# Panning for the yellow stuff.



## jason_recliner (Oct 30, 2014)

G'day all.

I live in the outer eastern suburbs of Melbourne. That's Victoria, Australia. I'm only 10km from Warrandyte, bit of a gold rush areas of the mid 19th century.
I seem to have caught a terrible disease. It's Latin name is Febris Aurum and apparently it's incurable.

Being on holidays until Wednesday, I bought myself a pan and a miner's right, and today I headed to Anderson's Creek. This was actually the first place in Victoria in which gold was found, in 1851. And it's the only place left around Warrandyte you're legally allowed to pan, although apparently you can get away with a few others if you're discrete. But walk around the old mines with a detector and someone calls the police.

The pan I bought is a "turbopan" which is supposedly quick and easy, like a sluice in a pan. I watched a few instructional videos on YouGonnaGetReallyTiredTube. Five hours in the creek. My back hurts. I have more blisters from new gumboots than I have toes. Since I didn't take any Aeroguard, my arms look like they have cellulite. Three litres of drinking water is not enough and I'm severely dehydrated. Oh, I didn't find a damn thing.

What an awesome day. I might go back tomorrow. If I can get out of bed.


----------



## kurtak (Oct 30, 2014)

:lol: sounds more like a good time had you instead of you had a good time :lol: 

Kurt


----------



## nickvc (Oct 30, 2014)

Well all I can say is if I tried it locally I'd have just about as much luck and without even a chance of finding anything :twisted:


----------



## Irons (Oct 30, 2014)

You have to think very small. If there had been Gold production in the past, the likelihood of finding pannable Gold is pretty slim, since most areas have been worked-over many times. If you screen your paydirt down to <20 Mesh, then pan, you have a better chance of catching some color. Any values below 100 Mesh aren't likely to remain in the pan, since they can float on the surface of the Water and be washed away. Gold is Hydrophobic, meaning it doesn't like Water. Putting a drop or two of dishwashing soap in each panfull will help break the surface tension and allow the fine Gold to sink.


----------



## 4metals (Oct 30, 2014)

Just flour gold these days? That's too bad. Nothing like a grinder in the pan to get the heart pumping. Happened to me once and I'll never forget it.


----------



## jason_recliner (Oct 31, 2014)

I'm painfully aware that the area has been well gone over. Everywhere I sample, I have to think "Where is a spot that doesn't look like a thousand people with the same idea as me have already been?" We had a huge amount of rain earlier in the week and I have no idea whether that flushes anything downstream, though I expect not.

I found another spot today that at least has a bit of black sand at the bottom of the pan, which is more promising than the designated area in which I found no black sand at all. But new spot is the only accessible beach on a gushing river, which is high from the recent rain. The best rocky areas in the river at least 8 feet deep. I know because for 20 years we've been taking our lilos down the rapids on hot days. :lol:


----------



## Irons (Oct 31, 2014)

4metals said:


> Just flour gold these days? That's too bad. Nothing like a grinder in the pan to get the heart pumping. Happened to me once and I'll never forget it.



I pan all the heavier material separately, which can be done very quickly. Not much chance to find a clunker around here. The State record is under 0.9 ozT. Plenty of fines, if you know where to look.


----------



## kurtak (Oct 31, 2014)

Irons said:


> 4metals said:
> 
> 
> > Plenty of fines, if you know where to look.



Bed rock cracks = natures sluice box - they need to lay so the current washes over them with a back angle (just like a sluice box) or the gold washes out instead of collecting

Kurt


----------



## Irons (Oct 31, 2014)

kurtak said:


> Irons said:
> 
> 
> > 4metals said:
> ...



With the right tool, one can work the cracks , and hopefully go where no man has gone before. :mrgreen:


----------



## 4metals (Oct 31, 2014)

In the late '80's I got involved with a group going to Ecuador to dredge for gold. We were driving through the countryside near Zaruma and I saw a bend in the river where it did a 120 degree bend as it impacted a solid rock cliff and the cliffside was decorated with crosses and flowers. 

That's where I learned of the Latino custom to put some sign of remembrance at the place where a loved one has died. Upon further investigation (actually all I had to do was get out of the truck and look) there was a whirlpool about 15 feet across slowly circulating the water that impacted the cliff before it flowed off downstream through a series of much less dramatic curves and continued it's downhill westward path. The site was notorious for drownings of local kids jumping in and getting trapped in the current. 

I put on my mask and fins and jumped in only to find a round hole bored right into the streambed. Just what I had hoped for. We checked where we were on the map and made a trip to Quito, the capital, to apply for a permit to explore the stretch of the river just before and just after the bend. I think we actually had a square kilometer to explore but my mind was focused on that hole. Sounds easy to do but it was about a 2 week detour to get through all of the red tape and get back to the site. 

After having the proper paperwork issued, we returned to the site to explore. On most days the river reduced the whirlpool to a gentle swirl but at high water, after seasonal rains, I'm sure it was not where you wanted to be swimming. 

The bottom was covered with sand and small gravel in the area immediately surrounding the depression so 2 days of dredging with our Keene 6" dredge had us to bedrock. Then came the difficult task of tying ropes around the larger boulders we couldn't lift and winching them out. There is a real art to tying a lasso around a round rock, not something you want to be under when it is going up for sure. 

Long story short, the bottom of the hole came at about 15 feet below the bedrock and I was on the end of the dredge when we sucked up the remaining gravel to expose the bottom. 

The bottom was filled with small pebbles and rice sized gold nuggets sitting in cracks which had fallen into the hole and were destined to be there waiting for us to recover them. Using a nugget tool to fish out the ones that were wedged in I was able to suck up all of the shiny nuggets. One of the guys I was there with came down on the second regulator about half way through the process and I will always remember how big his eyes were in his mask when he looked at the bottom for the first time. Cleaning the dredge that night was a memory that few ever get to experience, It was a long time ago but I remember we recovered over 1000 grams of nugget gold. Gold was in the $400 range then but somehow it wasn't the value of what we recovered as much as the thrill of seeing it first hand.


----------



## glorycloud (Oct 31, 2014)

Great post 4metals - the stuff that dreams are made of! 8)


----------



## rickbb (Oct 31, 2014)

I see all those guys diving on Bering Sea Gold and think, man if only I didn't have terrible sinuses I could do that.

I can swim like a fish and have my whole life, but the first time I tried to get deeper than 12 feet, I had a killer sinus head ache for a week. My ENT doc said to give it up, it will only get worse with age, not better. Sigh.


----------



## Geo (Oct 31, 2014)

You don't have to be able to swim to dive. You can't swim very well with up to 80 pounds of lead on your weight belt. When you leave the boat, you are headed to the bottom. You use your dive rope to descend slowly, a couple of meters at a time and blow through your mask with your hand over the exhaust on the mask. It forces your ears to pop and equalize the pressure in your sinuses. It really didn't bother me too bad until I reach two atmospheres (about 33 feet).


----------



## philddreamer (Oct 31, 2014)

> Great post 4metals - the stuff that dreams are made of!


I agree!
I was invited, earlier this year, to go to the placer fields in Bolivia! We were to fabricate a washing plant and we would get 70% of the recovered gold!!! BUT... and I mean a big BUT!!! When I found out in order to get to the field, we had to go thru the "Camino de la Muerte" :shock:
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-wwxtUoODGsE/UIWqGfs3TaI/AAAAAAAAGxM/xvE5zErG3dY/s1600/IMG_4081.JPG , 
I changed my mind!!! :mrgreen: 

I'll stick to sluicing in California, and recovering from e-scrap! 8) 

Phil


----------



## FrugalRefiner (Oct 31, 2014)

Geo said:


> blow through your mask with your hand over the exhaust on the mask. It forces your ears to pop and equalize the pressure in your sinuses. It really didn't bother me too bad until I reach two atmospheres (about 33 feet).


Geo, you're fortunate you can clear easily. I'm a certified diver, and unfortunately, I have the same difficulty as Rick. I could always get them to clear, but it was always a struggle for me. 

It's actually the first part of the descent that's the hardest. At the surface, you're under one atmosphere of pressure. At 33 feet, it doubles to two atmospheres. You have to go to 99 feet for it to double again. It's the proportional difference that's important. I've been to 150 feet, and I had no problem after the first 30 feet. 

Dave


----------



## Platdigger (Oct 31, 2014)

Aww come on Phil, you shudda done it. 8)


----------



## 4metals (Oct 31, 2014)

Fortunately I have no issues clearing my ears, all I need to do is wiggle my jaw and I can equalize. When I was younger I was a technical diver and never had ear issues at depth. 

I used to set the hook on wreck dives offshore from NY and NJ, just jump off the boat with about 50 pounds of chain wrapped around my arm and attached to the anchor line. I sank like a rock, tied off the dive boat and went about my dive. The deepest I ever did it was to the Coimbra in 180 feet but the ears always worked great. 

Now as I get older I can't hear worth a damn but I can still dive without issue.


----------



## philddreamer (Oct 31, 2014)

> Aww come on Phil, you shudda done it.


NOP... I don't think so!!! :mrgreen: 



> I see all those guys diving on Bering Sea Gold and think, man if only I didn't have terrible sinuses I could do that.
> I can swim like a fish and have my whole life, but the first time I tried to get deeper than 12 feet, I had a killer sinus head ache for a week. My ENT doc said to give it up, it will only get worse with age, not better. Sigh.



Rick, I have the same problem. 
I tried once snorkling with my kid brother. He's also a certified diver, and on one of my visits to Puerto Rico back in the '80's, he invited me to go spear fishing. When I tried to equalize at about 12 feet, ohhh the pain! I tried it a second time and it was worse!!! 
Diving below 7 or 8 feet is not for me! :roll:


----------



## jason_recliner (Oct 31, 2014)

Great story, 4metals. Quite a man of experiences.
And you're right; it's not about the value of the gold, I just want to find some of my own. I don't expect to find enough to pay off my tools, let alone my time.

I'm not much a of a diver and quite a substandard swimmer. But I've tried diving once or twice. I was taught the basics by a guy at work: the first legally blind Master SCUBA Diver. He had about 8% tunnel vision in one eye, nothing in the other, and he scans the bottom like a cross between a Cylon and a laser printer. Master is an amazing achievement. Anyway even at 30 feet, or should I say 5 fathoms, I found I had to keep re-equalising every time I moved up or down a few feet or else my head would implode.


----------



## Geo (Oct 31, 2014)

Half of all my dive time was in lakes where visibility was nothing. The lake bottom is many feet deep of silt which swirls up around you and blocks out all light. The only diving I did where I could see was in the river current. Never dove into ocean water before but was offered a deal to recover ship props in Mobile Bay. There is a list of props and locations. You can acquire salvage rights and if you can get it up, the rewards can be Fabulous. Sadly, I decided to stay and pilfer mother nature and dig mussel shells. I did create a way to keep my bearing in the blackness. I super glued a Texas Instruments red digital wrist watch to the right side of my mask (to time dives up to 80 foot deep) and a very good glow in the dark compass to the left side of my mask. I could close my left eye to see the time and close my right to get my bearing. We used a ten foot piece of half inch steel conduit pipe to extend our reach. You pretty much get on your knees and push the pole against the mud. Any resistance was something in the mud (AKA washboards) and you travel back and forth from one end to the other collecting the shells that made contact with the pipe. You could hear the musical note the pipe made against the living shell. It was much different than a rock. Plus, wash boards had ridges. As the pipe went across the shell, it would make a distinctive sound of the pipe striking the tops of each ridge.


----------



## 4metals (Nov 1, 2014)

I grew up diving in the Long Island sound in the late '60's and 4 foot visibility was a good day. Eventually I got to the south shore and the offshore visibility got to 25 to 30 feet which was like heaven. Then for some reason I was talked into black water diving in the Carolina's for Megalodon teeth, prehistoric shark teeth as big as 6" per tooth. They call it black water because you can only see 6 inches if you're lucky. Everything is by feel, just drop down to the silt bottom in about 30 feet of water and dig in the mud and see what you can find. One thing is you don't have to worry about the visibility going to hell from stirring up the silt, it can't get much worse than it was when you got in the water to begin with. 

The only scary thing was the river catfish. They grow to over 4 feet and they sense you're in their domain and get right in your face. Or worse they swim up from behind and go between your legs and come out under your chin. That is spooky! All in all not my favorite type of diving but I would rather be under water any day.


----------



## kurtak (Nov 1, 2014)

4metals said:


> The bottom was covered with sand and small gravel in the area immediately surrounding the depression so 2 days of dredging with our Keene 6" dredge had us to bedrock. Then came the difficult task of tying ropes around the larger boulders we couldn't lift and winching them out. There is a real art to tying a lasso around a round rock, not something you want to be under when it is going up for sure.



I spent close to 20 years living in Northern California where I worked primarily as a logger but I also worked on a lot of mining operations both placer & hard rock 

used a lot of this stuff :arrow: http://www.havoc.com.au/kinepak.html to deal with those big boulders - it turned big boulders into little rocks & was a lot more fun then winching :mrgreen: 

used the foil pouch type for boulders & the tube type for hard rock drilling - used it a lot in logging road building to when we run into a bed rock out cropping

I spent a couple years living in an old log cabin that was built back in the original gold rush days that was built on an old hard rock site - it was about a 1/2 mile hike down off the dirt road to the cabin & the hard rock tunnel & we used horses & mules to pack the ore out to haul to the milling site

Those where some real fun times - times I will never forget - it was so far back in the mountains that there was no electric, no radio, no TV --- week ends where spent as get together's around the camp fire with home brew, moonshine, home spun music & dancing --- it was like taking a step back in history & living it

Kurt


----------



## kurtak (Nov 1, 2014)

Irons said:


> kurtak said:
> 
> 
> > Irons said:
> ...



Back in the 70's & 80's when I was living in Northern California one of my favorite pass times was to grab my high banker prospecting "tool box" & take a hike up a creek to work some high bank bed rock cracks --- tool box = 5 gallon bucket --- in the tool box - crowbar, 4lb sledge hammer, large long shank screwdriver, tweezers &/or long forceps & six pack of beer (most important tool)

once you learned to "read" the lay of the bed rock cracks & the high water current you could end the day with 1/4 to 3/4 ozt & on a really good day 1 plus ozt :mrgreen: 

of course you had the days you came back with little or nothing :x but as long as you didn't forget to put the six pack of beer in the tool box it was still a good day spent up the creek :mrgreen: 

Kurt


----------



## kurtak (Nov 1, 2014)

Here are a few pictures of some pictures from my time in Northern California

the truck up side down on the road was the result of to much moon shine after I delivered a load of split cedar fence post to the guy that made it

the cabin is the cabin I (& family) lived in that was built back in original gold rush days

The pic of me & a buddy sitting at the bar was a resort - they had a water powered generator for there electric & it was not uncommon for people to be at the bar with their six gun strapped on & that included the women

the pics of the dredging - we had another 6" dredge set up at this site 

Just thought you all might enjoy a few of these pics - for me they are times I will never forget - it really was like taking a step back in history & living it - not just visiting it at some museum or historical park

Kurt


----------



## Irons (Nov 1, 2014)

Kinepak is good stuff. I used to use it all the time. :mrgreen:


----------

