Ben Cartwright SASS
Bronze Member
I just reread my post here, sorry for rambling but I wanted to get it all in.
Today my wife and I decided for our 32 anniversary to go up to the Baker and Swift rivers in NH to check out the areas and maybe do a little panning. We have never panned before.
A couple weeks ago I sent away for the free sample of paydirt from Felix and panned it out to see how real gold would act and look (I had already tried lead flakes from my reloading bench) it was about an ounce of dirt and had about 10 flakes, maybe 1/100 of a gram but I was able to find it. I also bought .050 of flakes, about 15 for $5 yea, too much but it let me practice in some river gravel.
Anyhow I drove 3 hours from home to the Baker River in my 1997 Grand Marquis (V8) and found no treaspassing signs, not very noticible as the trees had fallen slightly towards the river, so I scooped about 20 pounds of river gravel and then drove and hour and a half over the Kancamangus Hwy to the Swift river. We got about 30 pounds of gravel there to take home and then spent a couple hours panning.
My wife got excited, and so did I by all the "gold" we found in the pans, but when I push on the flakes (and micro flakes) with the tweezers they crushed, some leaving gold streaks on the pan but crushed none the same.
I think I found one flake, I looked at it under 16x magnification and it looks like gold, and when I pushed on it with the tweezers it seemed to wrap around the point. it is probably about the size the head of a pin.
I saw a thread saying people should not buy paydirt of "non concentrated dirt" but today I drove for 8 hours (3 hours up 5 hours back by different route), $74 in gas, $15 for lunch for the wife and me (high class place) wear and tear on the car (the IRS figures 45 cents a mile including gas would be $192 but I never figure that) plus tolls on the highway another $6 so it was an easy $100 day for a flake about the size of a grain of fine grain gun powder.
If I buy paydirt it is about $35 for commercial paydirt per pound or $55 from a repudiable member of the forum and I have a chance to get up to a gram of gold. I am still so new to this that finding any gold if a hoot and the panning is good practice.
I also find driving very tiring as I had a stroke a few years ago and also have bad arthritis so that I cannot bend my knees more than 90 degrees so I cannot kneel (and to top it all off I am a disable Vet). In fact when I got to the river it took about 3 minutes just to be able to walk upright.
I personally think letting someone else do the digging is nice, yes you pay for that but for now I want to find gold.
Now that being said, there was nothing in the world like sitting on a rock swishing the pan, along side a river that was so loud I couldn't hear my wife talk to me, the experiance was fantastic!
I guess I am torn both ways and maybe for now I will buy paydirt but also plan a weekend trip up to the river and camp out in the National Forest, the camping season ends in a month.
Today my wife and I decided for our 32 anniversary to go up to the Baker and Swift rivers in NH to check out the areas and maybe do a little panning. We have never panned before.
A couple weeks ago I sent away for the free sample of paydirt from Felix and panned it out to see how real gold would act and look (I had already tried lead flakes from my reloading bench) it was about an ounce of dirt and had about 10 flakes, maybe 1/100 of a gram but I was able to find it. I also bought .050 of flakes, about 15 for $5 yea, too much but it let me practice in some river gravel.
Anyhow I drove 3 hours from home to the Baker River in my 1997 Grand Marquis (V8) and found no treaspassing signs, not very noticible as the trees had fallen slightly towards the river, so I scooped about 20 pounds of river gravel and then drove and hour and a half over the Kancamangus Hwy to the Swift river. We got about 30 pounds of gravel there to take home and then spent a couple hours panning.
My wife got excited, and so did I by all the "gold" we found in the pans, but when I push on the flakes (and micro flakes) with the tweezers they crushed, some leaving gold streaks on the pan but crushed none the same.
I think I found one flake, I looked at it under 16x magnification and it looks like gold, and when I pushed on it with the tweezers it seemed to wrap around the point. it is probably about the size the head of a pin.
I saw a thread saying people should not buy paydirt of "non concentrated dirt" but today I drove for 8 hours (3 hours up 5 hours back by different route), $74 in gas, $15 for lunch for the wife and me (high class place) wear and tear on the car (the IRS figures 45 cents a mile including gas would be $192 but I never figure that) plus tolls on the highway another $6 so it was an easy $100 day for a flake about the size of a grain of fine grain gun powder.
If I buy paydirt it is about $35 for commercial paydirt per pound or $55 from a repudiable member of the forum and I have a chance to get up to a gram of gold. I am still so new to this that finding any gold if a hoot and the panning is good practice.
I also find driving very tiring as I had a stroke a few years ago and also have bad arthritis so that I cannot bend my knees more than 90 degrees so I cannot kneel (and to top it all off I am a disable Vet). In fact when I got to the river it took about 3 minutes just to be able to walk upright.
I personally think letting someone else do the digging is nice, yes you pay for that but for now I want to find gold.
Now that being said, there was nothing in the world like sitting on a rock swishing the pan, along side a river that was so loud I couldn't hear my wife talk to me, the experiance was fantastic!
I guess I am torn both ways and maybe for now I will buy paydirt but also plan a weekend trip up to the river and camp out in the National Forest, the camping season ends in a month.
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