Hi guys,
I have been doing a lot of reading on this forum the last few weeks, some great info and interesting stories.
Possibly this forum saved me a fine one day as I had no idea about all these restricted rivers and creeks or requiring miners rights.
Iv been gold panning in all the rivers around Myrtleford havilah bright all my life. Even more than that iv had the police come and see me while I was at the ovens river and their only concern was I pick up my empty beer bottles before I left.. One of the parks guys drove past me in eurobin on the ovens river asked if I got any gold, he didn't say anything about it being illegal. Now I'm not sure if it's because I'm local and know just about everyone or they don't care to much about a gold pan..
It's why I'm so surprised these are all restricted and you can be fined..
This summer I'll ask the question when I see him..
One thing I'm interested to know and can't find a good resource on is how small of gold did the dredges collect. Because I have never got any gold around 1+ gram...
And what's your thoughts on the ground that was dredged, some sections they dredged is 100 meters wide and probably only gets a wash in servre floods, would it be worth panning, it looks terrible to try and shovel though.
I was going to try all along Morse's Creek this year but now I'm thinking of sticking to private property so I'm not disturbed with a massive fine.. Personally I think it's ridiculous to restrict gold pans for environmental reasons.. I remember swimming down the ovens in summer when they were watering tobacco and all the suckering oil would be washing into the river and making your eyes burn, the department never seem to care about that...
There is a few people I know who pan up towards Harrietville too and they never had any problems, so I wonder if these fines are geared more towards people using pumps and sluices.
Has anyone ever been fined for gold panning?
I have been doing a lot of reading on this forum the last few weeks, some great info and interesting stories.
Possibly this forum saved me a fine one day as I had no idea about all these restricted rivers and creeks or requiring miners rights.
Iv been gold panning in all the rivers around Myrtleford havilah bright all my life. Even more than that iv had the police come and see me while I was at the ovens river and their only concern was I pick up my empty beer bottles before I left.. One of the parks guys drove past me in eurobin on the ovens river asked if I got any gold, he didn't say anything about it being illegal. Now I'm not sure if it's because I'm local and know just about everyone or they don't care to much about a gold pan..
It's why I'm so surprised these are all restricted and you can be fined..
This summer I'll ask the question when I see him..
One thing I'm interested to know and can't find a good resource on is how small of gold did the dredges collect. Because I have never got any gold around 1+ gram...
And what's your thoughts on the ground that was dredged, some sections they dredged is 100 meters wide and probably only gets a wash in servre floods, would it be worth panning, it looks terrible to try and shovel though.
I was going to try all along Morse's Creek this year but now I'm thinking of sticking to private property so I'm not disturbed with a massive fine.. Personally I think it's ridiculous to restrict gold pans for environmental reasons.. I remember swimming down the ovens in summer when they were watering tobacco and all the suckering oil would be washing into the river and making your eyes burn, the department never seem to care about that...
There is a few people I know who pan up towards Harrietville too and they never had any problems, so I wonder if these fines are geared more towards people using pumps and sluices.
Has anyone ever been fined for gold panning?