The beliefs that waste days, and the errors that empty pans.
The deepest water is usually the fastest, and fast water carries gold rather than dropping it. Gold sits where the water is slow and the bed is hard: inside bends, pool tails, bedrock — not the deep middle.
Black sand shows that a spot concentrates heavy minerals. If the catchment has no gold source, it concentrates black sand and nothing else. Black sand is a place marker, not a promise.
Only if the gravel is from the pay streak. Shovelling from a random spot yields nothing at any volume. Prospect first with test pans; process second.
They find coarse pieces, which are a small minority of placer gold, and struggle in black-sand-rich ground. Most stream gold is too fine to detect and is found by panning.
They got the coarse, easy gold. They routinely left fine gold, deep gravel, terraces and bedrock cracks, and floods have reworked everything since. Old workings are a reason to look, not a reason to leave.
Nuggets are rare anywhere. A good day is a few colours from several spots and a note on where they were; that is how a valley is learned.
The commonest error. Insufficient shaking leaves gold up in the gravel, and vigorous washing carries it out. Slow down, especially at the end.
Gold is in streaks and pockets. One hole tells you about one spot; ten small test pans tell you where the streak is. Dig the big hole only after the pans have found it.
Surface gravel holds only what the last flood dropped. The bed’s accumulation is at the bottom, on bedrock or the first hard layer. If you cannot reach it, choose a spot where you can.
The tail is where the lightest material settles last. The head of the bar is where the current first slowed and dropped the heavies. Move upstream on the bar.
Perfect trap geometry in a valley with no mineralised rock upstream traps only black sand. Check the geology and the history before the traps.
Gold moves in floods and settles where the flood slowed, which is often above the summer water line. Bars that look dry and dull may be the inside of the flood channel.
A pan result without a location is lost information. A note and a marker per sample turns a day into knowledge you can use next season.
A sluice processes; it does not prospect. Bought first, it tempts you to shovel from convenient spots instead of finding the streak.
Sunscreen, insect repellent and oil make fine gold float off the water surface and out of the pan. Wash your hands and the pan before panning.
Mapped channels are approximate and streams move. Use the map to choose the stretch, then read the actual bars, bends and bedrock on the ground.
Dangerous and fruitless — the traps are under fast water. Wait for the drop; the same stream will be both safe and readable.
A score is geometry: it says the current slows there. Whether gold ever reached that spot depends on the catchment. Use the score to decide where to test, and the pan to decide what is there.
They vary from place to place and many of them do apply. The person who did not check is the one who loses access for everyone. Learn the rules where you are.
Nothing loses a stream to prospectors faster. Fill in, pack out, and leave the bank as it was.
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.