The general principles that apply everywhere. The specific rules are local and are yours to learn.
It depends entirely on where you are — on the country, the region, the land and sometimes the stream. There is no universal answer, and this guide does not give one. Find out the rules that apply where you intend to go before you dig.
From the authority that manages minerals and land where you are, and from local prospecting associations, who usually know how the rules work in practice. Treat sellers of equipment as a less reliable source.
Not necessarily. In many places the minerals belong to the state or are managed separately from the land. Check the mineral rules, not only the land title.
National parks, reserves and heritage sites are closed to prospecting almost everywhere, and the penalties are usually severe. GOLDONGO marks them and drops the streams inside them from its lists, but the map is not a substitute for checking.
As a rule, yes. Ask the owner or manager, be clear about what you intend to do, and accept a no. Access lost by one careless person is lost for everyone.
In some regions, a registered right to prospect or mine a specific piece of ground. Where claims exist, working on someone else’s without permission is a serious matter. Learn whether your region uses them and how to check.
Do not work right beside someone who was there first, do not muddy the water for people downstream, fill your holes, and leave gates and fences as you found them.
Whether and how you may keep or sell gold is part of the local rules, and it varies. Know the answer before it matters.
Almost always. Pumps, dredges and highbankers are regulated more strictly than hand tools in most places, sometimes banned. Hand panning is the most widely tolerated activity — but tolerated is not the same as permitted.
Streams are habitats. Many places restrict digging in spawning gravel or during spawning seasons. Work below the water line as little as possible, keep silt out of the current, and put gravel back.
Fill it before you leave. Open holes trap animals and people, erode into the bank, and are the most visible way prospectors lose the goodwill of everyone else on the stream.
Leave it, record where it was, and report it to the relevant authority. Artefacts and old workings are protected in most places, and moving them destroys the information they hold.
No. It is a map of stream geometry. A score is not a permit and does not say anything about whether you may dig at that spot. The rules where you are decide that.
Be polite, explain what you are doing, and leave if asked by a landholder or an official. A conversation costs nothing; an argument can cost access for years.
Because they change, they vary within countries, and a wrong summary would do harm. The honest version is: the rules are local, they are yours to learn, and they come before any trap geometry.
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.