1What is the minimum kit for a first trip?
A pan, a small shovel or trowel, a screen, a snuffer bottle, a vial, and a small container to carry gravel to still water. Everything else is comfort or scale.
What a stream prospector actually needs, from the starter kit to what to leave at home.
A pan, a small shovel or trowel, a screen, a snuffer bottle, a vial, and a small container to carry gravel to still water. Everything else is comfort or scale.
A short-handled, strong one you can use one-handed in a hole. Folding shovels are light but weak in packed gravel; a garden trowel and a small pick fill the gaps.
A thin, bent piece of steel used to scrape gold-bearing sand out of bedrock cracks. A flat screwdriver or a bent spoon does the job; a stiff brush and a small scoop finish it.
One coarse screen to remove stones above pea size is enough for panning. Finer screens help when concentrating material for a sluice or a finishing pan.
A soft plastic bottle with a thin tube in the cap. Squeeze, touch the tube to a flake in the pan, release — the flake is sucked into the bottle. It is the fastest way to collect fine gold.
Not to start. A sluice is for processing a spot you have already proven with a pan. Buying one first tempts you to shovel gravel from wherever is convenient instead of where the gold is.
Boots with good grip and ankle support that you do not mind soaking, or wading boots. Wet rock is the main hazard in the hobby; smooth soles are the main cause of injury.
In cold water, yes — chest or hip waders keep you working longer. In warm shallow streams, quick-drying trousers and boots are simpler and safer if you fall.
Yes, at least one. Buckets carry gravel from a dry bar to still water, hold classified material, and double as a seat. A lid keeps a bucket of concentrate from spilling on the drive home.
A small strong magnet removes magnetite from concentrate. Keep it inside a plastic bag or a magnet-on-a-stick so the sand drops away when you pull the magnet out.
For coarse gold on bedrock, yes, in the right ground. Detectors do not find fine gold, which is most placer gold, and heavily mineralised black sand can make them noisy. They are a specialist tool, not a starter one.
A hand-operated tube that sucks sand and water out of bedrock cracks and pools where a shovel cannot reach. It is one of the most effective hand tools for cleaning bedrock.
Your phone usually is one. What matters is recording where each sample came from; a marker on a map with a note is enough. Carry a battery pack if the phone is your only navigation.
First-aid basics, a whistle, a headlamp, a space blanket, water and food beyond what you expect to need, and a way to call for help where there is no signal if you go remote.
A frame pack or a sturdy backpack with the pan strapped outside. Weight adds up: keep tools to what a day at one spot needs, and leave the rest in the vehicle.
A small pan used only on concentrate — the black sand and heavies left after main panning. Its size gives control when separating fine gold from the last of the sand.
A small glass or clear plastic tube with a screw cap. A few centimetres is plenty for a season of hobby gold; fill it with water so flakes do not cling to the walls.
A small hand lens helps decide whether a speck is gold or mica and lets you see the shape of grains, which tells you how far they travelled. Cheap and worth carrying.
Layers that dry fast, a hat, sun protection and a spare set of dry clothes in the vehicle. You will get wet; the question is whether you can get warm again.
Assembled kits are usually fine but often include items you will not use. A pan, a screen, a snuffer, a vial and a trowel bought separately cost less and are chosen for you rather than for a shelf.
Wash it, keep it out of prolonged sun, and never let oil or sunscreen touch its surface. Scrub a greasy pan with sand and dish soap; grease makes fine gold float away.
A crevicing tool, a stiff brush, a small scoop, a hand dredge for wet cracks, and a pry bar for lifting slabs. Bedrock work is slow; the tools are small and precise.
A sluice fed by a pump so it can run above the water line. It is for processing proven ground in volume and is heavy and noisy; it is not a prospecting tool and its use is regulated in many places.
Light enough to forget: a pan, a trowel, a screen and small items fit in a daypack. A shovel and a bucket add the most bulk; carry them only when you plan to dig.
Anything that only makes sense once gold has been proven: sluices, pumps, large screens. On a prospecting day the goal is information, and a pan gives it faster than anything heavier.
GOLDONGO scores entire stream networks for the trap geometry this guide describes — slope breaks, inside bends, junctions and bedrock. Pick your region and see where it stands.
This guide is general education, not advice for a specific place. A score, a map or a sentence here is not a licence to dig: the rules for prospecting, land access and protected areas differ from place to place — learn the ones that apply where you are before you go.