Good reading!!

mlgdave

I was excited as I grabbed the gold pan that was my size and then we started walking up the creek and I could hear a motor, as we got closer I could see 3 "really old guys" digging into the side of the hill and putting dirt in a triangular shaped wooden box that had a sluice box attached to it, i could see all the stuff was home made except for the pumps in the creek and I was in awe at how much stuff they had, and how many huge boulders they had moved. Dad introduced me to Rudy, Al, and Jim and they were all friendly and "pleased to meetcha". After a little chit chat they wished us luck and we went about 200 feet further along the hill to where someone else had been digging before and dad said "ok, this is where we will dig". He showed me that the dirt was in layers and I was able to see what he meant and at that time I had no idea that dirt wasnt just dirt. He explained to me that the overburden was junk and didnt "carry", and that we had to get down on top of bedrock and to the pay layer of pea gravel. I was able to see that someone had already done a lot of the overburden removal and saw exactly what dad was talking about, there was a layer of gravel about 4 inches thick on top of a layer of clay about 1 inch thick on top of the sharp shale bedrock. So dad showed my how to dig and what to put in my gold pan and i set about digging, and scraping and sorting the material. Dad told me any rock over 1 inch we didnt need to put in the pan and that I was to scrape the clay off of any of the bigger rocks and put it in the pan. I remember the shale bedrock was sharp and that we had a flat screwdriver to poke and prod and break the shale apart to get into the cracks where dad said the real paystreak could be. Finally after what seemed a long time to me and very hard work I had a pan full of paydirt to take down to the creek.

Now down at the creek dad said "well son, your gonna get wet, so you may as well get wet" and he sat down on a rock by the creek and put his legs and feet right in the water, so I did the exact same thing. He then set about showing me that first we place the pan in the creek flat and let water flow into the pan so we can start washing rocks, and so I did that. The first thing I noticed was how cold the water was...........brrr.............but being 11 yrs old, out with my dad, and about to pan my first pan i wasnt about to complain, and didnt. I just kept following what dad was doing, he would pick out bigger rocks and with gravel in hos other hand he would "scrub" the clay off the bigger ones, and then throw it in the creek, so wash, scrub, chuck until we had mostly smaller rocks in the pan. We then set about washing the clay out by keeping the gold pan in the water and carefully swirling the material around allowing the flow of the stream to wash the clay and mud away. Once that was done dad then showed me how to shake the pan back and forth with the gold pan tilted slightly forward to allow the lighter rocks that come to the top fall of the end of the pan. Dad explained to me that I could do this pretty quickly as gold and gold nuggets being really heavy sink to the bottom of the pan as long as I keep the material loose, He showed me how after shaking the pan that the finer heavier material settles to the bottom and packs tight. He showed me how to loosen the material and to continue to wash away the gravel to get down to the black sand and gold! So what seemed like a long long time dad showed me how to "finish pan" the material which was a gentler shaking of the gold pan and gentle washing of the black sand. Once I got down to where it looked like just black sand dad showed me how to swirl the pan to see what I got, and wholly cow, there I was 11 yrs old and 5 nuggets jumped right out at me!! I let out a yelp and couldnt believe the baseball sized gold nuggets (ok, im 11 and its my first pan so they LOOKEd like baseballs when in fact they were matchhead sized nugget), and along with the 5 nuggets were a bunch of smaller gold flakes, I was jumping up and down asking "is that gold, is that real gold"? and dad said yep and I could see the look of pride and happiness in him. I was hooked at that moment in time and have never ever lost the passion for gold, the gold fever, the gold lust or the gold adveture. I am forever grateful for my dad introducing me to this incredible hobby of gold panning and prospecting and since that first day I have travelled the world literally and will post more stories about that, but this is how it all started.

mlgdave