Pay gold is 12 inches from where you are looking.

[bcache]

The summer of 2009 my wife and I tent camped near a stream in SW Oregon. Went to town every 4 days or so to get supplies, mostly beer and ice.

I was a green horn at panning so I took a self-taught, crash course in panning. After panning 4-5 days a week for 3 months I felt that my panning was OK. I had also covered several miles of the stream and tribs.

One fine day I hiked about 3 miles upstream from the camp and worked my way down. After 2hrs I had a a few flakes and some dust, a little discouraged but soon found a vertical bedrock crack above water level that gave up some nice flakes. Moving down stream about 3 feet I took a pan full from the surface between man-sized boulders. After panning it for a short while nice size flakes and a few pickers completely surrounded the black sand. OH BOY! There is still a lot of gravel there! That turned out to be one heck of a pay pan. My next pan had a few nice flakes. Not very many pans later--nothing. Almost all of the gold was concentrated on the surface of about one sq ft. I could not see anything special about that spot. There were boulders everywhere.

Over the next week with about 20 hours of panning within 10 feet of that vertical crack I came up with 6 small nuggets, coarse gold and fines totaling near 1/2oz. No other pan came close to that pay pan though.

My lesson that day was when it comes to gold you sometime don't know where pay is going to come from. I do my best to keep that in mind.

I'm curious. Has anybody had a similar experience?

Have a good turkey day, I'm about to stuff myself full.

Bill C

[GlennM]

Sounds to me that a little "river reading" was going on in your subconscious and you were at the outside edge of a pay streak area.

Can you recall any other features of the creek/river where you were with regards to area of flow, bends, etc. Think about it where you would think the river to be at flood stage.

Never spent that much time straight out in the field, so i can't say I've come close to your experience.

[bcache]

Sounds to me that a little "river reading" was going on in your subconscious and you were at the outside edge of a pay streak area.

Can you recall any other features of the creek/river where you were with regards to area of flow, bends, etc. Think about it where you would think the river to be at flood stage.

Never spent that much time straight out in the field, so i can't say I've come close to your experience.

Morning Glen,

Thanks for your response.

I spend a lot of time trying to figure this out. There is PLENTY of water in SW Oregon. This major creek with extensive watershed to feed it would be a river many other places. During heavy rain when the creek is really raging you can feel the ground rumble as the boulders head downstream. The area that I found the "pay pan" is 8 to 10 feet above normal water level on a steep slope. I would think pocket? instead of pay streak? Also the spot does not appear to be churned up with flooding. The gravel between the boulders is strange, mostly uniform marble size slightly cemented together with silt. There is a bench about 30 feet above that was hydraulically mined. The boulders and slabs of serpentine probably came from the mining activity above. Is there some truth to the feeling that the old timers missed plenty of gold?

Being a novice at prospecting maybe Maybe I should not over think it. Just go back this summer and dig the crap out of it!

Bill C

[Hoser John]

That 12" is at least the depth of a good detectors ability to penetrate and your story just shows how a good detectors glows in the field, golden that is :whoope: gotta jus' luv'm'-John

[gold fault]

I have had similar experiences here in AZ. One incidence happened on my claim a year ago. I had tried a small dry creek several times not finding much gold. I gave up on it and moved on to other areas. On a whim one day with nothing better to do I went back to the creek and tried an area about 5 feet from where I had precviously dug and recovered over an ounce of small pickers. Needless to say I tore the rest of that creek up and did find a little more, but nothing like that one spot. I tried to figure out what was so special about that spot that would cause the gold to drop out there, but never really came up with a good reason. Gold is where you find it.

[bcache]

I have had similar experiences here in AZ. One incidence happened on my claim a year ago. I had tried a small dry creek several times not finding much gold. I gave up on it and moved on to other areas. On a whim one day with nothing better to do I went back to the creek and tried an area about 5 feet from where I had precviously dug and recovered over an ounce of small pickers. Needless to say I tore the rest of that creek up and did find a little more, but nothing like that one spot. I tried to figure out what was so special about that spot that would cause the gold to drop out there, but never really came up with a good reason. Gold is where you find it.

Morning GF,

Strange as hell alright. Can spend many hours contemplating the unknown. Last week I was panning Lynx Creek and like the few other guys there the only thing we were getting was sore backs. I moved up a few feet and took a pan full off the top of an old dry washer tailing and panned out a bunch of nice size flakes, maybe 2 pennyweight. Not much but more than I panned in the last month there. Thinking that I might have found a bonanza I went at it. The next pan a few small flakes. All the pans after--zero. Go figure.

Bill c

[Hoser John]

On Flat Creek outta Redding on BRec property my buds Bob and Brent dredged a spot and I have pics of'm doing it but NO BLASTER NOZZLE or air. Blackbone and I went in with air/blaster on my tinkertoy 4" and got pounds(biggie was 1.67 oz) in them cracks and crevices just inches from the bottom. Gotta luv them dowsing rods as the NEED was extremely present at the time-John

[bcache]

On Flat Creek outta Redding on BRec property my buds Bob and Brent dredged a spot and I have pics of'm doing it but NO BLASTER NOZZLE or air. Blackbone and I went in with air/blaster on my tinkertoy 4" and got pounds(biggie was 1.67 oz) in them cracks and crevices just inches from the bottom. Gotta luv them dowsing rods as the NEED was extremely present at the time-John

Think I'll trade in my equipment including a Lobo for an air-blastin dowser. where kin I git one?

Bill c