Gold Pans & Kits 

Practice makes perfect in just about everything and it is no different when it comes to gold panning. Luckily you can practice in your kitchen or laundry sink so that when you head outdoors, you'll pretty much know how to pan for gold and already have your technique down.

Plastic gold pans are recommended for most folks, especially beginners. Plastic has significant advantages over the older metal pans-- they are lighter, don't rust, nor do they conflict with the use of a magnet. Most pans are 10 to 18 inches in diameter at the top, with the sides sloping at roughly 30 to 45 degrees. The exact size is not all that critical as long as it's comfortable for YOUR hand and allows you to shake the pan so that the gold settles downward and allows you to wash the lighter material off the top. After all the lighter materials have been removed, only the heavy concentrates will remain in pan-- and with practice, you'll see a gleam at the bottom! Click here for tips on How to Pan for Gold.

Gold is heavier than most gravel found in streams, so that's why it can be collected in a gold pan when the right techniques are used. Gold can be found in many forms— nuggets, wire, tiny lumps called "pickers" or flat flecks and feather-shaped crystals. Assuming you already own a gold pan(s) and know where to find gold, all you need is an optimistic attitude and lots of practice to get good at hand panning.

First, look for a "gold trap" — a place along the stream where the current slows down enough for gold to settle. Gold can settle on the downstream sides of boulders and logs or in bends or curves in the stream. Many panners time their outings to coincide with winter snow melt or following a big storm. The thought is that Mother Nature may have loosened the gold lodged in high places and now it's flowing downstream and getting stuck in spots where you can reach it. 

Try these gold panning techniques for best results:

If using a new pan that still has some "shine" to it, remove that shine to stop fine gold from potentially floating out of your pan. The shiny surface is a releasing agent (mostly oil) from the manufacturer. A good liquid dish detergent, water, some dirt or sand, or a scouring sponge is all you need to "season" your pan. Just scrub the insides of your pan until water no longer beads up, and you are ready to go!

1. Fill pan about half full of gravel, small rocks, and sand collected from the stream bed
2. Put the pan under the water's surface, break up large lumps of clay or dirt, and remove stones
3. Continue to hold the pan level under the water with your hands on opposite sides, and tilt the pan forward, away from your body, and down slightly. Rotate and shake it side to side to let gravel and sand dribble out the front. Pick out the rocks.
4. Repeat step 3 several times until most of the material is removed, leaving  less than a cup of fine-grained dark material overlain with a thin layer of light material at the bottom of your pan.
5. Rotate the pan in a circular motion. Notice how the water separates lighter material from heavier.
6. Stop rotating and hopefully you'll see a flash in the dark material remaining in the bottom of your pan! Use tweezers to retrieve the gold and place in a vial for safe-keeping.

Keep in mind that all the shiny stuff in your pan may not be gold. Pyrite, known as "fool's gold," and mica are both brassy in color. If any gold-colored flecks float on the water, it's a sure sign it's NOT real gold.  Don't get discouraged. Keep practicing, and sooner or later that flash in your pan will be the real deal!

Tip from Yukon Dick... keep a little bottle of dish washing detergent with ya while yer panning. When you get down to the last steps where yer working with the “concentrate”, drop just a tiny tad in the water -- it’ll break up the surface tension and make it easier to work the gold out!

Click here for gold classifiers

How to get rid of the impurities, such as black sand, in your wet gold.

This tip was posted on Facebook by Dakota Fred, star of the Discovery Channel's Gold Rush TV Show:  

1. Best to use a ceramic crucible, but a clean frying pan will do the trick.

2. Pour the wet gold into the crucible or pan.

3. Pour off excess water into another pan

4. Heat the gold on the stove until it is completely DRY. (Don't worry, it won't melt at those temperatures).

5. Cool the dry gold by just letting it sit for a bit.

6. Get 3 cheap, flimsy paper plates. You know, the kind that your hot dogs roll off; the ones that fold up as you try to eat potato salad... the cheap ones.

7. Pour your gold on one plate.

8. Fold the plate with the gold in it into a V shape.

9. Pour the gold onto plate #2.  You will notice that the dry gold pours off first, and it always leaves a little black residue in the crease of the V in plate #1.

10. Pour the black residue on to plate #3.

11. Repeat by pouring the dry gold that is now on plate #2 onto plate #1.

12. Again, the last little bit on your V plate will have some black residue. Pour residue on to plate #3.

13. Repeat this process about 6-8 times, or until your gold is clean.

14. Save the residue, since it probably has a very small amount of gold in it.

It's actually much easier than it seems. Happy Panning!   ...Freddie, Dakota Fred