Gold Panning in SW Iowa?

[yaoguai]

Hello all, I am new to gold panning and I heard about some gold being found in Iowa. I live in Council Bluffs, Iowa. (Next to the Missouri River) There are many streams and springs around (in the hills and other places) that I have found and have permission to go on. I was wondering if there is any gold to be found in Pottawattamie County Iowa (or surrounding areas, Omaha, small town streams)? I would love to do this for recreational purposes and to have a bit of fun in the spring and summer. Would love to know if there are any chances on this !

 

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[russau]

Welcome to TN! theres gold in all areas, but its going tobe fine gold. captureing it will depend on your knowledge and skill. your best/easiest way to find gold is to get together with a club or another prospector to learn the ropes. id do this before you buy any equipment other than a gold pan and then start practicing your panning skills. keep panning in a tub untill you can save the fine gold.and then repan all of what you just panned and keep at it.theres a million vids on how-2-pan . one of them will be just fine for your skill/style. i know Iowa has some clubs. contact one of them.

 

[Jimmydolittle]

Perhaps this link will be of some help. WELCOME TO WWW.IOWAGOLD.NET YOUR SOURCE FOR PROSPECTING INFO

 

[Lanny in AB]

Glacial gold will concentrate in even the smallest stream. It will be a great way to test your panning skills, for if you can trap that tiny flour gold, you'll catch the bigger stuff once you get the chance.

I once had cabin fever bad and went out when we had a mid-winter thaw. I panned the little runoff streams from large fields. Guess what? Flour gold in every pan. Not much, but it broke the cabin fever. Then, the weather got cranky and it dropped back to -25.

Get out when and where you can and follow the three rules of prospecting: 1. Test 2. Test 3. Test.

All the best,

Lanny

http://www.treasurenet.com/forums/metal-detecting-gold/69-bedrock-gold-mysteries.html

 

[Rob in KS]

There was a guy on here several years ago that panned and sluiced around the St.Joseph area. He hit the smaller creeks and found glacial gold. He actually did pretty well considering he was in MO. The trick might be to move more material with a sluice if you can find the stream flow to run it. You know the gold is going to be super fine from the glaciers. You might want to build a sluice with the gold hog mats, great for catching the fine gold.

Here are a couple of posts

http://www.treasurenet.com/forums/panning-gold/228102-mo-missouri-gold-pic.html
http://www.treasurenet.com/forums/gold-prospecting/226978-more-missouri-gold.html

I guess if you are on the river, you should look out for gem stones too
http://www.treasurenet.com/forums/r...iver-sapphires-gold-picture-year-s-booty.html

You should also read, read, read here on T-net while the snow and ice is around there is a lot of great information here. The posts go back for several years. I only spent a minute searching to find those 3 posts.