Prospector's Library

Panning is fundamental to gold prospecting. It doesn't matter how big or complex a processing system you have - it will always start and finish with a gold pan. While it's true that there are as many ways, techniques and opinions on the ‘best’ panning method as there are prospectors, essentially all methods of panning boil down to attempting to agitating the material enough to let the gold settle on the bottomof your pan while slowly sluffing off the lighter material (hopefully, retaining the gold in the process).

• First, fill your pan nearly full of sand & gravel. Remove all the large stones, then place your pan under water and wet all the material.
• Next, stir up the material with your fingers, crush clumps and loosen anything sticking together.
• Quickly move the pan from side to side, either in the water or while full of water, and rotate the material. This helps the gold particles settle to the bottom. (Gold is the heaviest in your pan).
• While still moving your pan from side to side, gently tip the pan away from you. The lighter material and larger pieces that come to the top will move to the front of the pan. These can be taken off/scraped over the brim of the pan with your hand or thumb.
• Continue moving the pan side to side and removing larger pieces of material "floated" to the top from the brim of the pan until only a small amount of material remains in the pan. You may need to add more water as you work the contents of you pan down.
• The remaining material is the heavy material and this is your concentrate. If you haven't seen gold in your pan yet, pour out the excess water until just enough is left to barely cover your concentrates. Swirl the pan contents to "feather" or "string out" the concenrate. Lighter particles will be washed, leaving the gold.
• Continue to swirl with water in your pan to further clean the concentrated material. Be careful not to lose any gold!

Most importantly, remember that panning takes practice. Patience is key. Take your time.

Videos

If a picture is worth a thousand words - watching an instructional video on how to do something new is worth volumes. We have scoured the internet and found a couple of videos on simple yet solid panning techniques that should really help get you started on the right foot.

A bit more advanced demonstration of a backwash and tap finish panning method is demonstrated.