Yep, that was me. I do Dredging, Slucing, and panning. Its a lot of fun. You can make some money at it, but have to be out for more than a few days.
For some good info, go to [url]www.tomashworth.com[/url] The discussion forums there are great and the people helpful (I am a moderator there). Tom has a club (the Mulinnium Diggers) and they have some real good claims in S oregon. The fees are like $20 a year and includes use of the claims.
Your best bet to to hook up with a club like that and go on some outings with a bunch of others and use thier equipment first to see how you like it, and decide what equipment is best for you.
Panning is fun, and good for sampling. For production you depending on how accesable the area is, you can sluice, highbank, or dredge. All are decent ways of getting gold.
For you tin foil hat crowd, gold is going up, and if the SHTF gold will be a means of buying things, possibly one of the only ways. Gold was up to $350 and ounce last week and is expected to climb.
[img]http://www.kitconet.com/charts/metals/gold/t24_au_en_usoz_6.gif[/img]