Any Gold mining/panning hobbyists here?

[mykulmorris]

Anyone here who knows anything about panning for gold? I have a few curiosity questions... Thanks!
-M

 

[yablanowitz]

I've done it once, have a tiny bit of color to show for it which surprised the claimholder. We were working much shallower than he expected to find anything.

 

[mykulmorris]

I've always wondered... You see miners in the old days panning around the riverbanks and using the pans because the gold goes to the bottom of the pan... wouldn't it also go th the bottom of the river... what if you took a scuba setup and a vaccuum type fixture and went out to the middle/deepest part of the small rivers where they couldn't get to it years ago with old fashioned equipment... would you do any good? or has someone tried it already??? I once lived in California near the southern part of the sierra nevadas, there's still gold in them thar hills, just harder to find...

-M

 

[bmilla35]

If it were in PA, i'd be doing it everyday. I watch gold prospecting every saturday

 

[yablanowitz]

That's pretty much what they're doing these days in some of the old gold strike areas. My girlfriend's son used to live in Orfino, Idaho and had part interest in a claim. He said guys were using scuba gear and digging down 8 to 10 feet deep in the creek bed to get to the layers that were inaccessible back in the day. That's why he was surprised that I was able to get a bit of color just fooling around a few inches below the surface of the bed. It's not too common for someone to gather enough gold to pay for the equipment, though.

 

[kiddsgames]

what if you took a scuba setup and a vaccuum type fixture and went out to the middle/deepest part of the small rivers where they couldn't get to it years ago with old fashioned equipment... would you do any good? or has someone tried it already???
-M

its called dredging and ive known more than one individual to do it here in ga. They have to watch out though. Its highly illegal in some places. A guy i worked with recently told me of times he would take a 5" dredge (pipe width) and dig out swimming pool sized holes. A big danger when you have dug that big of a hole in the bottom of a river is the sides falling in on you. Since the water fills any gaps, its almost impossible to get out unless you can dredge your way out.

still, you wouldn't make a killing doing it, but you would have an awesome time!

 

[dttomcat]

There was a thread here some time ago, maybe 2 or 3 years back, where somebody said that a couple who were friends of his in AK did it in their spare time and raked in ~$80,000 to $90,000 in the previous year. Gold was tens of percentage points less valuable at the time of his post.