Much depends on the ore or how the gold was formed in the ore. gold from volcanic action is different from gold formed by fault zones and shifting of these faults under each other, more basically if the gold is free-milling and can be concentrated by gravity methods, or microscopic gold locked up in the mineral complex of sulfide arsenites and tellurides, which may need floatation or some other means to concentrate the values, or may need to be pre-processed roasted, or some process to break the gold from ores bond for preparing the ore concentrate for some leaching process, or smelting process to recover the gold, before refining the gold recovered.
Is the gold free-milling? If so look into gravity recovery methods.
if not leaching or smelting may need to be considered.
If the gold is not free milling, it may not be worth the time and trouble for the small miner to recover the gold economically, conducting proper assays, proper sampling, testing to determine if the ore can be mined profitably, how many ounces per tons of ore can be expected, and the composition of the minerals involved, proper assays will help on working out a plan or type of recovery process, gaining a better understanding of your ore, and how the gold may be locked up and what those compounds are.
All ore is not the same, different rock is made up of different composition the gold formed within can also be formed from different methods and be of different compositions of the ore, just as ores are different the gold itself can be different not all ore can gold be recovered by one process or the same way or using the same techniques, the type of ore, the type of gold locked up in the mineral structure will determine the type of recovery methods needed and even then further experimenting may be needed to find a recovery method that can successfully extract the values from that type of ore, not all leaches or methods will work for different mineral ores...