Who knows, you might get lucky. I live just below the sierra foot hills and although I've never really found much, I have a couple friends who have claims as in mining claims registered with the state. Not even those guys pull much and before they put restrictions on the large scale type mining they didn't get much. Some have resorted to dry mining...bringing back diggings and panning it out at home. It does take a bit to know where and why gold lies where it does. A guy down the road from me is a retired engineer of Fisher detectors and claims that is the way to go. Still panning is kind of fun yet I'm with Jage, it's a lot of work.
BTW make sure you're not panning on someones claim...it really upsets them if they catch ya
Like I said, you might get lucky. I just got a big old nugget last week but it came by the way of a root canal. Told that dentist I wanted it back but I sure paid for it in pain
Lucky me.