Bathurst man Andrew Smith, who pans for gold any time he can, says there is still plenty waiting to be discovered.

He grew up panning for gold in the Turon River with his Sofala-born mother Dorothy ‘Dot’ Smith.

“You’ve got to know where to look. The days of just going down to a creek and finding gold are gone; the easy gold is gone,” he said.

But a little knowledge will go a long way, according to Mr Smith.

“It’s knowing that it accumulates in creek beds. There are certain places it will be,” he said.

“Bedrock is the best – the gold will go there because it’s really heavy.”

Mr Smith says “gold is lazy” and will often be found in pools behind rocks on the river floor or in the bends.

His favourite spot to successfully fossick for gold is the Turon, and it’s not just because of his family’s link to the area.

“The Turon River has a lot of history – in the early days you just had to walk along and pick it [the gold] up,” he said.

Mr Smith has built up his knowledge on where to fossick through research, knowing a little about geology and talking to those “in the know”.

“I talk to the old people,” he said.

“What I do is for fun, [but] these people did it for a living. If they didn’t find it they didn’t eat.”

Mr Smith has found more gold over the years than he’ll admit to the Western Advocate, but says he genuinely fossicks just for the fun of it.

“If you thought you were going to strike it rich you’d be disappointed,” he said.

“It gets me out and it’s a good social activity.”

He says a fossicker’s chance of finding gold in the Turon River is “around 90 per cent”. 

And to get started? 

According to Mr Smith, all you need is a plastic pan, a garden shovel and “a sense of adventure”.