Gold panning

[DAVENYK66]

Took my first step towards my new gold panning hobby.
Well first steps have already been taken, but bought a few supplies today.

[DAVENYK66]

scouted out a few places by the river , she's pretty high but apparently once it goes down that's good for gold panning.

[DAVENYK66]

Went down to Gold Bar Park also

[DAVENYK66]

so , according to the guy at Bedrock Supply, these rectangular pans are the easiest and most effective to use. Apparently you can shake the pan with one hand leaving your other hand free to hold a beer. Yes Apparently you may drink beer down by the river. Isn't that wonderful. Looks like I picked a good hobby this time. My last hobby in SK was fixing and riding old ski-doos, beer doesn't go too well with that. But I digress, I can also tell you that once I get into doing this I will be known as , 'a river person'.

We also got 'the only book we will ever need.

And picked up a permit form and some more printed information. I have lots to read while waiting for the river to go down. Don't need to worry about the permit until I actually get a sluice box with a pump. When I do it is 50 clams for 5 years, or so they say.

Starter kit, think maybe I overpaid for this but got lots of advice from the guy so whatever.
Everything I got today was around $100.00. Bedrock guy said I'll make that back but I just want to try something new and have fun.

The pellets are for pest control, unrelated to the gold panning endeavour.
I have shovels , boots, a truck, think there is some beer kicking around somewhere and maybe I'll see some of you on WWN (Wednesday Wing Night)

[Rockjockey]

You might want to pick up a classifier (sieve). Eliminates dealing with all but the fine material. The gold in The North Sask is really fine. Good Luck and hopefully we see you on Gold Rush Edmonton

[recce43]

The modern goldseekers manual doesn't look very modern lol

[TBark]

Enjoy your new hobby, we sure do, and its our first year too.
That is the best book for our area. They were sold out when I was there last.
You could be waiting til near Aug now for proper river levels for panning.
And as for "making your $100 back" ya ok, don't count on it in your first year.
But we do it for the fun anyways.
We sluiced an Island on NSR in early May when levels were good, in an few hrs we figure we got 300 specks of gold, about $10 worth, it was great to see. But at near 60,000 specks to the oz, you need a whack of specks, ha.

TBark

[6tmile]

This is me and my sons panning in a total of 8- 12 hrs at our favorite spot.

[6tmile]

[6tmile]

The area we pan this year is showing very course gold with a lot of small nuggets. Now just waiting for this high water to go down so we can get back and hit the MOTHER LOAD!!!!

[Arbourjay]

Way cool! Always thought that would be right on! Panned for gold in Barkerville when i was just a wee lad. The pans were preloaded but a fond memory. Thanks Granny and Gramps! They are long gone, but the memory lives on.

[Saltmania]

Originally Posted by Arbourjay

Way cool! Always thought that would be right on! Panned for gold in Barkerville when i was just a wee lad. The pans were preloaded but a fond memory. Thanks Granny and Gramps! They are long gone, but the memory lives on.

Same here. Been there many times. Bought myself a steel pan years ago there when I was a teen. I tried panning a bit around Prince George a few times but never came up with anything and gave it up.

Anyway just wanted to say cool thread.

Good luck with your panning!

[Rockjockey]

Pretty coarse gold for the NSask, the bigger nuggets do not look like they have been moved very far.

[6tmile]

Originally Posted by Rockjockey

Pretty coarse gold for the NSask, the bigger nuggets do not look like they have been moved very far.

Its not from the NSR, but a creek that runs into it out west.

[Happiestcamper]

Hello All,

I'm new to this site and also to gold panning. I'm in Lethbridge and looking for someone to go out gold panning with. I'm new to the area and don't really know where to go. I was hoping to go west of here for a day trip, if you have any advice or would like to buddy up please let me know.

P.S. Sorry for intruding on your thread, but I can't seem to find the "start a new thread button." lol

Regards,

Tracy

[Kokanee9]

Originally Posted by Happiestcamper

Hello All,



P.S. Sorry for intruding on your thread, but I can't seem to find the "start a new thread button." lol

I wouldn't worry too much about starting a new thread. This thread was probably the best place to post that your looking for someone to share a hobby.

[DAVENYK66]

Hi , no problem.

Have you done any panning at all yet?
It's more fun with other people for sure. It didn't take us too long to learn ,check that you tube link I posted , the old timer gives a pretty good demo and explains how to shake out a pan pretty good. Post #37

The classifiers work good for us but my friend has just an old kitchen strainer and that works just fine too.

I don't know anything about the Lethbridge area but you can shoot of questions and I can try to help or someone else might.

Soon I'll try and get a pic of some I concentrated down, just been busy.

Happy gold panning

[Red Bullets]

Originally Posted by DAVENYK66

Hi , no problem.

Have you done any panning at all yet?
It's more fun with other people for sure. It didn't take us too long to learn ,check that you tube link I posted , the old timer gives a pretty good demo and explains how to shake out a pan pretty good. Post #37

The classifiers work good for us but my friend has just an old kitchen strainer and that works just fine too.

I don't know anything about the Lethbridge area but you can shoot of questions and I can try to help or someone else might.

Soon I'll try and get a pic of some I concentrated down, just been busy.

Happy gold panning

A person just has to understand that gold is denser than most other minerals and liquids. When you shake your pan, even if it is micro fine gold, that gold will hit the bottom of your pan very fast. seconds. In alberta, once you 'shake' you pan for 30 seconds, pretty much everything above the bottom 1/2 inch in your pan is garbage. Knowing this you can power through a pan of gravel in 3 minutes or so.

[DAVENYK66]

you need to 'liquify' the material in the pan.