Gold panning: how to pan for gold, and where

How to pan for gold, step by step

1. Screen the material. Shake gravel through a classifier, a sieve that sits on top of the pan or bucket, so only pieces smaller than about half an inch go in. Gold you can pan is fine grained, and big rocks only get in the way.
2. Fill and soak. Fill the pan two thirds to three quarters full and hold it under water. Work the material with your fingers to break up clay, rub off the larger pebbles and throw the clean pebbles out.
3. Shake hard. Keep the pan level and under water and shake it side to side. This is the step that does the work: heavy particles, gold included, drop to the bottom while sand and gravel rise.
4. Wash off the top. Tilt the pan away from you with the riffles on the far side and use a forward-and-back or gentle circular motion to wash the top layer over the edge. Every few passes, level the pan and shake again so anything heavy stays down.
5. Work down to black sand. Keep going until only a small amount of heavy, usually dark material is left. This black sand is mostly magnetite and other heavy minerals, and it is where gold shows up.
6. Find the gold. Add a little water, swirl it slowly across the bottom and look along the edge of the black sand for flakes that stay gold colored in shade. Pick them up with a snuffer bottle or tweezers and keep them in a vial of water.

Go slowly at the end. Beginners lose most of their gold in the last few washes, when the pan is nearly empty and it is tempting to hurry.

Gold or not?

• Gold is soft: a flake bends or dents under a pin instead of breaking, and it keeps its color in shade and from every angle.
• Pyrite (fool's gold) is brassy, often forms sharp-edged crystals, and crumbles to a dark powder when you press it.
• Mica flakes glitter in the sun but are very light, wash out of the pan easily and look dull or silvery in shade.

Where gold settles in a stream

Gold drops out where water slows down: on the inside of bends, behind large boulders, at the upstream end of gravel bars and in cracks and low spots in bedrock. Material scraped from bedrock cracks and from the bottom layer of gravel is usually richer than the top. Gold also travels downstream from hard-rock deposits, so creeks below old mining districts are where placer mining happened in the first place.

Where placer gold was recorded, by state

Alaska (1,111), Idaho (465), Montana (388), Oregon (383) and California (360) have the most USGS placer producers. A record marks where gold was mined, often a century ago. Most of that ground is now private, claimed or worked out, so use it to pick districts to research, then check land status and claims.

USGS Mineral Resources Data System, retrieved 2026-10-13. It was last updated around 2011. "Placer" here means a producer whose USGS deposit type or site name says placer, so some placers recorded under other names are missed.

Detailed state pages: where to find gold in Alaska, where to find gold in Arizona, where to find gold in California, where to find gold in Colorado, where to find gold in Nevada.

Places that let you pan

Tour mines and pay-to-pan sites run panning on ground they control, so the permission question is theirs to answer, and many sell buckets of pay dirt to practice on. 12 places in our listings have panning in the name: Hidee Gold Mine Tours and Panning (CO), GOLD PANNING with RattleSnake Randy (SD), California Gold Panning (CA), Vics Gold Panning (CO), Pay Streak Gold Panning and Prospecting Adventures LLC (AZ), Libby Creek National Gold Panning Area (MT), Minecart Panning - Pan For Treasure! (OR), Gold Rush City Gold Panning (CA), Musher's Camp® & Gold Panning - Skagway, Alaska (AK), World’s Largest Gold Pan (AK), Cow Creek Recreational Gold Panning Area (OR), Calico Gold Panning (CA). Find gold panning and mine tours near you.

The rules on public land, in short

• BLM land: hand panning and non-motorized sluicing are listed as "casual use", activity that ordinarily causes no or negligible disturbance (43 CFR 3809.5). Mechanized earth-moving equipment is not.
• National forests: no notice of intent is needed for prospecting that will not significantly disturb the surface, and the rule names gold panning as an example (36 CFR 228.4).
• National parks: collecting minerals, gold panning included, is generally prohibited.
• Claims and private land: a mining claim or private property means you need the claimant's or owner's permission first.

Read the full panning rules guide, with state examples and every source linked.

What you need

A pan, a classifier, a snuffer bottle, a vial, a small shovel and a bucket cover the start. See what goes in a gold panning kit and what to leave at home.

Questions