Bazz said:
I'll be gentle Bazz......
Ben,... sadly you're 160 years too late for the rush!
In Victorian rivers, streams and creeks we mostly only get to pan the old timers 'leavings'. When the gold take ceased to be payable (ie didn't pay wages) they'd "rush" to the next newly discovered alluvial creek over the range, and so on it went. The days of a pound weight of gold to the pan are history and many creeks were "worked out" in only weeks.... But for us Google is your friend and also Trove Newspapers. From the newspapers you'll learn which creeks were "rushed" and when, how much gold was there and whether it was fine, shotty or coarse and in many cases how much the "stripping" was
ie how far you had to dig down to where the gold deposit was. The newspaper reports on one of the creeks I frequent (I always take home gold from there) said that it was so abundant with alluvial (gold) but with water so scarce, the diggers only bothered with (ie retained) the "tolerably" sized pieces (probably pickers and nuggets) and the smaller nuisance stuff was simply tipped back into the creek. Nowadays not many fossickers will let on where they go and for you I trust the research will be just as rewarding as the digging and finding is for me
good luck
