Next time you wash / squeeze some moss into your sluice or pan - keep it.
When you get back to your camp/home burn it in a pot - then repan it.
This tip came from an old timer - they’re smart men 
Amendment: I don’t think the old timer was talking about Miners Moss (a type of matting for sluices).
Some prospectors grabbed fine mosses from creeks - usually to check for gold.
Yes, letting it dry before trying to light certainly will help!
At the end of every summer we used to do that to the carpet or coire matting that we used in our riffle boxes. That was before there were any Keene or other commercial dredges available. Even today I have no idea why experts prattle on about what synthetic or commercial materials are the best. Free matting was just as good!
It was fun at seasons end burning the matting and getting that fine bonus gold.
yip i ben doing that to
Yep, we do that bring a black sack full home each trip. Always a surprise when dried and burnt.
Found a cheaper way than travelling all the way down to Louis Creek get the concentrate too.
Just waiting for the oz’s to accumulate. We could be on to something better than Bitcoin mining maybe 
okay, humour me here (as a non-goldophile) would there be merit in collecting moss from riverbanks(particularly flood terraces) and extracting? - based on my uninitiated (but slightly geological) principle that the increased cumecs of floods lift fine gold above typical water levels?
Not really. In rivers like the Arrow where there is a lot of gold after a heavy flood when a good amount of gravel has beenmoved then some fine gold may get trapped in the moss but I have never considered it worthwhile looking for it. After the banks had been eroded I have also seen small amounts of gold including small nuggets in the moss but generally speaking its not worth while. The only time I ever saw it worth while was in a river where there had been no appreciable floods for a year or two and moss had grown well out into the river. The flood (1981) scoured out a huge hole immediately upstream and fine gold did get trapped in the moss - I got two troy ounces…but that was a oncer and the only time.
The best places to get gold are where there are crevices in the bed rock…those are the places gold really gets trapped and in those cracks and crevices the nuggets and flakes accumulate.
I grab a bucket of moss sometimes after a dredge,I don’t burn it just rip it up and shake it out,probably out of a bucket I sometimes get 50 colors.Its not so much trapped in the moss but the moss roots which have grown out of the cracks in the bedrock.
that’s something I used to do regularly. heard all the stories about gold getting trapped but even with all the moss ive washed and shaken ive never found a thing. does burning it first give better results or have I just been unlucky dozens of times and been picking up moss with nothing in it. 
I’ve never tried to burn it guess you would have to dry it out first,the bits I have got have amazed me a bit as even after a shake and rip up you can go back through it again and there is still the odd piece that comes out.
I find that with my sluice mat. wash it and pan. then let it dry and bang it a bit back to pan. surprising how much more comes out. usually flour but can be a reasonable amount. mine is only a hand sluice though.
It is true that if you pull moss out of a crack or crevice you might get a little gold BUT the same goes for the roots of any small plants plus the dirt in the crevices. I have done that more than a few times but always when things are not going to plan and desperation days had set in!
I reported that listing. That person is a scammer for sure!
Hi Graeme, Was it worth while for the gold values recovered? I guess you had nothing to lose but the time in doing it & start the next season with fresh matting.
Bit like the recovery of fine gold from moss on the river rocks & banks. Generally not worth it but I usually just pan off moss in a creek that I don’t know has gold or not. It is usually a good quick indicator as to weather it does or not. As to drying, burning & panning moss,( Don’t let the greenies or DOC see you stripping that moss by the acre. Takes a long time to grow) i just don’t think it is worth the energy & effort. Better off putting a few more shovels down your box. I mean sluice box…
Good luck out there
JW
Hi John
It never had been worth it panning moss - I only ever did it when the moss grew in crevices and of course other plant roots as well and the pickings were just fine gold - its ok on a desperation day when nothing else was turning up.
When I burnt the matting at the end of the seasons work I sometimes got a gram or two of very fine gold but where I worked fine gold was rare gold - it was virtually all nuggets.
The only place I purposely worked moss was near Tobins track in the 1960s as a kid on the advice of an old miner. It was only very fine colours but back then enough to keep a ten year old happy.
A sluice box in the bed of the stream was better. In one stream I used a cradle and that was thirty years ago - I never cleaned out the mat properly and noted in passing that it is all still where I left it and the mat has rotted away so maybe theres a colour or two on the bottom of the remains of the box.
About five years ago I was looking at the bottom of another of our old dredges last used inthe 1980s I noticed that the mat had long rotted away so I panned the dirt, douglas fir needles and everything else that had accumulated and got maybe100 colours.
My cobber henry who got the nine ounce nugget in the Arrow also swept the concrete where we park our vehicles at a spot we went to many times and panned it for lack of anything else to do on that particular day and found a few nuggets that we had dropped.
Back then I guess we were somewhat compacent.
I did learn an interesting lesson in the 1970s when I took the dredge sluice box and tipped the gravel into a bucket to pan the contents then put the dredge sluice box into the cab of my Landrover, one end on the floor and the other end up against the back window then drove home to finish the job of cleaning it. I took the sluice box out and panned it at home and cannot recall how much I got but I then drove to Waimate. The next weekend at Waimate I saw a nice nugget on the floor of my Landrover and when I realised what it was and had a closer look there were MANY more. Now the Landrover floor just sat there and was not screwed down so if anyone ever finds gold nuggets beside the main road between Mosgiel and Waimate then I claim them! In any case I divided the gold into six small bottles to give away to kids. I know that one kid dropped his and the gold went down the drain along side the footpath but a few years ago a girl told me how excited she was when I gave her a bottle with gold in it…that was mid 1970s…now I had forgotten all about this and said “Did I?” - she said that I had and I asked to see it. Sure enough it was in one of the DSIR specimen bottles I used to give away gold in and there was a full two penny weight - 3 grams. That means that I must have cleaned up about 18 grams off the floor of my Landrover and given it away!
Back then I did give a lot away because I got a lot - nowdays the only gold I get is chocolate wrappers! It was fun while it lasted.
To this day I know a place!
As for the moss - forget it. Go for the small crevices and cracks in the bedrock. I had heard that many years ago the old times used moss in the bottom of their tail races at places like Maerowhenua. At the end of the year however if you use coir matting or carpet then by all means burn and pan it and if you are in an area where there is a lot of fine gold then you will have a happy bonus.
Cheers John
Hi Graeme, Thank you for your in depth reply. Never a dull moment when you put your fingers to the keyboard. Always very entertaining & a good yarn or two. Cheers. Talking of Tobins Track. Detected these near there a few weeks ago with the Minelab GPZ 7000. 
Cheers
John
I have heard that they are good but I never got used to my Xtreme when they first came out and I got one…I gave up…my son used to Potter with it and ‘paid it off’ in gold value in double quick time. I bought a humble little gold bug instead but now am thinking of either a Goldmonster or an Equinox 800 but don’t know if the Equinox 800 is as good on tiny bits nor which has the deepest penetration.
Great gold - when I gave it at home I will put on my last arrow pieces…about twenty pieces for 32 grams it was…that was years ago.
As for the Xtreme…it is still sitting in the hall at home where it was put some years ago after my son’s last trip with it. A friend if mine got a 28 gram nugget in Alaska with a 5000 at a depth he said of one metre.
His friend picked up from the surface a nugget near enough to 48 grams…largest nugget found in Italy in a long long time.
Hi Graeme, You will be interested then in seeing my replies to overdog’s query about Gold monster or Nox 800. I was sold on the monster but the Nox 800 has taken the world by storm & now with it 6" coil is really challenging the Monster & it 5" coil on gold. The Nox just has so many other uses besides just gold. but does do gold Very well. Even the 11" coil was deadly on gold but the open web design lends it to getting snagged up on objects & the little 6" is a lot better for poking & proding into tight places that gold likes to hide. The VDI numbers on the Nox may be a bonus for you if your hearing isn’t too good, which I believe is the case with all the blowing up of stuff you have done
Yes the GPZ is an amazing detector. So is the bloody price of it. I just wish it had a smaller coil than the 14". Not so much for more sensitivity but just being able to poke & prod it in to tighter places that I can’t with the 14"
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I always wondered how your son did on that gold bearing reef he stumbled across. That must have been a couple or three years ago now. Why isn’t he detecting now? Bye for now…I need to get off to bed.
Regards
John
Yes I read the contributions about the detectors - and they are very interesting. It is time I upgraded. I have only chased coins at the beach over the last year or two and even then only when I go fishing!
We have never been back to the gold reef - its a long haul walking. There have been known ones in the vicinity and a mile or so away one known reef back in the early days was supposed to have yielded considerable good nuggets out of specimen stone - even today in passing one can get specimen stone there but nothing like the old reports of the surface material. I have not been there for years.