Panning In Central Illinois

[flinthunter]

I hope the experts on here can help me. Just for fun, I am going to try my luck at panning for a little of the flour gold deposited by the glaciers here in Central Illinois. Should I work the sand bars or try panning the gravel bars? I am aware that any flakes will be tiny any that there will be very few if any. It's just for fun but any ideas you can give me might give me a bit of an edge. Thanks.

 

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[russau]

id pan both because of it being glacial drift material. one word of caution! if im not mistaken, the state of Illinois claims it owns All precious metals found in that state. private property or not. mums the word!

 

[tvanwho]

We found good gold,mostly fines but lots of them, in a creek west of Peoria, can't say just where as my friends would kill me. This creek had black mud in spots, shale bedrock in spots, and football size and larger, rusty lookin pyrite rocks,and black sands. I seem to recall we dredged by the bank by a wing dam where we did the best. I had fergot to bring 1 little hose so was unable to dredge with the guys and had to just watch. I did found a few specks in a tiny creek near Kankakee some years back too. Look fer them rusty reddish rocks especially, and start diggin.

-Tom V.

 

[flinthunter]

Thanks for the replies. I'm a little North of Peoria and have quite a few large and small gravel bottom creeks I can play around in.

 

[tvanwho]

If you need a buddy, let me know.I am in Aurora myself, a 2 hour drive to Peoria, but I don't mind now and then.I have 3 bazooka sluices,might need to sell one or sell my old fashioned ones.

-Tom V.,ps, hey Russ...I thought you wuz in Wyoming/Colorado digging for the yeller stuff? Did you downsize to a smaller dredge?

 

[russau]

im in the process of doing that. I hurt my back 2 years ago and I haven't been out since. ive already sold a lot of my equipment . I built a 2 inch light weight dredge to try out some Gold Hog matting, but flooding and my sore back have been keeping me from getting out. ive posted my dredge for sale with our club website. im feeling a little froggy and want to get my dredge back into the water but finding help is the other problem!

 

[flinthunter]

Got a chance to go to the creek for a couple hours this last Sunday and pan a little sand. I had an absolute blast doing this. I think I'm hooked on a new hobby. I've never panned before so I really wasn't expecting to find anything. By the third pan I was able to easily separate the black sand from the small amount of the remaining normal sand. Finding magnetic black sand gave me a little hope that there might be a flake or two of gold. I'm using a plastic White's maroon colored pan and think I now realize what "I've got color" means. What a thrill. It's a tiny flake a little less than half the size of a pin head, but with the sun shining off of it in the bottom of that maroon pan, it really stood out. I also picked out a tiny speck that I think should be gold just because of the way it stood out against the pan. I think my winter project will be to make a sluice.