Gold Prospecting, Panning, Mining, Rock Hounding.

Oregon's diverse geology offers a wealth of mines and beaches and deserts for weekend and seasoned miners, from placer gold in streams that run off the Blue and Wallowa Mountain ranges in the northeast, to the tributaries of the Rogue River in the Klamath Mountains in the southwest. Collectors dig for sunstones in lava flows that cover much of southeastern Oregon. And legendary Thundereggs are collected at many sites throughout the state.

Our focus is to provide easy access to the information and equipment you need to enjoy your outdoor experience, whether your obsession is gold prospecting, gold panning, or rock hounding for gem stones. If you're as passionate as we are about digging in the dirt for elusive treasure, we'd like to hear about your Oregon experience!

Basic Gold Panning kit from Black Cat Mining
Basic Gold Panning Kit - $20.95

The Trusty Gold Pan

The gold pan is the essential tool to own and know how to use effectively. It comes in a variety of sizes, colors and a couple different shapes. The experienced panner can work a pan in about ten minutes or less, which enables him/her to cover more ground in their quest to determine whether there is enough "color" (gold) to warrant setting up the sluice, highbanker, dredge, etc. And at the end of the day the concentrates (gold and black sands) are cleaned from the equipment and panned to further separate the gold.

There is no shortage of advice on the proper way to pan. It all boils down to what works best for you. We sorted through a bunch of videos on YouTube and found one that's pretty good, in our opinion, by Tim Skees. Besides explaining the art of panning, he also provides a few pointers on the Blue Bowl Concentrator.

Basic Kit + Classifier from Black Cat Mining
Basic Kit + Classifier - $28.60

Our favorite book on the subject is a thin paperback we bought thirty years ago, Gold Fever and the Art of Panning and Sluicing, by Lois De Lorenzo. We were delighted to discover it has been reprinted and is still available at Amazon.com. In addition to panning techniques, De Lorenzo covers topics like how to read a river, mossing, crevicing, and how to make a mini-portable sluice box complete with lots of illustrations.

For a free tutorial on the basics of using a gold pan, go to Gold Panning Instructions at Black Cat Mining. There you will also find more helpful titles to get you on the road to panning like a pro in no time!

Panning along the Calapooia River.