This short video basically covers gold panning – pumping river gravel into a garden riddle, sifting the gravel, panning out to the concentrates and then washing the concentrates to get to the gold.
Gold Sniping in Scotland
My first movie! Made from clips of me gold sniping in the Highlands of Scotland.
Gold Club Meet – Kildonan 25-27 September
Fabulous three days, panning and sniping, enjoying the crack, meeting old friends and making new ones, dinner at the local Indian, couple of beers and gold too! Going home with a gram of gold each perhaps won’t make us rich but hey, what a cracking weekend!
Enjoy a few piccies from the weekend, including my share of the gold. Here’s to next year guys!
The Gold Club Website
We at the Gold Club felt a need for a website to provide information on gold panning and equipment, not just for enthusiasts to the hobby but also for land owners interested in seeing what we do and how we do it.
Our brand new website provides information on gold panning and the equipment used as well as providing a few pointers on getting started in this fascinating hobby in the UK and obtaining permissions to pan.
Be sure to check out and enjoy the new site!
Kildonan 12 – 18 July
It was so good to see old friends again. I love these gold panning meet ups. The river was very low and it stayed that way for the week despite the rain. Wow but those midgies can sure make your day uncomfortable.
Of course it isn’t all cold rivers and hard work, there were the barbies and the laughs and the team work and the very special friendships, which is really what this thing is all about. The gold is important too though and I estimate around 15 gms of gold came out of that burn during the week.
The Kildonan campsite from the hill leading up river
Jamie sorting out his gold
Shopping in Helmsdale
Leon Kirk getting ready for another shift
Me in my latest drysuit
Some nice gold
Showing off our gold around a barbie is always fun
Gold Sniping in Scotland
Yesterday I enjoyed my first real day’s sniping. My mate and I couldn’t have wished for a more perfect day. It was warm, there was a beautiful breeze to keep the midgies away, the river was cystal clear and we both found some nice gold. Perfect day out!
Where we were working. My mate getting down to bedrock.
Me in my new drysuit taking a look under the water.
Checking the cracks.
Me in my new drysuit.
My gold for the day included some nice little pickers.
Learning to Snipe
Had a great day out with one of my mates, who found more gold than me! In my defence, this was my first foray into sniping and I spent most of my morning trying to keep my mask from steaming up and wondering why my snorkel kept filling with water.
River was low so in the afternoon I picked a nice deep pool and had a swim around admiring the underwater view (through my steamy mask and between bouts of spouting water out of my snorkel)
I did find a nice crack though and took most of this out of it. The big piece is between 0.2 and 0.3 gms
Kildonan with Leon Kirk
Met up with Leon Kirk, one of the UK’s top gold snipers, and a few other friends at Kildonan last week and what a week it turned out to be. Learned loads, the weather was amazing and I went home with 3 gms of best Kildonan gold.
Leon Kirk getting ready for work!
Here is me kitting up in the sunshine.
Jamie hard at work.
Leon sniping.
Leon sniping around the edges of the waterfall pool.
Leon Kirk showing off a day’s haul.
A weeks work – 9.2 gms split 3 ways, just over 3 gms each.
And here is Leon on telly showing off his nuggets to Nick Crane.
Gold Panning at Kildonan 15-17 May
Where we were working.
Nice trap!
Checking out a trap where I found a nice little picker.
Ah, but it rained overnight on Friday and the river flooded. So we all piled into Terry and Janet’s mobile home and told stories and laughed over coffee and quail’s eggs, then went shopping in Helmsdale, visited Timespan, drove through Strath Brora and down Dunrobin Glen and had dinner and drinks in the Royal Marine Hotel in Brora to round off a superb day.
Sunday the river was still high but there was gold to be found!
Crevicing proved to be the only successful method due to the spate conditions.
Gold from the crevices.
Not a bad haul for the weekend considering the rain.
My gold for the weekend.
Sutherland Gold Panning
This particular burn in the Highlands is hard work and you can go home some days with very little but it has a nice habit of rewarding you with a cracking little piece of gold from time to time.
Looking upstream from where we were working
Looking downstream
Nice little picker!
