Welcome Christopher,

Dont spend to much on equipments just yet
Figure out what works best for your operations
Weather that be dredging, sluicing, panning, highbanking
You will need at least a couple of pans, try different ones first
Tweezers,, scale ( I use a reloading balance scale, no need for batteries )
Magnifying glass, small vials
Especially good local and BLM/Forest Circus maps of area of interest
Hand held GPS is very helpful
I you can, hit a gold show, mining shop or three to help with ideas and products that most of the time you can try right there

The one big idea, stop and look around and enjoy your surroundings

Bill

Thanks for the tips Bill. All I have currently is a pan trowel and a couple of cheap sifters for the materials that I will be panning.