Recreational Gold Panning and Sniping
Recreational gold panning is the outdoor leisure activity of panning gold from gold bearing streams. Recreational gold panning is an outdoor pursuit which promotes fitness, health, and friendship and brings me into some of the most beautiful parts of the countryside.
Gold panning is hard work. Most days it can involve doing nothing more exciting than moving large stones and rocks in freezing rivers, as well as carrying all equipment to and from the car. Panning for gold requires permission from those with rights to the gold as well as land owners for access to their land before going gold panning.
Sniping for gold is a method that uses a drysuit or wetsuit, snorkel and mask to look for gold in cracks in exposed bedrock on the river bed. It is not gold panning. The only equipment used in gold sniping is a geologist's hammer, small chisel, patio weeder for scraping cracks, and a small plastic drinks bottle with a tube in the end, known as a snuffer bottle, to suck any gold up. Sniping is confined to exposed bedrock and as such little or no change is made to the river bed whatsoever.
If gold panning is not an option, perhaps gold sniping could be an alternative consideration for granting access under certain conditions.