GOLD panning is a great pastime. With some practice you can develop technique and pan cleanly and quickly.
Panning often takes you to beautiful country and, if you wish, into remote country. And you find GOLD. It's great to see a trail of colors in the bottom of the pan!
Panning is most rapidly learned by watching and panning beside an experienced panner, but following these suggestions you can teach yourself and soon begin to pan like an old time Colorado Gold Prospector.

Prospecting Terms:
Placer – A deposit or accumulation of rock waste formed by process of sedimentation, mass wasting or weathering in which natural processes have mechanically brought about a relative concentration of GOLD or other heavy minerals.

Classifier or Grizzly – A screen or strainer to get rid of larger material.
Material – “Dirt”

Sniffer Bottle – A suction device “vacuum bottle” used to suck the desired material out of your pan.

Dredging - Dredging is the mining of placer gravel's to beneath local water levels employing mechanical excavation and a floating plant. The material is sucked from the riverbed with a gas vacuum and circulated through a floating seclude box. Very efficient.

Hand Sluce - A portable box with built in riffles that obstruct the flow of gravel's being moved by the water.

Black Sand---“Magnetite“

FLOUR---- Fine Fine powder GOLD

SPECK-----bigger than FLOUR GOLD, but still too small to pick out of the pan.

FLECK-----This is like a SPECK, but flatter in shape.

FLAKE-----A FLAKE is larger in size. A FLAKE is too small to pick up with your fingers, but can be removed with a pair of  tweezers.

PICKER----This is a piece of GOLD big enough to pick out of your pan with your fingers.

Nugget --- Come on now!

Heavy Minerals Found in Colorado:
Quartz and feldspar, then greenish epidote, then garnet (usually reddish) and black tourmaline, then brassy yellow pyrite and black magnetite and finally, with luck - GOLD...

Let's start Panning Prospector:
If panning in a stream or lake, pan where the water is shallow but the pan can be held and shaken under water. If in a stream, the water must be only gently moving, so that the contents of the pan will not wash out. Ideally the water should be four to seven inches deep, so the pan can be rested on the bottom.
If panning away from a lake or stream, work over a tub or other container large enough that the loaded pan can be submerged and ideally, manipulated in it. This not only facilitates the panning but prevents having to pour water into the pan, permits filling the pan higher and provides a trap for the tailings or run away nuggets.
 

Submerge the pan in water and vigorously shuffle it from side to side to shake the GOLD down through the material and into the pan.  Repeat this process as often as necessary until all material, which is 1/4 inch and smaller has gone through the screen. Remove the screen.

Submerge the pan gently, using a side to side motion and keeping the pan slightly submerged and angled in the water.
Repeat the vigorous shuffle to get the heavier material back down to the bottom of the pan. Repeat until only the fine material remains in the pan. Remove any larger materials or items such as lead, nails, bullets, etc.
“Most panners make the mistake of panning all the material without allowing the heavy deposits to be shuffled to the bottom”.

After panning the remaining material down to just the black sand “Magnetite“ take the pan out of the water leaving just enough to move the material by swirling. With a swirling motion the water will start to move the black sand to the side from which you are swirling from. Watch closely as you should see GOLD flour, flakes or even pickers submerge from the edge of the black sand.

Some prospectors do not like touching the pan as this leaves oil from your fingertips in the pan which might make the GOLD float. Instead use your sniffer bottle “a suction device” or tweezers to remove the GOLD.
There are many methods used today to remove the flour GOLD and small flakes. I have found that the GOLD separator "fine sluice box" works the best.  To see a plan on how to make one click the GOLD pan at the bottom of this page.
 

Now all you have left is to Go cash in you big find and make a claim!!!!