Gold prospector Tyler Mahoney said panning could come back into fashion now that the price of the rare metal has shot up. (Source: Instagram/Facebook)
A task that brought people from far and wide to certain parts of Australia in the 1800s could be making a comeback thanks to the price of gold skyrocketing in recent weeks. Gold panning can take hours upon hours of sifting through dirt and water to get little specks of the rare metal.
While many might not have considered it in the past, it could now actually be worth your while. Western Australian gold prospector Tyler Mahoney told Yahoo Finance it doesn’t take much to get into the side hustle.
“So you have to buy a pan, it might cost you $20,” she said. “Head down to any gold-bearing creek, find a place that looks good, dig down to some bedrock, chuck in your pan, and start panning.
“It’s so easy. Anyone can do it.”
At the start of 2025, the price per troy ounce of gold was just under $4,193, which worked out to be $134.82 per gram.
It’s now at $6,340, or $203.60 per gram.
Mahoney pointed to a popular gold prospector called Sluice Box Karl, who has been encouraging Aussies to get into gold panning now that the price has shot up.
Karl said beginner gold panners could expect to find around 0.1 gram of gold per hour.
That means people just starting out could be paid more than $20 per hour, whereas they would have only been pulling in around $13 per hour if they were toiling in the bush at the start of the year.
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“The price is skyrocketing so this is just the beginning. If I had kids I’d be taking them out of school and giving them a shovel,” Karl wrote on Facebook.
“I’m not just talking about Australia. Everyone in the world where gold panning is legal will have a chance to change their life. If you live close enough don’t waste the opportunity.”
It’s hard to say how much a person could find each day as it depends on where they pan, what equipment they have, and their experience.
On a gold prospecting forum, one user claimed they could find 1-2 grams over a weekend, and people could turn it into an added camping hobby rather than an intentional side hustle.
“Most of us are not doing it for profit but the fun of it,” they wrote.
“I like camping, 4×4 driving and the research learning about the history of our country. Having cans at the fire with mates afterwards. Gold is a bonus for lot of us.”
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There are creeks in parts of Victoria, New South Wales, the Northern Territory, South Australia, Tasmania, and Western Australia that have specs and nuggets of gold waiting to be found, according to Gold Industry Group.
Ballarat in Victoria was one of the first areas to properly kick off the gold rush back in 1851.
Five diggers were able to find 136 troy ounces of the rare metal in just one day, which would be worth more than $862,000 today.
Gold can still be found in Australia by beginners if you know where to look. (Source: Sluice Box Karl/Facebook)
Mahoney urged people to look up the gold-bearing creeks in their state and go from there.
“If I was a rookie and didn’t know anything, I would get onto Google and type in ‘gold indicators Ballarat’, for example, and it’ll give you a list of things that you should be looking for in your area,” she told Yahoo Finance.
“The best thing about panning is it’s just trial and error.
“I would take some from the top and see if there’s any gold in that, then I would dig down to the bedrock see if you hit gold. Gold will tend to fall on the bedrock because it’s heavy, so digging down to bedrock is always the best option.”
Karl wrote his call to action when the gold price was at $6,740.
Earlier this week, the price dropped nearly 7 per cent overnight, which was the biggest fall in more than a decade.
Some investors who might have just jumped on the bandwagon could have found themselves suddenly in the red.
But Mahoney told Yahoo Finance why the sudden drop isn’t spooking her.
“Gold is a long term investment,” she said. “You’re not day trading with gold. So this drop means nothing for for us.
“Gold is on a big bull run right now, but we might see it just settle here and stay strong at this level for the next couple of months.”
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