Advice on "to pan or not to pan"

[Bazz]

Hi

Yesterday we spent a lot of time panning a creek in a known gold producing area, the area is not usually frequented by prospectors (that might give me my answer) The spots we tried are down steam from a disused mine, so we went there on those facts alone. The creek has had water flowing all summer.

My questions to the more experienced are:

Would you give up on a creek due to the lack of results over one day?

I guess you would want some colour before tramping in with my highbanker etc?

I hope I'm not retreading old threads......Couldn't find one!!!

Cheers

Bazz

 

[Guest]

Hey Bazz, What i have found is that a lot of blokes dont dig deep enough, they go around digging heaps of test holes testing for gold but in reality they are only scraping off the top layer of the creek bed, i have tested creeks and found nothing in the first 4 or 5 pans then heaps in the next. When testing maximize your chances by testing behind rock,logs in creviceses and sticking to inside bends. And make sure you dig deep enough to know what layers are in that creek bed, the gold may be deep down or on false bedrock or under a clay layer, etc. I do heaps of reco trips, mainly because I like the adventure but the extra time digging proper test holes pays off in gold. If after that you dont find color, scrap that section off creek and find another. A yabby pump is really good for testing as you can get a good deep hole without having to move to much extra material, you can cover a lot of ground in one day with the pump and a pan. Cheers Balx

 

[slowflow]

Go back & sample per Balx, leave the HB at home until you find colour, then get stuck in. There are threads on sampling or youtube. Village had a great example of gully sampling, adopting that systematic approach will let you know where to put the HB. hope it comes good.

 

[Bazz]

Thanks Slowflow and Balx

That has reassured me, we were sticking to bends and under rocks and logs but reading your post I can't tell you what lies below, so we did not dig deep enough.

Great advice thanks for your time

Bazz