Seeking advice and knowledge

[Gagoldnoob]

Hello gentlemen -

I just started my search for gold. Its been something ive wanted to do for a while and ive finally pulled the trigger. Literally like 3 days ago i purchased my first set of pans. I live in north georgia. Forsyth county to be more precise. Right along the etowah. Im 2 miles away from the old Franklin-Crieghton mine. On my property i have a small stream that eventually runs into Settingdown Creek. Ive started digging in the most active portion of the stream i have access to. The stream bed is littered with quartz. I can see a few places of exposed bedrock as well. The place ive started with im maybe just a footdown and ive started digging up clay - is clay a good sign or should i move? So far ive panned through close to two buckets of classified material. Ive found a few flakes but mostly flour gold. I have alot of fine gold specks in my pan. My question is - finding flour gold should i move upstream? Or keep digging deeper? What should i look for to find the bigger peices of gold. I dont know much about gold recovery yet but im guessing the flour gold has to be coming from bigger peices right? Any tips or advice on what i should look for would be great.

 

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[arizau]

If what you are seeing as "gold" is on the surface of that sand then it isn't. If there is gold in that pan then it will be/is buried under the sand. Do this almost fail safe test for what you think is gold. View it in full and shaded light. If the particles still look golden in shaded light then it probably is. Non gold will drastically change color from looking golden in full light to absolutely not looking like gold in shaded light.

Good luck.

 

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[Hamfist]

That material looks brown to me. Gold will be appear bright yellow in shade or under bright light, especially against a blue pan.

I would skip a blue bowl and miller table altogether. They are going to keep you from getting good at finish panning, and when you get good at it, those two pieces of equipment become worthless time burglars.

This is what gold and black sand look like in a blue pan, under dim lighting.

 

[goldenmojo]

So i moved spots today... upstream and on the bank where i think the stream wouldve been 100-200 years ago... and my first pan is ****ing nuts....

Gagoldmoob. Your panshot looks like everyone’s first few pans did, full of lots of junk. Before you invest in any equipment learn how to pan effectively. When you can clear a pan down to black sand and gold in 2-3 minutes you can then start sampling and finding the best concentrations of color. If you find a good streak then buy a sluice. It’s a lifelong adventure. Get good at panning first.

 

[RTR]

Gold pans are GREAT at sampling areas (in the field), Period . Blue bowls are sloooooow at finding gold. To find gold worth your time,You need to" Process Volume". And unless you have $30,000 for a commercial grade shaker table, there is NO better tool than a Miller table !

 

[Gagoldnoob]

 

[arizau]

View attachment 1659185

That's more like it. That pic looks like "ya gotya sum" down at the bottom lip. Be sure to save all your concentrates, including what you washed out except for the pebbles, for when you get your classifier screens...there is likely smaller gold hiding in it that you missed on your first effort that will show when you pan classified cons.

 

[goldenmojo]

View attachment 1659185

Very Nice. You can see the gold in the trough now. It looks like you are worried about flushing your gold out of the pan as we all were when we first started. You still have big rocks and debris in it. With the gold down in the trough where it is in the pic its not going anywhere. Pick those rocks out, fill your pan about 1/8-1/4 full of water, hold your pan somewhat flat with a slight tip downward and quickly shake it right left back and forth flat agitating all of the contents into a slurry while slowly tipping it downward lessening the agitation. This will get the gold to gold down to the bottom of the trough and float the debris so it can be flushed out. It you are agitating it but the water in the pan is clear with no debris suspended in it, you are not agitating it hard enough. Repeat the process by scooping the amount of water needed into the pan and tipping the pan back to fairly flat starting the agitation process again. Eventually you will end up with gold and black sand and your own method of how to pan.

 

[Gagoldnoob]

I appreciate the advice. Yes im afraid of washing the gold out. When i see black sand in the indents i get worried.

 

[goldenmojo]

The only time you have to watch out is when you have lots of fines and lots of black sand. Some places produce lots of black sand. As you pan down and the pan gets cleared of most debris fines can collect in the upper right and left corners along where the sand touches the pan. This will be a good sign that there is a lot of color in your pan but there will still be a small amount of debris on top of the black sand and a lot buried in the sand. If you overwash the pan at this stage without agitating the mix to force the gold down and bring the debris up you can wash that small corner gold out of your pan. Water and agitation. When you get the pan that you have in the pic clean of the debris you will probably find finer gold mixed in with the sand. Gold will hide in the black sand and even when you think you have gotten it all there will still be more. Learning “how to tap” is a big plus at that point. You are on the gold so just keep going forward and you will master it in no time.