Being in Indiana ( glaciated ) you should live and die in search of bedrock of hard packed clay.
Your info says your in Northern Indiana so bedrock may not be easy to find but it's worth the search.
Your gold will almost always be small unless you find a bottom. You seem to be after modern gold which is fun and definitely out there but most gold on those gravel bars will be tiny and considered flood gold. Your looking for gold that hasn't moved since it was deposited by glaciers. Keep and eye out for large round rock/boulders, bedrock, hard blue clay.
Watch on of Docs ( gold hog ) YouTube videos where he talks about "dead presidents gold".
Those different levels of the bank are a clue as to how the creek once ran. During glaciation that creek may have been 50 feet deep and 50 feet across! Alot of water is produced when a chunk of ice a mile high melts. Floods like man has never witnessed. The lower levels may still signify that's where the creek reaches during hundred year floods. Keep and eye out for very heavy items high up on the banks. Gold is heavy and it takes a ton of water to move larger pieces. Those banks that appear in levels are called benches. Find a feeder creek that cuts through that bench and check it out.
In Ohio and Indiana etc you really have to study and use your noggin about where your digging to maximize your efforts.
I promise there is bigger gold here it's just a lot harder to find.
Get good at fine gold recovery as this is the vast majority of what we have.
Lastly read "Midwest prospector" by chuck Lassiter ( hydro force nozzle inventor).
Hope this helps.
