MYRTLE POINT — The muddy water in the tubs at the North Bend Prospectors’ fair booth hides more than dirt, sand and gravel.

For the patient and meticulous, it contains an element much more precious: gold.

Colton Young, 13, of Coquille examined his pan of water and sand Thursday evening as he swirled what was left at the bottom. Then:

Ah ha!

“I found one right there,” Colton said.

A tiny flake of gold gleamed against the black of the pan.

Panning in a bin next to Colton, Kim Holderfield of Myrtle Point was twice as lucky, but she just didn’t know it.

“It has to jump out at me and say, ‘I’m gold,’ or I won’t know,” she said.

A club member walked over, took hold of her panning plate and guided it back into the water. He moved it back and forth, letting the water rinse the course sand and gravel out. After a while, the pan had just a few small grains of sand and silt. And two flakes of gold.

Panning for gold or other minerals is not as easy as it looks.

“You just swirl it around and hopefully that gold just pops right out,” club member Renee Baldwin said.

Heavier than sand, gold settles to the bottom of the pan. The trick is getting everything else out so the gold is visible.

It takes time.

Fortunately, the water in the bins at the prospectors’ booth is warm — at least until you take your hands out.

This is the first year the prospectors have been at the Coos County Fair.

“It’s going good,” Baldwin said. “It comes in waves and it’s keeping us very busy.”

The panning practice is especially popular with the kids.

“It gets them away from the computer, away from the TV,” Baldwin said.

Panning for gold is just the beginning.

For more serious prospectors, the booth has a demonstration of a dredge, a machine that acts like a vacuum cleaner in stream beds, collecting minerals and filtering out the lighter material. What is left in the sluice container is the heavier minerals, including gold, sliver, mercury and lead.

The dredge has an air compressor so a diver can go underwater to guide the vacuum hose. Operating a dredge in a stream bed requires a permit from the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality, member Desmond Rains said.

If a person knows where to hunt for gold, a dredge can make for successful collecting. But to Rains, that isn’t what it’s really about.

“With us the main idea is to have fun,” he said. “We go out not necessarily to get rich but to develop an interest.”

With 150 members, the club is going strong.

Mac and Lois McPherson of North Bend joined the prospectors about a year ago. Mac was buying Lois a new pan as a gift, and someone told him about the club. They joined. The McPhersons see it as a good way to enjoy the outdoors.

“Down by the stream — it’s a whole different world because you are in God’s country, not people country,” Mac said.

“Unless someone knows your spot,” Lois said, smiling.