Panning Gold

     Panning is used in prospecting for gold and cleanup of concentrates and each is a somewhat different style than the other. Cleanup should have more black sands and gold than any prospect pan, it needs to be panned carefully.to prevent the loss of fine gold, and larger gold too, both can follow black sand right out of the pan with careless panning. I use my free hand to help keep the fines suspended as I pan down but thin flat gold can catch the flow and be lost too. I always pan into a tub or another pan, that way I can liquefy the contents, quickly remove most of the panned material then pan out the last part, usually a quarter of a pan. I use a careful swirling motion to remove some light material near the edge of the pan. After two to three swirls, I usually liquefy the material again then shake the pan then swirl out some material.
      When prospecting, the full pan is submerged in water and material is pushed around with the free hand removing larger rocks, once all clay and mud is removed, gold is often found stuck on rocks in the clay and mud. Any free clay is broken up for the same reason , and attention is paid to roots, they can catch gold, so roots are torn up and shaken in the pan. At this point the pan should have most of the larger rocks removed so panning can start. Again, I liquefy the material left in the pan and start panning with the swirling motion, sweeping out most of the remaining rocks as the material is panned out. Always look over the rocks too, some may have gold or be Jade in some rivers but don't spend too much time here. As the material is panned out I usually leave a few small rocks to help keep the material liquefied removing them when all but the heavy material and gold remain. Once down to the concentrates of the prospect pan, more careful panning is required but you can preview the heavies to check for gold by tipping the far end of the pan up, gold, lost iron and lead will be exposed. If there's gold, feel lucky and remove it with a gold snifter, a flexible bottle with a plastic straw half in and out of the plastic bottle like a beehive honey bottle.
     Picking out gold for a small bottle takes time, time on a river should be used to produce gold concentrates. I always have a plastic bucket to put the cons in for working on at camp or home.