Gold panning/Mineral Hunting

[w3stc0ast_0n7heFly]

Just taking this up. I use to go panning with some of my friends in our earth science class. Im kinda into the science of everything. Fly fishing is a big science to itself. Gold panning requires patience, time, and as I have found, strategy.
Wondering if any of you fellers happen to pan? And if anyone knows of where to go around here. Im looking up gold prospect leads for Pitt Lake. Looks promising. lol. Few months back I went up the golden ears mountain. Looking at rock up there. Why I didnt bring one back I dont know. Just means I gotta climb a mountain again. Hell yea!

So If anyone out there knows of any places where you can mineral hunt, or gold pan, let me know.


Thanks,
Tyler

[knotnot]

Hey Tyler

Sorry bout not getting fishing for carp with you. kids.

I have done some panning too. Mostly in Tulameen when the fish were not biting.

There are lots of books about BC gold sites and rumours, online too.

My understanding is to watch out for sites others have staked a claim on.


knotnot
grant

[ThaSandman]

I'm in a sedimentology class right now, and I could tell you how gold is deposited, but unfortunately, not where. I'm sure if my prof knew, he wouldn't tell us.....

[Salty]

A partner and I had a little dredge/compressor dive show in the early 80s when I was young and foolish. We found gold every day. just not enough to live on :doh:

Its a lot of fun. As knotnot suggests research is your friend. Find records and books about them, and go back in time buddy. Look for claim activity back as far as you can go. There will be a ton of dead ends. But remember, the miners up untill say the 1960s needed big volumes of gold to make it pay. A lot of so-so ground would be just passed up in earlier times.

When you narrow in on an area, and seeing as you'll have your waders anyway . lol. consider bringing a scuba mask and snorkle with you. During low water check out areas where strong current has swept the bottom pretty much clean down to bedrock or hard pan. Look behind big rocks, in cracks in the subsgtrate and whatnot kneeling with your mask in the water, and gently flick any material away with a paint brush or such. You may just "snipe" up some nice coarse gold this way.

Bottom line be it in an active creek or a long since abandoned stream channel the gold won't be in the gravel, it will be below that where the heavy stuff sinks and is held. Look for dense black sand and iron pyrite layers and the gold will be near by if the area has gold. Use your knowledge at reading water. Abandoned channels will go through a period of low flow before they go dry. During this time a lot of silt and gravel will be deposited. When you are standing on an abandoned channel the original stream bottom is likely a metre or more below you. Look at the terrain and try to figure out where the flow was and where the gut of the current was. Look there. ..

[knotnot]

Great info Salty !

Thanks.

[phearless]

The Fraser stream bed in the winter.
The low water allows access to areas that would be under metres of water most of the year.
Take a pry bar and move big rocks check the good stuff underneath.
Haven't done it myself, but have talked to many who do it every year.

[Salty]

Yup, the Fraser is the sluice box of BC. All the great rivers of the gold rush days drain into it - transporting material that the glaciers carved out of the rock in their valleys. The Fraser being pretty much smack in the middle of the rockys and coast mountains is normally quite a ways from the original hard rock source that produced its gold. So the gold is small in size from being eroded so heavily through its long journey over thousands of years. But, there's lots of it laddys... arrrr.... lol.

The Fraser of course is how the miners of the gold rush found their way north mining their way up the mother river. They split off all over the place with varying degrees of sucess. Soon they were to the east Cariboo and the motherloads of Bullion Pit, Quesnel Forks and... cause some crazy duded named Billy Barker got tired of the crowds around that gong show that ensued, he said screw it and climbed over Yanks peak to the east in the Cariboo mountains and decended down in to Williams creek I believe it was -to find his lucky strike. And qickly after that the town of Barkerville was built right there.

There of course is other great areas in BC that have boom all to do with the Fraser. The kutenays, north vancouver island, the Skeena country all have gold too. Not to mention of course the Peace and Stewart Cassiar. In another life a guy should have studyed harder and became a geologist to try to figure it all out cause like they say there's gold in them hills. The biggest problem though it usually costs more to mine it than its worth. But in my time playing around I met a couple old bush rats that are doing it by hand, not getting over their head and making a decent living. One semi retired couple I recall with just a beater old backhoe did very well, resisting the temptation to borrow a bunch of money and going warp 10 they just worked their claim slowly with about zero overhead. Yet nearby I watched a two generation family of sucessfull logging contractors loose eveything they owned in about two years. The saw gold every day, got the fever, kept buying more equipment to produce more until they were sunk.

Just goofing around and panning and doing a little sniping is a great hobby. And goes well with fishing. A buddy nearby wants to check out some stuff he's heard out the mainland inlets from here. All this gold talk reminds me we gotta firm up some plans this winter. lol. ..

[w3stc0ast_0n7heFly]

thanks eveyrone. I have been researching for a while now. Herd about a ghost mine back in pitt lake.