I was at a gold show recently and one of our old timers was taking a knife and scraping his pan, I had to look twice at what he was doing. If you are new to prospecting I will tell you a little secret, the uglier your pan is the better it will hold gold.

The riffles on most of the pans are large enough to catch nuggets but do nothing to trap the fine gold, that comes from experience and technique, but just a few simple modifications to your pan can make a huge difference in the gold you catch, especially the fine stuff.

In the first picture I am using a paring knife on a pan provided when I renewed my membership to slowly carve out a small gap at the corner of the pan, you don't need to do this too deep, maybe just a 1/32nd of an inch, but it creates a gap for the really fine material to get trapped in. If you notice this pan has a wide bottom which is extremely important with fine gold.

The second image I am showing a shallow bowl with large riffles and even though the pan is large and has a gravity drop it will work with large chunky gold but you will be in hell trying to get out the fine stuff.

Make sure you always treat your water with the soap of your choice, and ABSOLUTELY make sure you scrub your new pan in until it looks like it is ruined.

One other thing, that old timer cuts the sides of his pans down just enough so they fit perfectly in his bucket so he doesn't have to carry them, and this is a patent waiting to happen!