How well do you pan?

A mate who has just come back from a two week fishing and gold panning trip, over Easter.
I asked him to bring back a bucket full of dirt from the river, as the place he was fishing was in well known gold country!
Truly amazing, he didn't give me a bucket full of dirt, instead he produced a 10 kilo bucket half full with his concentrates from what he said was about 50 panning attempts which left him thinking, there was no gold in that area???
So 1 cup full at a time I re panned his worthless dirt! Well I'll tip that into a clean bowl of water! After I'd finished panning the wrest I was amazed at how much gold I recovered which was now in the clean bowl. Almost an ounce, 24+ grams. There was virtually no heavy's all quarts sands, "How easy". Just had to go and return our now wonderful desert bowl with all these gold bits and specs, Some of which I could jam under my finger nail while picking out the smaller bits!
I asked him do you know how to pan? Well the books say look for the tail when your swirling?
OMG How many potential spots have been found, without being found??????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????

someday you have just witnessed what a mate and I have seen over and over! People who are not fishermen but prospectors well maybe fossikers ,giving up on an area because they don't know how to pan correctly !!! 24+ huh not bad for a fisherman lol!

I had the option of saying nothing? Simply not me! Maybe we could start a TV series on what fishermen leave behind?
Was that tag and release!

Someday top post mate and a very valid point….. Panning is above all the most critical part of wet water prospecting. As me old mate Murachu stated how many times have we seen people who call themselves prospectors give up when they should have keep going. I still shake my head in wonderment at the amount of people who use Highbankers and such but have trouble cleaning up the concentrates. It all comes back to panning, how fast you can pan dose not matter but how well you pan dose. Cheers mate good topic.

James how much gold have we found in tailings over the years ?? I remember that day we took that family at El down to show them the ropes ! I couldn't believe the gold they got from tailings on that beech area, you could say there were smiles all round!

Oh mate yes I do remember, wow they were good indeed. The guys that worked that area must have been in a rush … grin.

I was writing a marathon post on this subject. The phone rang, started writing again, phone rang again, started writing again again, wife started talking, then I started writing again.
OK I'm done, pressed send and guess what####### I'm logged off<<##@@>>

Now I feel for you mate …. It dose drive ya nuts big time when that happens. It’s a Bugger hey.

Thats it! I just sent a shorter version and it's gone A-Wall. Yet I bet this goes through??

TYPICAL.

Mate I have had that happen to me sooooo many times arrrrrrrrrrr.

Hate that!! I have found after writing a large post that even if you don't get logged out after some time it will not send to the thread.
To overcome this when you know it is going to be a large post use a program like 'notepad' to write you post and then do the old copy & paste to here.

Good tip that one thanks mate.

Yep i do mine in word then copy and paste --you do learn after a few times!!

It took me more than a few times to learn (getting older now, you see).

I also use Word to compose and then copy 'n paste. By only copying I still can go back for a second helping if I need to.

Gotta laugh! Took a friend out panning today, an old hat I thought? I left him to pan in the small river where you can't miss finding fine gold. I went onto higher ground to take some samples which only took about 5 minutes. He's still panning his first pan? I asked how's it going, Nothing! Had a look in his pan, 1/4 cup of fines still in there?

someday wrote:Gotta laugh! Took a friend out panning today, an old hat I thought? I left him to pan in the small river where you can't miss finding fine gold. I went onto higher ground to take some samples which only took about 5 minutes. He's still panning his first pan? I asked how's it going, Nothing! Had a look in his pan, 1/4 cup of fines still in there?

Yep know what ya mean .... cheers

I did a quick pan 1 foot from his dig, for 10 specs, took like 2 minutes. Shoveled his wash dirt on my 10 specs, 1 minute later there's my 10 specs! It didn't seem to sink in?

Mate one day the penny will drop for them

I posted some where that you should use a sieve? I take that back! Just slows down the progress with no advantage!
Sorry to anyone that took that as good advice? My bad!
Cheers Chris.

someday wrote:I posted some where that you should use a sieve? I take that back! Just slows down the progress with no advantage!
Sorry to anyone that took that as good advice? My bad!
Cheers Chris.

Hi Chris.
I use a seive. Are you saying not to anymore? I have seen others with out them and they still find it. Also I have just started to use a Garrett super sluice and am having troubles. I have a Klondike and it seems to work.
Stupid me i had about a quarter of a cup of fines in the pan and tipped it back to see if i had color. Didn't see any so i thought i had none. As i tipped it forward noticed a large speck. Nearly through it out. I wouldn't have done that with the klondike.
The super sliuce only has two riffles and not lip in the bottom of the pan. But i shall keep trying as it seems you guys like the super sluice.

Jamie

Sorry Jamie. Your assuming I visit prospecting shops and know the names and style of different equipment? I don't!
The last time I went to a prospecting shop was 20 odd years ago when I bought the cheapest gold pan in the store. that's the one I still use today and with great success.
It's the old black plastic job! The uninterrupted rim in the base is where it all happens. Hope they still make them!
Sieving into a gold pan, Waste of time!
Sieving into a sluice of any kind is so important, you can reduce the water flow and slope because your not having to shift large rocks. Which will always mean "More Gold".
Cheers mate.And of course when I bought my 5000, that was from Shepp, so I won't class that as a prospecting shop!

Just bought a 5000 from swan hill detctors, Great guys.

Is the pan you use like the ones on Murachu and James avatar "picture" you can see the botom of the pans.
I too don't realy go into prospecting shops. I am a bit of a sucker for Flea bay.

On my river sluice i have screwed on a peice of mesh so it acts as a clasifier. Havn't used it much but want to. Going up to Castlemaine in the second week of the school holidays for a week so i hope to use it there. Will be detecting and hopfully have a crack at panning. At the moment i enjoy panning more than detecting. Also my young bloke comes with me and has a go and gets some color.

Also modified a highbanker i bought second hand with water jets so i would like to use it for the first time. Going to creswick for a couple of days prior, (outlaws live there). might try slaty creek camp 3 if its open.

Jamie

Bit hard to tell from the photo's, Similar I would say and the condition is about the same too. That's why I hope they still make them? Wouldn't swap it for the world!
When I took a friend panning on Sunday I think he was horrified with my panning method? I won!
Good luck over the holidays.
Cheers.

Garret super sluice. Great for refining your cons, horrible in every other way. Them 2 huge riffles, what a pain!
I'd like to give the klondike pan a go, nice big base and smaller riffles!

i love panning and sampling. its the best way to see exactly what heavies im into in a given area, Other than geochemistry of course. i normally don't clean up the pan in between loads, i'm lazy i guess and normally in a hurry, getting dark etc. For a quick in the field assay i do approx 1000 gram paydirt to work out my % Au or whatever i'm targeting, per ton. 144 pan loads - 10 inch pan = 1 ton or 80 loads per - 16 inch pan = 1 ton. The old timers panned with what ever they could find if they didnt have the money to buy a new wizzbang Gold pan so used, pots, Fry pans, Bowls, even there bare hands with limited success. Anyway, last time i was out, Some Clay in the load right on dark for me and hey presto, the small chunk "2-3 grams" of gold i found and had carried in the pan all day was gone. I would have never thought in a million years i would lose it. too big.. too heavy,, too bad. gone. that was only a week or so ago, Lesson learnt. I re-panned the tailing's etc but never found it again.

I have recently returned home with a lot of gold bearing material.This was the first time I had panned any colour , some pans contained up to 30 specs with occasional specs to .3 of a gram so I collcted about 150 kg.On returning I thought it would be a good idea to make a sluice for this material so I got a piece of roofing gutter and put some ribbed matting into it.The results were ok but luckily I ran it into my pan because a 1 grammar rolled straight through, and after running a bit and panning all after wards I was recovering about 50% .I have since made a good sluice and my recovery is almost 100%. this little experiment made me think that if I were to follow other sluices and run there tailings the benefits could be incredible,no classifying just set up and go. I bet that a lot of sluices out there miss a lot so next time your panning and see some tailings try your luck you may be surprised.