Stealth Sluicing

[greydigger]

Have a question about sluice box.
I see some with the expanded metal up on top of the ribbed rubber part and some below and just on the carpet. Am sure it makes a difference but don't know which is best.

'Nother question. Was thinking about puting a small sluice in a creek that we have been getting high and low waters depending on the spring rains.
Tying it off and leaving it for a few days to a week.
Is this legal?
I know it would be safe on private property.
Might also paint it cammo or something.
Sorta like stealth sluicing.
Come back every once in awhile and clean it out.

Any comments would help.

Grey

 

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[Hoser John]

A log/rocks piled across the creek/or any other obstruction will do the same and not have to worry about losing your sluice. Think for a second--someone strolls buy and sees your $100+ sluice just a sittn' there fulla gold and you expect them to leave it alone NOOOOOOOOTTTTTTTT . 2 kinds of riffles-hungarian(used in a sluice L shaped) and modified hungarian(inverted L)high pressure dredging riffles. The L style seal with expanded under them BUT dredge riffles DO NOT. Look at night with a flashlight and shine it on the up stream side a them riffles and to your own self be true--tons a u 2 u 2 -John

 

[Goldwasher]

it doesnt work....passive gold recovery is an oxymoron unless your leaching and thats not very passive. if you put something in a waterway any flood large enough to move gold will absolutely move your sluice or bury it.........prospecting is hard work ....so you have to work hard....man has tried for centuries to find the easiest ways to recover gold and the top two are dredging and armed robbery...........one is a noble enterprize the other is just not worth it....

 

[Bumpstick]

Maybe if you could anchor it down well enough to keep it in place for the great flood.
You could drop an old pick up bed in the creek with angles welded in place.

 

[greydigger]

Thanks for the comments.
Guess I was thinking about "Jason and the Golden Fleece"
and lots of other stories.
Corrugated drain pipes and other such make believe "gold catchers".
Have to admit I was fooled by a lot of folks.

 

[Astrobouncer]

There's some old mines not too far from my house and a river that runs straight past them that was a source for placer gold in the 1800s and early 1900s that probably came from those mines. I got permission from a landowner who lives off the river to prospect his land anytime so I was out there one day and I found a huge steel bucket someone had staked into the bedrock and chained it down so it couldnt move. It was a really old looking bucket, dented, and it was filled with black sand. I asked the guy if it was his and he didnt know anything about it, despite it being on his land. I used my makeshift suction hand pump to get all the sand out of it but there wasn't anything in there but a lot of black sand. I bet that bucket has been in there for a long time maybe even from the time of those mines. I don't know.

 

[greydigger]

Well, that's kinda what I was talking about.
Pretty strange all that black sand and No gold.

Building dams might be kinda not wanted.
Maybe some short pieces of pipe driven into the ground.
This would be just for sampling.

Creeks I am talking about - a truck bed would make a bridge.

Also I mentioned private property. No Tresspassing.
Dogs and shotguns would greet nosey wanderers.
Other more accessable places an old pipe may not draw too much attention.

I have seen the vids about dredging and not sure yet if I want to spend $50k for a 4X4 truck, $10k ea. for quads, $20k for a 8" dredge with small houseboat, and have 10 people help run it all to get a half teaspoon of gold . But that's just me.

Grey

 

[strickman]

then use the truck you have,smaller dredge ,one man -no split -esp. for smaller streams,i have seen a 2 1/2"or a 3" get more shine than the big boy's dredges on numerous occasions ! i have a friend that don't even use a dredge or sluice for that matter that has some impressive finds !