Panning question

[spikegold]

Hi everyone, today I took home a bucket of stuff( mainly crushed ironstone), sieved it down to be very fine. I panned each bucket of graded material, nothing in large and small buckets but gold in the finest bucket.
Anyway whilst panning the finest stuff down to a point where I could swirl in pan to reveal gold I noticed that no matter how much agitation, rough and gentle, most gold would be sitting in amongst the fine black sands but not at the bottom corner of the pan as I would have expected.
Any idea why or how this happens?
Also does this mean I've most likely washed plenty of gold out before getting to swirl?
I tried panning same stuff with half grammer in pan and it took a lot of effort to get that sucker to sink to the bottom but it did.
In a clear square container I tapped and agitated stuff into corner to try view gold from underneath but no matter the effort I couldn't see gold, why?
Any help or ideas I will appreciate. Thanks :|
Oh and the gold that was held up was small but very jaggedy and rough. Way too big to float

 

[Tathradj]

Put a spot of Finnish in your pan.

 

[spikegold]

Hi tathradj, it's not floating on surface, gold is seen half way into wedge of cons once swirled to reduce last of pan.
Clean water used.
In clear square container, looking from under, lighter coloured sands above black sands are seen in corner after tapping and shaking

 

[Dr4gul3]

you said its mostly crushed iron stone? have you hit it with a magnet yet? just a thought..

 

[spikegold]

Hi dr4gul3, I did dry it out and use magnet, it pulled out about half of what's in pan which was great but what worries me is how much has been washed out of dish before getting to that point. Never been an issue before

 

[Simmo]

I think its just showing you ths differant specific gravity of the material.
If you are at this point in the process, I highly doubt that you have lost any gold.

 

[XIV]

The finish won't just stop the gold from floating
it breaks the water tension, which in turn helps separate
How fine are you sleeves?
if you are having to much trouble panning it out, you may need a miller table or a blue bowl if its really fine

 

[Hunting the yellow]

try hot or warm soapy water mate works for me and have had the same trouble

ps how's those holes going been digging ?