gold panning

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Thenut

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who here does it?

being that we are in GA i might as well give it a shot. i heard the farther north you get, the better your chances. also heard the chatahoochee aint a bad place either to try

seems fairly straight forward, i figure id like to try for 4 or 5 hours on a nice weekend. any tips on where to go or what to do?
 

dial1911

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I'll have to write this up later tonight- I've been a few times to the usual public accessible spots... Sixes Creek, Blankets Creek, Chestatee River, and a couple other places. Most of them yielded the same results- we found some gold. But I'm not sure I've found enough to pay for the $10 gold pan yet :)


It is a lot of fun and it's nice to get outside and work... believe me, it's work.
 
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dial1911

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please do a write up later!!


I will- and I hope the macro setting on my camera will focus on something as small as the vial of gold flakes I've found.

So long as you're using a shovel powered by cheeseburgers, you're not going to find a lot unless you are extremely lucky. It takes diesel powered machines and private property to really find good stuff.
 
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Cudruln

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My neighbor does panning. He is retired and has nothing better to do. Most of the time he goes to a store somewhere and will buy ~10 lbs of pay dirt and bring it back to the house. He has a decent amount of gold going, so not sure if it is enough to make money on what he has spent though. Next time I see him I will ask him where he goes.
 
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Thenut

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My neighbor does panning. He is retired and has nothing better to do. Most of the time he goes to a store somewhere and will buy ~10 lbs of pay dirt and bring it back to the house. He has a decent amount of gold going, so not sure if it is enough to make money on what he has spent though. Next time I see him I will ask him where he goes.
ive seen folks selling it

id just find a spot, dig out some dirt, and then look through it at the house.

but i kinda like the idea of being outdoors
 

dial1911

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ive seen folks selling it

id just find a spot, dig out some dirt, and then look through it at the house.

but i kinda like the idea of being outdoors


You pretty much have to do some classifying and panning on site to get the concentrates you want to go through... and there's the "prospecting" phase once arriving at the site to try and figure out where there are specks of gold that everyone else missed. Or new deposits.

Off the top of my head, here is some of the best advice I have:

1. Folding shovels suck. Bring a real shovel.
2. Folding chairs are wonderful. Bring a folding chair. Folding chairs can be set up in the water to get you close for panning- so you're not bending over at the waist all day trying to work in ankle deep water.
3. Muck boots are a great idea. However, after you step in the first underwater hole and your boot becomes an aquarium, they're really uncomfortable. Summer time it's nice to have an old pair of tennis shoes to wear in the water. Shoes are a must because of broken glass here and there.
4. Bring a lunch and lots of drinks.
5. Bring a flashlight. This is particularly helpful because we always seem to find the best hot spot right about the time we're going to leave. And then it gets dark. And then you have to find your way back to a vehicle... and there are briars and holes and shit.
6. 5 gallon buckets are handy.
7. Since you've probably noticed the list is adding up, you're going to need a backpack.
8. Plastic sheet or a rain fly- because rain loves gold panners.
9. Put your remote key fob, cell phone, wallet, etc. in a zip lock bag before you get out of the car. This will help in the long run- I promise.
10. If possible, set up to pan on a river where they rent canoes and kayaks and tubes and such. Set up just above some rapids so you get to watch drunk people in kayaks and canoes flip over all day long- it doesn't get old.
11. Oh- and when you decide to dig your first hole in the creek/river bed, make sure it's not at the only easy place to enter/exit the river. I did that once. We stepped in that damn hole all day. Eventually the river fills it back in, but still- that was stupid on my part.
 

dial1911

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Believe it or not, this picture makes it look like I've found even more gold than I have.

I'm not even sure you could measure the flakes I've found. This little vial is the result of about five days of shoveling rocks, washing rocks, and cleaning it all up at home. And I mean five full days. I'm glossing over my last trip to north Georgia when I broke my left knee cap after falling on a rock in the river.

One thing you may not realize about rivers- they have steep banks. If you ever have to climb out of those steep banks with a broken knee cap, you should probably plan ahead a little. A rope would have been great. I had a hell of a time taking off the wet shoes once we got back to the truck. Then next couple of weeks were really hard.

I had my yearly physical about three months after I fell in the river. My doctor was amazed that I walked that injury off- I probably shouldn't have done that.

20160114_202638.jpg
 
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Laufen

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who here does it?

being that we are in GA i might as well give it a shot. i heard the farther north you get, the better your chances. also heard the chatahoochee aint a bad place either to try

seems fairly straight forward, i figure id like to try for 4 or 5 hours on a nice weekend. any tips on where to go or what to do?
I do some panning in Decatur actually. I've found one really small flake, and lots of very small gems. I always finds loads of black sand, so I'm guessing my spots are ok considering it's not N. GA.
 

Thenut

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I do some panning in Decatur actually. I've found one really small flake, and lots of very small gems. I always finds loads of black sand, so I'm guessing my spots are ok considering it's not N. GA.
ya, you need to be up in dem mountains i guess

i found a nice stream and spot in elijah by the cabin i was staying at.
 
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