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Recreational
Gold Panning
Recreational gold panning is the outdoor leisure activity of panning
gold from gold bearing streams and burns. Recreational gold panning is an outdoor pursuit which promotes
fitness, health, and friendship and brings us into some of the most
beautiful parts of the countryside.
Equipment
used in recreational gold panning
The basic equipment for gold panning would be a shovel, bucket,
garden riddle and gold pan, as well as suitable clothing for working
in rivers, such as waders, wetsuit, or drysuit. Other
equipment could include gravel pump, underwater viewer, sluice,
snuffer bottle, and patio weeder. Consideration must be given to
weight as all this equipment must be carried in a backpack.
When first sampling a new area, gravel is shovelled into a garden
riddle sitting on a bucket or goldpan. The gravel is sifted and put
back in the river and the finer gravel panned.
When gravel
has been cleared almost to bedrock a gravel pump is then used to
pump out the heavier sediments. At this stage, underwater viewer and
patio weeder are used to examine exposed bedrock. If small specks of gold
are found in cracks, they can be sucked out using a snuffer bottle.
Returns from
recreational gold panning
Returns from leisure gold panning are meagre to say the least.
Typical returns for a full day's outing probably averages around quarter to half a gram.
We would consider a gram for a day’s work to
be a very good outing indeed. Of course, there is always the allure of that
elusive nugget which may be lurking under the next rock!
Gold
Sniping

Sniping for gold is the method of using a drysuit or
wetsuit, snorkel and mask to look for gold in cracks in
exposed bedrock on the river bed. It is not gold panning.
The only equipment used in gold sniping is basically just a
geologist's hammer, small chisel, patio weeder for scraping
cracks, and snuffer bottle.
As can be seen in this photograph, sniping is
confined to exposed bedrock and as such little or no change
is made to the river bed whatsoever. Perhaps if gold panning
is not an option, gold sniping could be permitted under
certain conditions.
Stop Press

The high price of gold is attracting 'gold diggers' to the hobby -
if you will excuse the term - folks who pan without permission,
damage salmon spawning beds, and who have no regard for other
ecological considerations, such as lambing, deer stalking, and other
country activities.
If you are unfortunate enough to be taken advantage of in this way,
rather than simply close your rivers to all gold panners, please
consider granting exclusive panning permissions to the Gold Club. We
will respect your land and property at all times, and we police our
members.
There will always be rogue panners, just as there will always be salmon poachers, but
please don't close your rivers to responsible panners as a consequence.
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