Panning around Lake Ontario ...

I know there are a lot of rivers that lead into Lake Ontario - has anyone ever looked at any of these for GOLD ??   

any input on this would be great!!

Linkback:

You are not allowed to view links.
Please Register or Login

http://www.thunting.com/smf/index.php/topic,46634.msg255682.html#msg255682

		Quote:			Posted by andyw8121
	I know there are a lot of rivers that lead into Lake Ontario - has anyone ever looked at any of these for GOLD ??    any input on this would be great!!

Here's the thing. Looking for gold is called prospecting. You go out and you prospect the area for signs of gold. You may very well be the first person in a hundred years to do that and you might just find gold that arranged itself by water transfer into areas that were once considered to be barren of gold. Asking questions here is good but we can only help you by historical data which is now too old to be useful.

So get out there and prospect. Take along your GPS if you have one or if you don't, get one of the less expensive GPS systems that hikers use which gives you a latitude and longitude of your location. Keep detailed logs and record your finds. Even if you find nothing. I guarantee you that if you find gold, you will NOT come here and share the location. You won't want anyone else to get into your prospects (the name for your productive prospecting areas). In fact, you will then realize why asking for advice here is not going to be fruitful. If anyone here has found anything, they're most likely going to keep their finds secret.

Linkback:

You are not allowed to view links.
Please Register or Login

http://www.thunting.com/smf/index.php/topic,46634.msg255798.html#msg255798

The one single most essential tool is a pan....These come in a variety sizes, shapes and materials  and can be had relatively inexpensively.    If you only have a pan, you can still pan for gold since in a pinch you can use the pan to dig the soil.   In a pinch a pie tin or a frying pan can be used (heck the old timers used those when they didn't have anything else) 

Which brings us to the second most important tool.....a shovel to get the material you are going to pan out of the ground and into your pan---saves wear and tear on the pan and if you choose properly, on your back also.  A round point garden shovel will be more than adequate in most cases.

Third, you need something to keep your gold in.   Needs to be big enough you won't loose it, small enough you can stick it in your pocket or somewhere it won't be seen and strong enough you don't have to worry about it accidentally breaking, tearing, or otherwise loosing your gold.

The fourth and fifth most desirable pieces of equipment is/are practically neck and neck in terms of preference:   A) a bucket so you can remove more than one pan at a time from your sample hole.     This can be anything from a large tin can or metal pail to the always favored plastic 5 gallon paint bucket ( I use the buckets the chlorine tabs for my pool come in).

B) classifiers which are nothing but ways to control the size of the material in your pan by "filtering" out larger pieces.   This can be as simple as a couple of metal hardware cloth screens cut a bit larger than your pan or the bucket you are using.    This reduces the number of large rocks and such that you need to toss out of the pan while you are panning (just make sure you give them a good rinsing at some point before you chuck them---and check for external signs of gold).

BA

Linkback:

You are not allowed to view links.
Please Register or Login

http://www.thunting.com/smf/index.php/topic,46634.msg257946.html#msg257946

I know you have to start someplace - the rivers in and around cities and town - are we allowed to pan for gold in these area? 

Posted on: May 09, 2013, 02:18:46 PM

---

You know I was just thinking of taking my kids sand toys down to the water and see what happens with that - untill I an get my hands on the proper tools ...

Linkback:

You are not allowed to view links.
Please Register or Login

http://www.thunting.com/smf/index.php/topic,46634.msg257952.html#msg257952

		Quote:			Posted by andyw8121
	I know you have to start someplace - the rivers in and around cities and town - are we allowed to pan for gold in these area?

since I live in the US and not in Canada, I'll defer to the Canadians on this one except to say as a general rule, unless someone has an active claim on it, if the public has legal access to it and there is not some other law that prevents you from digging (and filling) holes in the area you should be able to.

BA

Linkback:

You are not allowed to view links.
Please Register or Login

http://www.thunting.com/smf/index.php/topic,46634.msg257960.html#msg257960