Test Panning?

[Rippin Lips]

Purchased a sluice box a couple weeks ago as metal detecting was turning up a number of square nails. When it comes to test panning, how many gold pieces are you looking for in a pan before you set up your sluice? when it comes to fine gold? When it comes to flake gold?

I know its all personal preference and how much you would be satisfied with taking home at the end of the day. However, I just want to know what everyone elese is looking for before settling.

As I was driving around the Weaverville area in Trinity county I pulled off the rode and grabbed a half pan of material from a spot that caught my attention.

Has a lot of fine gold in this half pan of matterial. Would this satisfy what you all would be looking for in a spot? Or would you take a few more test pans from the spot at different depths and elevations?

I just scraped some matterial off a 2ft wall that had different layers to it. (Dirt-rock-dirt-rock...ect)

Thanks for any info,

-James

 

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[63bkpkr]

Hello R-L James,
The gold you have there is the type of material that 'could' be float gold meaning that it was more or less floating high up in the water and was deposited high up or just near the surface of where it was found. Your first pan tells you there is gold in the stream.

Now identify up stream from that point if the gold continues and keep going up stream till the gold is no more. From the no gold point go back to where you find the gold again and setup your sluicebox IF you are not on someone else's claim. Be sure to confirm your location so you are not on claimed land!

What if it just keeps being fine gold and never stops being fine gold regardless of how far up stream you go? By going up stream you are trying to determine where the concentration of gold is the highest and possibly largest in particle size. If it just continues to be fines with no jump up in quantity per pan then find a spot that is kind to the human body and prospect there. I would guess that in the Trinity's you will find some point at which the gold stops or at least shows a higher quantity.

Oh and when you arrive at the point where the gold is no longer there, take a look around to see if you can identify why the gold stopped. Is there a creek coming in just below he stopping point? Is there a road culvert just downstream from where the gold stopped? Finding gold is a detective game, no pun intended, where is it, why is it there, is there more and the $64 million dollar answer to the question "where did it come from in the first place" or where is the vein? Oh the vein could be under water, sigh, does it never get easier? Only every now and then. And that is why any prospector should first enjoy "being out there" as most of the time it ain't easy getting rich or even finding a tiny, teeny piece of gold.............63bkpkr

Smaller gold like you are showing in the pan Is Gold and therefore save it store it up till you've enough to pay for some special item or just keep stockpiling it, your call, but save it as it is all gold.

 

[Rippin Lips]

Thank you for the information and suggestion 63bkpkr.

 

[Fullpan]

That is definitely fine/flood gold which moves and is replaced by new gold every time the river gets high enough to be runnin "chocolate". As 63bpkr said it adds up over time. Think how many half-pans are in a half bucket - at least 50? I counted well over 50 pieces in your pic - that's 2500 pieces in less than a 5 gal
bucket. That is good enough for me to work.

 

[KevinInColorado]

I agree, make sure you have the right to be there...and DIG!

 

[AlwaysBusyJ]

Lots of good advice here already. How much gold is enough depends on the area and personal preference. Some areas all you can get is flour gold, some people are thrilled to get a few specks, while others won't even consider setting up unless theres a profit to be made. So if you're just out for fun pick a spot thats easy to access and has a good view! If you want to maximize profit, run test pans and take notes till you find the best spot and then run material till your arms fall off. For me, if I'm in unfamiliar territory and it's a short trip, once I'm on gold I test pan for an hour or two till I find my spot, then I dig as deep as I can manage to make sure I'm not missing chunkier gold further down. After running for a good while I do a quick clean up to verify I picked the right spot, if I'm doing as good as I think I should be doing, I keep at it in the same area for as long as I can. When I get home I get on google earth and make notes on all the areas I tested and look for areas I might have missed (and flag them to be investigated further if I go back) then try to analyze why certain areas had more gold and others had less. Keeping a good gold journal can help you out later on as you continue to compile info on the area you'll have a better idea of how much gold is enough to be worth it for that particular region.

 

[Rippin Lips]

Thank you for all the comments and advise. The creek is fair game from what I've seen and who I've talked to. Further up the creek a friend of mine and his wife are care takers for a property and have the permission to access the property to do whatever. Went out there last saturday and found that someone left all there tools, classifiers, trash, and their bags next to the creek within the limits of the property. However, if the laws are like that of a river, the person is in the clear if he walked through the creek to that point. We didn't touch that persons stuff.