Due to being a dwarf (5’8), my proximity to a major river known for having gold and spots to look for it, and the current gold prices I have decided to dwarfmax. Anyone here ever panned for gold? I’m not thinking of getting much to start for supplies just a mesh sifter a shovel and a pan. Anyone who pans for gold around here have any input for supplies or tricks?>don’t quit your dayjobI’m not
>>2860725Don't quit your nightjob either.
>>2860725>5’8mmm I'd explore your goldmine lil' buddy
>>2860725Pan(14in, second 12in pan suggested) 1/2in classifier(optional but I highly recommend, 1/8in classifier(optional) shovel and some sort of pick and/or crevacing tool knee pads(also optional but highly recommend) Japanese style gardening gloves with cloth body but palm and fingers have a rough rubber coating will save your finger tips! waterproof gloves are also a very nice addition if you're panning in cold water
>>2860730Oh! and a cheap set of waders are another nice QOL addition.
>>2860725if youre going to be sitting in the same spot for more than 20 minutes youd be better off getting a sluice box and not a pan you can run 5x the material through it and the downsides are that you need to set it up first and need flowing water>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Placer_mining#Sluice_box
>>2860734Spoken like someone that's never been gold prospecting. You need to find gold before you set up a sluice box. Panning is for prospecting sluicing is for "mining" once you've found a decent concentration of gold. You can also pan many places you can't sluice. You need moving water, right speed /angle to get the correct flow based on the individual sluice and riffle material/type.
>>28607255'8" isnt even dwarf status. I wish you were 5'4".
>>2860738anyone under 6' is a dwarf
>>2860725All the gold-bearing rivers and creeks near me already have claims up and down them. Are you sure you won't be poaching on someone's stake?
>>2860765NTA... You can usually find BLM and BOR land that is unclaimable. In my area, for example, the main river is unclaimable, only tributaries have claims. You will be potentially competing wit ha lot more people on unclaimable land, but if you know when and where to look, you can find good spots.
>>2860735he said he knows where the gold is and where to look for it he skipped the panning stage
>>2860825>Tell me you know nothing about gold prospecting without telling me you know nothing about gold prospecting
>>2860828Not that guy but I've only panned a few times. Why is it bad to classify half a bucket at a promising spot, sluice it and pan the heavies? I have a mini sluice that takes very little to set up
>>2860857Because you want to sluice ground that has good gold in it. Otherwise you're wasting your time. You could spend a few hours sluicing and end up with an unweighable amount of gold or you could spend that same amount of time and end up with a gram or two. You need to test pan to figure out where the higher concentration of gold is. If I'm going up to one of my claims, I know there is gold there. I know where it "should" be concentrated based on geology/hydrology but I don't know if the ground actually has the gold I think should be there unless I pan. And if you're on public, unclaimable, land you don't know that that spot hasn't already been hit by someone else(assuming they filled in their holes like they're supposed to) So I could be digging in a spot that has one speck/flake per pan or 20. But I don't know until I test pan. If you're only going out there to get out of the house and you don't care if you actually find good gold and any amount will make you happy, sluice without test panning. But if you actually want to find gold and you're going out to find a couple grams, you need to test pan.
>>2860904Guess it makes a big difference if there is the potential for a lot of gold. I'm in new england and am definitely happy to find specks and flakes when not on a trip to a better area. My immediate area is pretty gold poor
>>2860907Why would you go gold panning where there is no gold? That's like fishing in a pond with no fish...
>>2861055It is enjoyable and meditative. Alone on the river picking through garnets hoping to see a flashOn a normal weekend I don't have enough time to really make it worth a trip to a better gold zone but still want to see what is here
>>2861055Gold doesn't always follow the rules. There's a place in Victoria (Aus) called 'No gold here' dam. They chose the spot for their water supply because they thought that it was not worth mining, started digging the dam and ran into previously undiscovered lead under the barren surface soil.The chunk in the pic came from an area with no record of alluvial gold being found, and you can wash 50 pans without seeing a speck either side of the crevice it was wedged in.
>>2861086>>2861130Ok Todd Hoffman
>>2861130Bet it was found with a detector not a pan.
>>2861159Yeah, it was. There's fine gold further downstream but then it stops and is replaced by occasional chunky bits. Just saying that just because you're getting nothing in your test pans doesn't mean that you're in a spot with no gold.
>>2861168So, no meaningful gold. A commercial gold operation would spend far more money getting what little gold is there out than they would recoup with the gold they found. A lucky nugget here or there that can be found with a lot of time, effort and a couple thousand dollar metal detector. To me, that's the same as "no gold". If you're happy with spending several hours of digging and panning/sluicing for an unweighable amount of gold, we're not playing the same game. And it doesn't matter how high the gold price is, because you'll never make any money. >>2861086If you're picking through garnets and accidentally finding gold, you're rock/gem hounding not gold panning. Which isn't a problem, if you enjoy it, do it. But like I said to the other anon, we're playing a different game.
>>2861234>we're playing a different game.That's true. I would take it a bit more seriously if the resources were there, but I'm just fucking around and practicing for when I'm in a richer area
>doesn't understand the joy of being alone in nature >adverse to hard work unless he's getting rich>just wants the goooold Sounds awfully jewish to me.
>>2861248If I'm going gold panning, I want to find gold. Just like if I go fishing, I want to catch fish. So I'm going to pan where there is gold and I'm going to fish where there are fish. I've already stated that if you just want to get out of the house to enjoy nature, cool, you do you. >adverse to hard work unless he's getting richIf I plant and maintain a garden, I expect to get get fruit and vegetables from it. If you enjoy hard work for no benefit, you're a moron and probably poor. Value your time and energy anon. It's not a negative trait.>just wants the goooooldYou're in a gold thread retard
>>2861250Just shit-stirring bro. I'm sure we'd get on just fine, you're unlikely to find the type of gold I'm targeting and I'm unlikely to put a dent in the type of gold deposit that you're working.
I'm thinking about getting my first gold detector. My budget is saying minelab gold monster 1000. But the 2000 just came out a few months ago. It's a bit over twice the price. But is supposed to have a better processor and better discrimination. As a beginner, should would I notice a difference? Is it twice as good or easy to use? And over the long run, will I be better off investing in the newer model? Or should I just get the 1000?
>>2861706Also any other gold detector brand/model suggestions. I would love some real world feedback, personal experience, not just youtube says X or Grok says Y Grok says the garrett goldmaster 24k is better than the gold monster 1000. But is that true? I know minelab is the youtube go to brand. But is it better or just more popular? Is there another brand that's even better than I don't know about? So, what is the best beginner gold detector at around $1000
>>2860734Sluicing is illegal retard
>finds $2 of gold flecks>GIGGLESQUEE I MADE IT>realizes some jeet will pay him pennies on the dollar for itcool have fun
>>2860725>Mucking about in the dirt for goldGoblin coded. It's only dwarf-worthy if you're digging into rock or at least earth.
>>2861766more like>find $2 of gold flecks.>don't own mineral rights for the property.>government seizes it when you try to sell it.
>>2861713I've got a Minelab SDC2300. Folds up to fit in a backpack, waterproof and piss easy to use. It's sensitive enough to pick up gold as small as half a rice grain but doesn't give false signals on anything except rocks that are almost pure iron. Only downsides are that it's not real ergonomic and there's no iron discrimination. Couple of mates have gold monster 1000s and they squawk and give off signals on every mineralized rock, especially when it's wet. They are great for finding the tiniest little flakes of gold in shallow, unmineralized soil but the amount of noise that they make kinda ruins the serenity for me.
>>2861804I've seen that one a lot on YouTube too. Unfortunately, it's a couple thousand dollars out of my price range.
>>2861706I think grok just talked me into getting the gold monster 1000. My primary prospecting locations are only moderately mineralized. More so out towards Trinity. But not as much in Shasta County or the northern Sierra Nevadas. It's pretty neat that you can ask AI follow up questions and it'll continue updating it's responses based on all of the previous inputs. Based on my budget, prospecting locations and user feedback about several different VLF detectors. It would seem the 1000 is my best bang for the buck option. The 2000 is getting mixed reviews. Better on hot or highly variable locations, but will not always read gold if it's near that hot material. So I'll probably get the 1000 and look into something like the SDC2300 Sometime in the future, assuming I can actually find enough gold to justify it. Not buying it now, still need to wait until the first of March. So if anyone else has more feedback, please share!
>>2861909I just ordered the Goldmaster 24k. It was neck and neck with the Gold Monster 1000, but $200 cheaper and supposed to have slightly better penetration with it's 48htz vs 45htz and slightly better discrimination.
>>2862150Woo hoo! Time to go find some nuggets!
>>2862401Nice, I'd suggest taking some various size pieces of lead out with you the first few times. Lead sounds pretty much identical to gold on all the detectors I've used and will help you train your ears.
>>2862402I made some specimen cards with some pickers I had. .017, .02, .03, .1, .14 and .24g each a single piece of gold. I have smaller ones, but my scale wouldn't register them smaller than the .017g. I sandwiched them in a piece of clear packing tape and put a piece of masking tape with the weight in the corner. I'll grab some lead sinker weights and add them to my specimen cards for when I take it out in the backyard tomorrow. I tried it in my living room but there's to much interference with all of the wires and electronics. I'll take it out somewhere there's a potential for nuggets this weekend.
>>2862405Well, not this weekend. I was hoping the forecast for rain would be just a light sprinkle, like it has been, on and off, for the last couple weeks. But no, drenching downpour with thunder and lighting! Not going out in this. Forecast is saying Monday and maybe Tuesday will be clear/overcast. So I'll try to get out then.
>>2862458Going out tomorrow. I'm going to hit some spots I've dug and found flour gold to see if there are any nuggets I've missed.
>>2862534Nuggets will generally stay close to the source unless carried by glaciers while flour gold can travel miles in creeks and rivers. Keep pushing upstream if you don't have any luck.
>>2862534Digging in mud sucks! All of the spots I tried were far to saturated. I got several "hits" on the detector. They were clear and repeatable in the 90s. A couple were hot rocks with visible iron oxidation. One has a target on one side but not the other. It was to muddy to even try and wash it in the field. I'll throw it in a pan and wash it to see if there's anything in the mud. The rest of my targets, I couldn't find. The mud made digging and scooping nearly impossible. Even if I was able to get the target in my scoop, there's no way I could divide it. So..... I'm back to waiting. With all of the rain we've had and are expecting, there should be fresh flood gold in the creeks once the water levels drop back down. And I'll wait until the soil has returned to a non goopy state before I bring the detector back out. It was a fun, if a bit frustrating and unfruitful day.
>>2862548A lot of what I'll be detecting on are old tailings. Most of the nuggets I'm hoping to find were missed by the old time miners. I'm not sure if there is any true virgin ground around here. It was all hit pretty hard in the late 1800s and again in the 1970s.
