Hi guys (& gals), i'm a 26yr old lad from Ballarat Vic that recently got bitten by the bug. Had spent most of my free time fishing until my brother-in-law dragged me out to a creek with a shovel & pan, didn't find a thing. Headed out again with the addition of a cheapo sluice & a bilge pump, found 1 spec. The next time he came up we spent 1/2 a day making a Frankensteins Monster of a recirculating system and a building a home made high banker to bolt to the top of the cheapo sluice, gave it a test & found 4 specs.
It was by this point i'd come to realise that perhaps these giant fugly machines while novel, weren't overly effective, & neither was the brother in laws panning skills since he insisted on being the one to work down the material, only to throw out the pan of material once it was worked down to 5-10mm thick.
Well i've been speaking to an older work mate who did a bit of panning back in the day & mentioned I wouldn't mind buying a rota-pan to give it a whirl as it looked much simpler then the abominations we'd been building & he let me know he had one sitting around & would bring it in the next day. Well on the weekend just gone I managed to snag half an hour to myself so headed out and dug up 2 buckets of material, brought it home & put it through the rota-pan. Found it took some getting use to but once you found the knack of the design, it was very simple to work with, took around 6-7min & a heap of water to get the 2 buckets through it, but with no brother-in-law laying in wait to snatch the pan I had time to relax and slowly work it down to nothing but black sand & gold (which felt like an eternity to be honest, working down the top 90% took all of a minute, the last little bit took me a solid 10min to get through). Now I didn't find my retirement fund in the bottom of the pan but I was very pleased to find a dozen or so little chunks & a fair bit of fine gold having only brought home a couple of buckets, needless to say i'll be ordering a rota-pan next pay cheque & spending quite a bit of time in the forest once the water's flowing.
Have also been looking into the detector side of prospecting for when it's a bit dry for much else, but need to save my pennies a bit longer for the machines i've been drooling over.
I'd best stop rambling on, just thought i'd best introduce myself
Cheers, Josh
It was by this point i'd come to realise that perhaps these giant fugly machines while novel, weren't overly effective, & neither was the brother in laws panning skills since he insisted on being the one to work down the material, only to throw out the pan of material once it was worked down to 5-10mm thick.
Well i've been speaking to an older work mate who did a bit of panning back in the day & mentioned I wouldn't mind buying a rota-pan to give it a whirl as it looked much simpler then the abominations we'd been building & he let me know he had one sitting around & would bring it in the next day. Well on the weekend just gone I managed to snag half an hour to myself so headed out and dug up 2 buckets of material, brought it home & put it through the rota-pan. Found it took some getting use to but once you found the knack of the design, it was very simple to work with, took around 6-7min & a heap of water to get the 2 buckets through it, but with no brother-in-law laying in wait to snatch the pan I had time to relax and slowly work it down to nothing but black sand & gold (which felt like an eternity to be honest, working down the top 90% took all of a minute, the last little bit took me a solid 10min to get through). Now I didn't find my retirement fund in the bottom of the pan but I was very pleased to find a dozen or so little chunks & a fair bit of fine gold having only brought home a couple of buckets, needless to say i'll be ordering a rota-pan next pay cheque & spending quite a bit of time in the forest once the water's flowing.
Have also been looking into the detector side of prospecting for when it's a bit dry for much else, but need to save my pennies a bit longer for the machines i've been drooling over.
I'd best stop rambling on, just thought i'd best introduce myself
Cheers, Josh
