There is no use in panning for gold in an area where there is none so go to a stream where people have found gold before. Since gold is about 20 times heavier than water, the gold will stay on the bottom and get caught in the sand and slow moving areas around bends in the stream and along the shore or shallow areas. It also gets stuck in small crevices in rocks and pieces of wood. Look for these areas and give them the first priority.

Submersion

Put about 4 handfuls of sand or dirt into your hold pan. Submerse the pan in the stream and move it in a circular motion so that the lighter materials will be carried out. Be careful not to move it too fast or you may lose your gold and everything else in your pan. You should do this until about half of your material from the pan is gone.

Panning

Lift the pan out of the water and begin swirling it around with it tipped slightly to the side where the riffles are . When most of the water is gone, dip the pan into the water and do it all over again. Keep doing this until nearly all the material in the pan is gone.

Seperation and Retrieval

Use a suction pipet to spray water into the pan and seperate any nuggets or flakes of gold from the sand in the bottom of the pan. The pipet is also useful to suck it up so you can deposit them nto a display vial or other container.

The End

If you don't find any gold, don't worry. You probably did something wrong but with practice this whole process can be very easy. It takes practice, patience, and a little luck to find gold in a stream, but keep trying. There's a lot of gold to be found in areas that people won't even look.