I didn’t know what to expect because the area we were working was not close to the water, but we were pleasantly surprised when we began to pan out some nice flakes and a few pickers.

After the hike and a quick snack break we gathered a few buckets of material to really dial in the drywasher for the most efficient recovery. This involves leveling the unit, setting the riffle box drop angle and regulating the speed in which the material is processed.

While a large number of locations have yielded some placer gold, most of the state’s placer production has come from a few productive districts.

Some prospectors would have assumed it was another shotgun shell, but in this case it was 17.6-pennyweight nugget!

Don’t hunker down and just keep digging in one spot where there is very little or no gold—if you don’t find it, you’ve got to get up and move on!