Reading a river or creek before you start panning or hunting

A little observation before you start working a stream saves a lot of wasted effort. Look for the inside curve of bends, where current slows and drops material, exposed bedrock where overlying gravel has washed away and heavy material may be trapped in cracks, and any natural obstruction like a large boulder where the water slows immediately downstream. Gravel bars themselves are worth checking at multiple depths, since a bar's surface material may have been worked over by other collectors already while material lower down has not. These same sorting principles apply whether you are looking for tumbled agate, garnet, or gold, since all of them concentrate through the same basic water sorting physics based on density and durability.