Many years ago, back in the mid 80s I was living in San Diego and was making several trips up to central/northern California for different reasons. I had read all the stories about the California gold rush and really wanted to try panning for gold, now I had absolutely zero experience on what to do or what to look for other than I thought that only the nuggets were what I wanted or what was worth getting. I bought a pan and made a trip to where it all began, Sutters Mill. I found a spot and plopped my butt near the rivers edge and started panning. They gave me a minor lesson on how to pan, I probably wasent paying to close of attention to what they were saying. I wanted to pan for gold now! I started panning my heart out knowing I was about to get rich lol. All I kept seeing was all this gold dust. Like small sand particles. I kept tossing it back thinking that I should only focus on getting the nuggets. I really didn’t think all that gold dust was worth my time with.. boy was I stupid. After watching one of my favorite shows “Gold Rush” I remembered my experience… and still keep kicking myself in the ars lololololol.. I may make another trip and try my hand at panning for gold again this summer… I have the itch BAD lolololol