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Gold Panning

mogley98mogley98 Member Posts: 18,297 ✭✭✭✭
edited June 2016 in General Discussion
20160527_080454.jpg

Not going to get rich but not a bad find along with a few small flakes in my secret NC panning spot. Maybe 15 bucks worth LOL.

I panned about three home depot buckets full and got this one nugget and a few specks so small I had to use the sucker bottle to get em out.
Why don't we go to school and work on the weekends and take the week off!
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    RobOzRobOz Member Posts: 9,523 ✭✭✭
    edited November -1
    Cool find! Sure beats surfing on the couch
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    AzAfshinAzAfshin Member Posts: 2,986 ✭✭
    edited November -1
    You should ask the state to pay you to ensure $15/hour [:D]
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    SCOUT5SCOUT5 Member Posts: 16,182 ✭✭✭✭
    edited November -1
    Some folks wash out a little color from the creeks around here. It's just placer gold that was pushed down by the glaciers so long ago. There are no real deposits.
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    NOAHNOAH Member Posts: 9,690
    edited November -1
    tried panning in alaska if i had to do it for a living i would starve to death[:D][:D][:D][:D]
    there were some folks using a vacuum and a long wash board that vibrates did see them with a few pill containers full of nuggets/gold flakes in a afternoon workout ,told me they made about 1100 bucks that day
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    Plain ole bubbaPlain ole bubba Member Posts: 472 ✭✭✭
    edited November -1
    Very cool!! I have always wanted to pan for gold.
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    DONDALINGERDONDALINGER Member Posts: 1,541 ✭✭✭
    edited November -1
    Actually, that is a nice little gold nugget. Find several vials full and you have quite a payday! I have not yet found any nuggets. If/when I ever do, gold fever is going to hit hard and I'll be there until midnight panning!!

    Great find and congrats!

    Don
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    andrewsw16andrewsw16 Member Posts: 10,728 ✭✭✭
    edited November -1
    I tried it several times in Colorado and Montana. Let me tell you that is a LOT of hard work, squatting and bending over double, in ice cold water, for a few flakes of color. No thanks. [;)][:D]
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    asopasop Member Posts: 8,911 ✭✭✭✭
    edited November -1
    Way back spent sometime in Seward Alaska. Not much of anything there back then. But, all the saloons had gold scales set up at the entry doors. A lot of gold panning in that area back then.
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    dakotashooter2dakotashooter2 Member Posts: 6,186
    edited November -1
    I see gold panning as sort of like gambling. Every once in a while you win but most of the time you lose.
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    fishkiller41fishkiller41 Member Posts: 50,608
    edited November -1
    That there's a dang "PICKER"!!![8D][8D]
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    NavybatNavybat Member Posts: 6,849 ✭✭✭
    edited November -1
    Congratulations! WAY cool! [:p]
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    mark christianmark christian Forums Admins, Member, Moderator Posts: 24,456 ******
    edited November -1
    That is pretty darned good looking little nuggest for just three 5-gallon buckets. I remember my cousin Clark (RIP), who was a mining engineer, saying that in the CONUS it took about 100 tons of rock and dirt to yield one ounce of gold.

    Be it gold, oil or gemstones; Mother Nature keeps a tight hold on her treasure.
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    11b6r11b6r Member Posts: 16,588 ✭✭✭
    edited November -1
    Nice nugget! In Colorado, would go panning with 3 friends. We found a spot downstream of an old mine where the creek ran thru a 10 ft diameter corrugated culvert. Y'know, those corrugations look just like the riffles in a sluice box. [:D]

    About once a year we would clean out the sand from the corrugations to see what nature had brought us. And yeah, your feet go numb in about 15 minutes. But good color has its own kind of warm.
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    MobuckMobuck Member Posts: 13,791 ✭✭✭✭
    edited November -1
    I've watched guys do "clean ups" at the campground in Colorado. A pickup full of 5 gallon buckets might(?) get enough flakes to cover a fingernail if spread out one flake thick. They were having fun rather than trying to make a living.
    The guys trying to make a living were in tents freezing all night, carrying buckets all day to the only running water(and probably raiding the abandoned gold claim upstream). Tough guys in that bunch-you didn't go there unarmed.
    I found evidence of bootleg sluices that had been packed in on state land (no mining allowed) and set up just below the boundary of public land claims. I also found test holes and one hole 20(?)feet deep that had been shored up with hand cut posts/beams-and no dirt pile around it. That material went somewhere. My guess is the hole had been much deeper and the over burden had been pushed back in the hole after the good stuff had been carried away.
    The only guy I saw who was doing well promised to tell me where he'd been collecting his material but he ended up skipping out on both that promise AND HIS BILL AT THE CAMPGROUND. Oh well.
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    fideaufideau Member Posts: 11,893 ✭✭✭
    edited November -1
    I had a co worker who spent most of his weekends panning, picked up some nice extra cash now and then. NC was the first gold rush state and until it was discovered in Kalipornia, it was the largest gold producing state. There are old gold mines within a few miles of my home. So it follows that some is yet to b found. Best of luck to you.[:D]
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