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Gold recovery with out a dredge.

landman

Member
Some places do not allow dredging or High Banking. I'm wondering what are the best gold recovery methods if dredging and high banking are
out? Here's as far as I got.
1.) Gold metal detecting looking for the larger nuggets upstream or in hard rock
2.) Using a normal sluice box
3.) Using a very,very efficient sluice box design.

Panning has it's limits. Sluices do too.
But maybe there is a larger better sluice
that has been invented I'm unaware of.
What other ways to get more gold without
a motor attached?
 
Go to the library and read local books on where mining took place in your area, especially individual accounts, to get ideas for where to go today that are off the beaten path where everybody else goes. Get a sucker stick to use as a hand dredge to feed your sluice. Various ones are for sale on Ebay and elsewhere.They are also called Yabby Pumps-used to suck up crawdads/crayfish by some folks.Learn to read topo maps for potential gold spots.Go where gold was found before. learn what gold ore looks like.Its not just in white quartz,but greenstone,pyrites,multi colored mineral rich rocks too. Hard work,perseverance, and good luck always helps too.
Keep your ears open !!!! I recently found a gold hotspot by a campground I was about to give up on due to the fact the owner told me that guys from another state were coming there to mine gold with trailer mounted machines. They were mining the river along the campground on the opposite end from where I was looking and not finding much color despite all the bedrock, and bedrock cracks, and trash metal/ gold indicators where I was looking. I had ignored the other area because the water was dark black, impossible to see the bottom, and a bit deeper than I cared to go into, BUT that is where the gold was at, small pickers,and chunky fines .
A sucker stick would work here if a dredge were not available but I finally got myself a home built inline gold dredge that works, just needs testing next year now.
If I had not asked questions of the campground owner as to anybody else attempting to mine gold there, I would have given up on this spot and missed out. The gold bearing area is approx a 1/2 mile long x 150 feet wide and the bottom of the river is cemented cobblestones,VERY tough to walk in ,but the gold is getting stuck in them cobblestones and small boulders vs hardly any gold on the smooth shallow bedrock just downstream. This area is also where the locals are swimming and fishing, something else to watch for....deeper water+rough bottom= better gold...I never knew that from reading books alone...school of hard knocks lesson learned..

-Tom V.
 
The term High banking means pulling material from the shore line and feeding it into the river. A high banker is a powered sluice and still can be used to process river gravels. This is the way to go if you don't want to stand in the rivers and process which can be very cold even in the summer . Instead you do your shoveling into a bucket or multiple buckets then classify on shore and feed your high banker while you warm up. Use a gold and sand type of hand dredge to clean the bedrock if you can get to it.. To me the most important piece of equipment I can have is a good wet suit because I'm gonna get wet up to my shoulders so waders don't cut it. Of coarse high bankers are hard to get into the bush so a sluice or rocker box may be the better tool depending on the location.
Make your self a system for your area. Since dredging has been banned My 4" just sits there. So this is what I use

Keene sluice that is part of the high banker I built.
Pro pan gold pan with 1/4 inch classifier.
Sniffer bottle!
A six foot bar a three foot bar and several types of crevice spoons as well as long tweezers, hand sledge hammer and cold chisels.
a milk crate for moving larger rocks out of my hole if I can manage it that doesn't always come. but its better than a bucket because it drains.
Gold and sand Hand dredge and bucket.
And of coarse shovels Its good to have both a large and small shovel. The smaller one will be able to get at lower angles and under some areas of the bigger boulders.

As Tvanwho has stated research is paramount as far as location and one spot may be barren and fifty feet away in a place you wouldn't think there it is. So good sampling on a area is crucial you don't want to spend the time getting there just do a pan and walk away. You may have to remove all the soil and it be barren the gold may be only on the bed rock. Set a sample limit for your self so you dont waste time as well. 5 to 10 pans taken from varying locations. Head middle tail of sand bars. Bedrock cracks and main channel if you can.

Allot of good how to vids on youtube

Metal detecting for gold is the hardest way to find gold I do it and am addicted but with placering you almost always come home with a little color.

Use all the tools you can at your disposal.

Good Luck
Jim
 
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