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These days, with gold trading at nearly $1,500 an ounce, people are getting their feet wet -- literally.
Urged on by gold-prospecting shows on TV's Outdoor Channel, these "new 49ers" are standing in streams all over the country and panning for the glittery stuff, just like prospectors did in California a century and a half ago.
Should you join them? How do you start prospecting for gold? And what are your chances of striking the mother lode?
We talked to some old hands to get some basic questions answered.
Can you look for gold where you live?
"There's gold that can be found in every state, including Hawaii, though some states are better than others," says J.J. Long, the president of Gold Prospectors of the Rockies, a Colorado club with about 120 members.
One of the hottest states for amateur prospecting is California, Long says, and other big states include Alaska, Arizona, Georgia, Nevada and Oregon.
What's it cost to get into prospecting?
You'll need only $50 to $150 to get started, but the costs can escalate if you catch gold fever.
"A big gold pan is $10 to $15," and you need at least one or two sieves to go along with it -- imagine kitchen colanders that don't let the bigger pebbles pass -- "and they're 22, 23 bucks apiece," says Michael Dunn, the owner of Gold Pan California, a supply store in Concord, Calif. You'll also need a shovel, high rubber boots and perhaps rubber gloves for working in cold streams.
As you get the hang of it, you'll probably want to buy a $135 river sluice box, Dunn says. It's a tilted, rectangular box; you pour gravel in front of the box, the gravel and water run over the box's corrugated riffles and the heavier gold gets caught in the riffles while other material washes out. You can do 10 times the work with a sluice box as with a pan, Dunn says.
Dedicated prospectors work their way up to mechanized equipment -- power sluices, dredgers and "high-bankers" -- the latter of which is a sort of dredge that sits on dry land. Those can cost $3,200.
You've got the gear -- now what?
So you're ready to find some gold. Where do you point your pick and shovel?
"You have to go somewhere where there's public access. It's that simple," Long says. Yet it's not so simple either. "There's not that much (public access) left today," he notes.
When you do find a place with public access, check with the local governing body to find out if there are any rules governing mining. (For instance, mining is usually banned in federally designated wilderness areas.) Permits generally are required only if a miner wants to use mechanized gear, Long says.
"I could go into anywhere with public access with gold pans and a sluice box," he says.
But heading out to a local river on your own is likely to be fruitless. "You can spend a lifetime with a pan and a pick and a shovel and find zero gold," says Ron Orbas, 69, the vice president of the Comstock Gold Prospectors club of Reno, Nev., which has about 300 members.
So what to do? "I recommend if a person is going to get serious, the first step is to join a prospecting group/club," says Chris Demarinis, the author of the e-book "How to Make Money Prospecting for Gold." "They provide educational materials, an Internet forum, along with actual outings where people can go and learn from others how to prospect and extract the gold."
Clubs usually have claims that have yielded gold in the past. For instance, Orbas' Comstock club has 10 claims along several rivers.
You can learn techniques faster in a group outing, too, Orbas says. "You could spend days trying to teach yourself how to pan. The old-timers will teach you in a few minutes."
