Go to the library and read local books on where mining took place in your area, especially individual accounts, to get ideas for where to go today that are off the beaten path where everybody else goes. Get a sucker stick to use as a hand dredge to feed your sluice. Various ones are for sale on Ebay and elsewhere.They are also called Yabby Pumps-used to suck up crawdads/crayfish by some folks.Learn to read topo maps for potential gold spots.Go where gold was found before. learn what gold ore looks like.Its not just in white quartz,but greenstone,pyrites,multi colored mineral rich rocks too. Hard work,perseverance, and good luck always helps too.
Keep your ears open !!!! I recently found a gold hotspot by a campground I was about to give up on due to the fact the owner told me that guys from another state were coming there to mine gold with trailer mounted machines. They were mining the river along the campground on the opposite end from where I was looking and not finding much color despite all the bedrock, and bedrock cracks, and trash metal/ gold indicators where I was looking. I had ignored the other area because the water was dark black, impossible to see the bottom, and a bit deeper than I cared to go into, BUT that is where the gold was at, small pickers,and chunky fines .
A sucker stick would work here if a dredge were not available but I finally got myself a home built inline gold dredge that works, just needs testing next year now.
If I had not asked questions of the campground owner as to anybody else attempting to mine gold there, I would have given up on this spot and missed out. The gold bearing area is approx a 1/2 mile long x 150 feet wide and the bottom of the river is cemented cobblestones,VERY tough to walk in ,but the gold is getting stuck in them cobblestones and small boulders vs hardly any gold on the smooth shallow bedrock just downstream. This area is also where the locals are swimming and fishing, something else to watch for....deeper water+rough bottom= better gold...I never knew that from reading books alone...school of hard knocks lesson learned..
-Tom V.