowhead hunting experience has taught me that lightning always strikes twice in treasure hunting. Gold prospecting has to be the same.

Once at the creek, we walk a few dozen paces upstream this time until we come upon anther bedrock sluice box formation. I fill a test pan and then hand the shovel off to the wife to fill the buckets with material. The two-year-old commences to splashing in the water and chasing after frogs. Pan, pan, pan, tap, tap, tap. Bust. What have I done wrong? This is the same creek! I fill another pan, same results. No shiny in the black sands. My inflated ego shrinks; I stare blankly at the empty pan. I ask my daughter where the gold is at. She points to the other side and says “Over there!”

She is a two-year-old genius. Silly rookie prospector — I had been sampling the high-pressure outside bend spot of the bedrock. Physics, you are my nemesis. I whacked myself on the head as punishment, and scooped up a pan from the center area bedrock. I worked the material down to the heavies, gave her a few taps, and up crawled two tiny pieces of Missouri gold! I worked through the buckets of material with both the Super Sluice and the Banjo Pan, trying to get a feel for which was the fastest way to catch the most gold. Let me tell ya, that Banjo Pan is really something. You can move a lot of material in a little bit of time. And for a goofy hillbilly like me, the name really fits!

We stowed the concentrates from this spot and I even had a couple big flakes in my snuffer bottle. Missouri pickers we call them, though they are just 20-mesh flakes to the rest of the gold prospecting world. The ladies took a lunch break and I chugged some Gatorade and water to replenish the fluids that had been oozing out of my body in this muggy 89-degree heat. We walked a little more upstream looking for more sluice box formations in the bedrock. It didn’t take long to find another one. To my delight, one of the limestone “riffles” emptied into a natural hole in the bedrock that was about as big as a five-gallon bucket in both circumference and depth. My eyes zeroed in on that spot, and my shovel instinctively followed suit.

I was able to He-Man a large slab of loose limestone to the edge of the water so I could have a seat to pan from. The two Blanchard’s cricket frogs that were residing under said slab were not happy with my decision, and I swear I saw one of them give me the finger as they hopped away. I had put up the Banjo Pan, so it was all Super Sluice for this spot. I fill up the pan with material from the hole and lug it to my perch. Shake shake shake. I dump the washed rocks from the ½-inch classifier and notice there is a lot of material there. Shake shake shake some more. There is a ton of stuff on the 1/8-inch screen too, more than I had seen in the cracks downstream.

I knead the remaining material in the pan and begin working away. I notice more larger chunks of garnet and black rocks, and wish I had thought to bring along the 20-mesh screen. These bigger, round heavies are tough to work off. Tap, tap, tap. Five (5!!) colors crawl up the edge of the pan. I yell for my wife to come see and sit there, mouth agape, staring at the sight. I quickly wash it all into my concentrates tub as it would take way too long to separate the gold from the sands and larger heavies in the field.

I resume the assault upon the hole with my shovel like it was an evil dragon and I was the brave knight trying to rescue the golden princess. Another pan, another five colors! The sands are gorgeous too, black and purple from the tiny garnets. At this point, we are all tired and wet, and the baby is nearly taking a nap on the limestone. She is covered in sand and creek gunk, and clearly in a state of exhausted happiness. One more pan, I promised them. Once more into the gold hole. Scrape goes the shovel on the decomposing limestone as chunks of it hit the pan along with the material. Shake shake shake. Pan pan pan. Tap tap tap. Four colors! Holy Missouri paystreak Batman!

True to my word, we pack up and head home. I have my snuffer and my precious bucket of cons, and the wife has some nice pieces of quartz and citrine. The baby is passed out before we hit the black top. We stop to grab some groceries and a bucket-o-chicken and between the three of us, four pieces of said chicken don’t even make it to the car. Once home, I classify with the 20-mesh and pan through the concentrates with the help of a little Jet Dry that I forgot to take along to the creek (some brilliant, experienced prospector I am). I get nearly triple the gold specks that I got the last trip, and I guarantee that half of them came from the hole. I want to go back, I must go back. The fever burns, and the color calls to me. Just like a chigger bite, scratching the itch only makes it worse. This gold has waited 400,000 years since being forcefully relocated from Canada. I will have to wait a few more weeks to go find some more.



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Good job and entertaining story(s). Have you ever thought about the fact you may also be losing/panning out some much smaller gold from those pans? When you get down to the heavies then do your panning into a safety pan to collect those tails to take home, classify to individual mesh sizes (say +30, +50 and + and - 100) and pan each batch separately. Gold is king in a pan no matter the size it is as long as it matched with only similarly sized material. You might just surprise your self with what you have been missing. Finding "micro" gold is not as gratifying as larger flakes but it all adds up.

Good luck.

PS: Black sand patches on shallow or dry bars in placer areas usually contain some gold especially of the smallest of sizes so panning some of that down to concentrate and playing with it after screening can be entertaining if not productive on a cold winters day.

 

[MidMoTreasure]

Worry not my friend I live in Arcanslaw and they say there is "less gold here than is dissolved in sea water", which makes no sense since we have the exposed limestone bedrock with glacial scalding, quarts, and a few other signs that there at least should be gold. I've tried panning near the sources of some springs and such and it seems they were right, no gold. I just think it's funny how many people know, or know of someone who claims to have found a gold nugget by chance, or how they used to find civil war relics just walking the creek beds.

As for hardware store sand, I figure if there was enough gold in play sand to be worth anyones time, the folks who quarry it would already be running it threw a trommel before they bag it. I'm not saying it isn't possible, just that it's likely going to be hard to find profit in store bought sand.

So best wishes to you, I hope you find more gold than you can carry and report back when you do.

Thank you for the kind words. I haven't heard of much gold being found down there in the beautiful state of Arkansas, but there may be some truth to the "Civil War bullet in every creek" adage. Especially in your area, you could fling a dead rabbit and hit a CW camp. As for the sand, I agree that if it were profitable, there would be no sand on store shelved. That said, I have no shame in running it through a sluice if I were ever to purchase some sand because I NEED it. Just like searching coin rolls, you always break even.

Good job and entertaining story(s). Have you ever thought about the fact you may also be losing/panning out some much smaller gold from those pans? When you get down to the heavies then do your panning into a safety pan to collect those tails to take home, classify to individual mesh sizes (say +30, +50 and + and - 100) and pan each batch separately. Gold is king in a pan no matter the size it is as long as it matched with only similarly sized material. You might just surprise your self with what you have been missing. Finding "micro" gold is not as gratifying as larger flakes but it all adds up.

Good luck.

PS: Black sand patches on shallow or dry bars in placer areas usually contain some gold especially of the smallest of sizes so panning some of that down to concentrate and playing with it after screening can be entertaining if not productive on a cold winters day.

Seriously, are you clairvoyant or are you stalking me??! This adventure was from a few weeks ago, and last weekend I did test the theory that I MIGHT be losing gold. With Missouri gold, it is rare as hen's teeth anyway, and missing even a flake makes panda bears sad. I will post my test results on that next week. When I was undergoing my ninja paydirt training in my back yard, I always used a safety pan, even for second-runs. It really helped my technique. I even have some stubborn black sands saved, just because I believe there may be a gnat-poo of gold left in it. I have the screens all the way down to 100-mesh, all part of my research from lurking on this forum for a while before actually prospecting on my own. The knowledge on the TN forums simply cannot be beat. Some of the best prospectors in the world share their knowledge here, and I am thankful y'all are willing to offer tips to rookies like me.

 

[KevinInColorado]

Great storytelling and you are learning fast! Keep that good luck charm daughter close by!!

 

[Bandmenter]

Bryan,
I first want to say I love your posts. I recall my childhood visits and summer vacations down in Missouri, had an Uncle near Rolla. One very unique thing that Missouri does that you could explorer are the stream culvert bridges. I don't know if you know what I am referring to or not, but these are concrete culverts that double as a bridge. The downstream side are usually washout of many of the fines which would leave the heavies behind. I remember as a kid the waters being about 10 foot deep downstream as everything was washout, great swimming hole and likely a great honey hole. Since aquiring the fever as well, I have given thought to making my way down there to test out my hunch. Would love to meet up next spring to give it a go. Best of luck, dig deep and keep the color.

Bill