Rocks in Defined Groups

There are a lot of places in streams of all different sizes and groups of rocks that can be found close to each other. This type of situation can be considered natural riffles and should definitely be inspected. You can dig out the sand around the rocks with your hands and pan them however if there are too many rocks and the are very close together the problem is that the holes will fill up too rapidly for panning to be done successfully. In some cases a diversion dam can be built however in most cases a smaller dredge works just fine.

If the rocks are closely together there is just as much possibility that the gold is deposited close to the first few rocks on the up stream side as locating the gold accumulated in the first few riffles of a sluice. If you do not have a lot of time or resources this is a good way to start. If you are dredging, start at the end of the group down the stream since you will need to deposit the debris behind you. Besides this, there is a chance of releasing the rocks and they will move down the stream, which will make the job difficult if not impossible.

Pocket placers above the normal surface of the stream
These include the temporary placers that rarely last from one year to the next. The spot of these kinds of pockets can be found all over the place. In the past there were people that actually were able to make a living by what used to be known as crevicing. These people had unique equipment and tools that helped them be able to extract little amounts of gold from the crevices on the stream beds and this is what they spent their time doing. Panning was not usually done unless the crevicing paid out well.

In a lot of occasions the old timers that had been in the areas they had creviced for a number of years along with their knowledge of the streams as well as their experience helped them be successful at dredging. When the old timers started dieing out, crevicing did too along with them.

These days the search for placer below high water lines and the normal creek level only occurs every once in awhile. This can be done on occasions with metal detectors however in most cases it is done through visual inspection of a spot that looks like it has potential.

Looking in Crevices
Crevices are splits or cracks that will happen along the side of the stream with the same frequency it occurs under the bed load. When the stream is in flooding stage, the pressures inside of suspension pushes flakes of gold to the outside limits of the stream bed. Many times the stream gets to a high point and moves away so rapidly causing the gold to be dumped and it is often times washed down into a crevice. In most cases these types of crevices do not have a lot of gold in them but every once in awhile you will find one that has an interesting amount.