Your first time wild gold find?

[catfishjim90]

Thought it would be cool to start a new thread on, your stories of finding your first wild gold. Paydirt dose not count.
Happy pans.

 

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[arizau]

I have always had a natural interest in gold prospecting since my Father and other relatives worked in the gold mines near Nevada City, Ca. pre WW II but I never lived near a gold producing area while growing up. Then comes 1968 fresh out of college and a 2 year stint of active duty Navy reserve and working at a major open pit copper mine from which I later retired. Conversations at work about prospecting led to a mining engineer friend showing me an old gold prospecting district near town. I bought a 10 or 12" steel gold pan, geologist hammer, 5 gallon plastic jerry can and an army surplus entrenchment shovel, went out again and saw where two other guys were digging and they said I could join them....found nothing. Made several more unproductive trips until a local ranch hand/family member came up to me on a later visit and showed me how to pan properly....soon found my first gold and it was a paper match tip sized picker. On later visits (I was single then and usually went every Saturday and Sunday) the ranch hand came to visit me a couple more times, then took pity on me and showed me a spot over the hill from where I was panning where I ended up finding gold in virtually every pan all the while limiting how much I could pan since I had to spill all the water from every pan onto the ground....I knew nothing then about production panning so that I could bring home some concentrates to pan properly. After a hiatus for marriage and kid raising I sadly found that those spots were off limits as it was locked up as private land...not sure if it was originally and they just did not care at the time (?). I wish I knew then what I know now and that I had had my drywasher....humping gear and a jerry can of water over a hill is not fun and pretty much undoable for me at my age now. The area is still my primary prospecting place but it is largely claimed. Other places I used to go nearer to the Mexican border are personally off limits due to the potential of encountering illegal alien traffickers. Really limiting for me and many others. My hope is that it will soon be safe due to the new administrations stricter enforcement of the laws and the proposed wall.

Heavy pans.

 

[bobw53]

My first piece of wild gold.. Came out of my driveway... I was really green at the time and hadn't even played with paydirt yet..
I can't verify that it was actual gold since I snapped a pic and then tried to grab it with tweezers, and BOING... It disappeared forever.
I'm pretty sure it was since I gave a bunch of that dirt to my exterminator, and he found 4 little pieces and I sent some to my Dad on
the East coast, and he found one piece.

This is my first VERIFIABLE wild gold.. (not my driveway) Panning in the kitchen... Nothing nothing nothing, then shake and this is what popped out..
I damn near crapped my pants I was so happy.

And so you don't think I'm crazy panning driveway dirt, I'm just downhill from an area where they pulled a verified 12k ounces out. Gold
wasn't primary, but it was/is there. Here is a shot of the driveway.