Wheres all the snipers here?

[mellowyellow]

Hey all, went out with shovel humper a few days ago to east fork, SGV. Had a blast. He exposed me to sniping. It's all a new technique of prospecting to me And would love to hear people's thoughts, tips, advice or whatever when it comes to sniping in CA. Thanks!
Hanks

 

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[mellowyellow]

Initially , I thought sniping was pretty inefficient, but doing some reading and studying, seems it could be fun and it would be sure nice to not have to haul hundreds of pounds of gear to the river every now and then, lol. A friend told me sniping is feast or fathom. Sounds like that is a very true statement. All thoughts appreciated.

M Y

 

[USACracer]

Mellowyellow-
I am very new here, But have really enjoyed the videos and thread by NeoTokyo. check out those videos.
I could hardly believe the gold you can see just laying on the bedrock cracks.

Happy hunting

 

[mellowyellow]

Mellowyellow-
I am very new here, But have really enjoyed the videos and thread by NeoTokyo. check out those videos.
I could hardly believe the gold you can see just laying on the bedrock cracks.

Happy hunting

Very cool thank you. Sniping sounds pretty fun, and always better to have more tricks in your bag eh! Happy hunting to u as well.

NEO can you repost the links to your videos if you have time brotha. Thanks!

 

[worldtalker]

Sure hope you catch one. God Bless Chris

 

[Lanny in AB]

There's a good little book on sniping by Sam Radding and Jim Garlock "Underwater Sniping for Gold" that I picked up at the beginning of summer. It's got a lot of great information on what to do and where to look.

All the best--you'll have fun sniping,

Lanny

 

[Fullpan]

mellow - just scan 20 threads down to Neo's videos - last post, yesterday.

 

[mellowyellow]

mellow - just scan 20 threads down to Neo's videos - last post, yesterday.

Thanks fullpan,, copy that.

 

[mellowyellow]

There's a good little book in sniping by Sam Radding and Jim Garlock "Underwater Sniping for Gold" that I picked up at the beginning of summer. It's got a lot of great information on what to do and where to look.

All the best--you'll have fun sniping,

Lanny

Lanny, funny you said that. Shovel Humber just sold me a copy of the book. Great read and easy to understand. I have been at the fire station last 3 data so havnt had ha time to read more than the first 5 pages. Lol. It's busy here in da ghetto. Looking forward to finishing the book. Thanks brotha.

 

[NeoTokyo]

Heya guys, glad to hear that you like my video's.
They arent the best quality but next year I hope to have a GoPro to take better underwater vids.
I dont mind posting up my vid links, my youtube channel is CrainRacing - YouTube

I have other non-gold related video's that I have been meaning to upload, automotive how-to's and general reviews.

Here is a pic of my overall summers haul minus about 2 grams of finer flakes.
This is from a hand full of days over 2 months, maybe 15-20 trips up ranging from 1-3 hours at a time.

A little about what I have learned about underwater sniping.
btw, I am no expert, this is just what I am taking away from 2 months of doing this and watching countless youtube vids, reading dozens of thread posts and looking over books and magazines.
By no means am I a Pro, just lucky.

You read the creek just the same as you would if you were panning or sluicing, look for drops and the inside of beds, behind boulders and objects that wont move in a flood.
The biggest thing that you are looking for though is BEDROCK! or false BEDROCK which is a hardpack layer that wont move during a flood and stops the gold. Clay will also hold that gold if you find it.

From what I have seen in my own area is that the very head of a drop may not have any gold in it, in fact this area is usually still too fast during a flood to let it fall out.
Several feet down from where you would think the dropout would happen is usually where I have found the gold.
Take a look at where the flood line is, imagine the creek flooding and you will see that that dropout will usually be just down from where it looks like it might be during normal water levels.

In the last hole that I worked this year the gold was spread all the way back to the end of the drop but continued down a bit too.
As Gold drops out in the low pressure zone it does get churned and pushed downstream too so you will have a "Wake" of gold even beyond the low pressure zone for a little bit.

I found the chunkiest stuff at the head of the low pressure drop.

The bedrock in the last hole that I worked was running straight across the creek like a natural sluice box, this is optimal but gold can still be found in any kind of bedrock drop.

In my last underwater video I moved the largest boulder sitting in the deepest part of that low pressure drop and hardly found anything so it isnt always where you would think it would be.

Now if you can, take the lower half of the overburden out and put it into a bucket to sluice or pan, there is a lot of fine gold in there that you will fan away when fanning the overburden away, in some cases you can see it right ontop because that area could be so rich.

Fanning isnt always enough though, having a set of basic tools with you like a Pick, crevicing tool and small prybar is key to getting into those area's that hold gold.

My last little tip (but not the end to what I have learned) is that the shale type bedrock holes gold like crazy and gold gets into some places that you would think impossible.
Shale type bedrock has many layers pointing in any direction and the gold likes to get right into those little cracks and hide itself.
To the naked eye you might only see 1 or 2 flakes but there could be a dozen or more hiding inside.

Break that stuff up and get the gold out.

So thats just a little of of what I have to pass on.
Here are some but not all of my vids, you can check out my channel for the rest if you like. CrainRacing - YouTube

Good luck.

 

[MrLee]

OMG Neo! That is amazing. The freakin gold is just sitting there! I'm getting my kids goggles, snorkel and heading up to the EF tomorrow!

A few months back I met a guy at the EF with a full suit and gear scoping the river. We were about 1-2miles up past the parking lot. Now I know why he had all that gear. Thanks for sharing this.

BTW, ever been to Tokyo? I lived there for 4 years. Absolutely amazing place. Go back to visit the inlaws every year and every year I'm there I wish I could move back.

 

[strickman]

Nice finds neo, good info as well. Sniping is the most efficient way I have found ..... I usually dredge but going light has it's advantages . One of my best days was sniping with minimal equipment , I did more in 11/2 hrs. sniping than the previous 3 or 4 full day dredging trips. But you must learn to read the creek !

 

[Lanny in AB]

Lanny, funny you said that. Shovel Humber just sold me a copy of the book. Great read and easy to understand. I have been at the fire station last 3 data so havnt had ha time to read more than the first 5 pages. Lol. It's busy here in da ghetto. Looking forward to finishing the book. Thanks brotha.

No problem. I've sniped and found nice gold before. So, I know it works, and I know you can find some very nice gold that way. I'm way more into dredging, but sniping is tons of fun. As others have said, you travel much lighter and you have a tiny investment in tools as compared to dredging. Plus, the way things are in California, that's pretty much the only option a lot of those fine people have right now. I can't stand unwarranted government, environmental, or politically motivated, misguided interference by special interest groups. A lot of great people in California are financially suffering at the worst possible time right now, unnecessarily due to total BS. Off my soap box now--hope you have lots of fun sniping.

All the best,

Lanny

 

[NeoTokyo]

OMG Neo! That is amazing. The freakin gold is just sitting there! I'm getting my kids goggles, snorkel and heading up to the EF tomorrow!

A few months back I met a guy at the EF with a full suit and gear scoping the river. We were about 1-2miles up past the parking lot. Now I know why he had all that gear. Thanks for sharing this.

BTW, ever been to Tokyo? I lived there for 4 years. Absolutely amazing place. Go back to visit the inlaws every year and every year I'm there I wish I could move back.

Thanks.
I have never been to Japan but I would love to go.
I spent two semesters taking Japanese something like 10 years ago but have forgotten almost all of it.
I got my handle back when I was in high school, I liked the move Akira and thus my handle was born.
I have kept this same handle since the late 90's so if it has to do with Mustangs, cars, camera's or gold you will probably find my name there.

Nice finds neo, good info as well. Sniping is the most efficient way I have found ..... I usually dredge but going light has it's advantages . One of my best days was sniping with minimal equipment , I did more in 11/2 hrs. sniping than the previous 3 or 4 full day dredging trips. But you must learn to read the creek !

Thanks.
Yup, reading the creek is important but I try to hit every bit of exposed bedrock that I see no matter where it is but hitting the "DUH" spots is key to getting bigger streaks.

No problem. I've sniped and found nice gold before. So, I know it works, and I know you can find some very nice gold that way. I'm way more into dredging, but sniping is tons of fun. As others have said, you travel much lighter and you have a tiny investment in tools as compared to dredging. Plus, the way things are in California, that's pretty much the only option a lot of those fine people have right now. I can't stand unwarranted government, environmental, or politically motivated, misguided interference by special interest groups. A lot of great people in California are financially suffering at the worst possible time right now, unnecessarily due to total BS. Off my soap box now--hope you have lots of fun sniping.

All the best,

Lanny

I would love to dredge these area's and then go over it again sniping because the material that I am fanning away also carries away finer gold, I see it all the time and I just cant get it without sucking up a bunch of sand too.
Thats why everything I have is chunky, dredging + sniping would clean the hell out of those area's.

 

[NeoTokyo]

Here is why putting some of the richer overburden through a sluice is a good idea.

I made this video tonight after trying out a Keene A52 Sluice box.
Some of the really fine stuff is from the small cracks I was working, I had sampled that area before and that is all I had found.

My wife was sniping and gave me some of the richer overburden to run through the sluice.
I say richer because its the stuff thats a little deeper down, stuff you can see specs of gold in but they are too light and fan away with the rest of the overburden.

 

[mellowyellow]

Heres another Keene Sluice. Im not re inventing the wheel here...lol Seems to work well though.

 

[NeoTokyo]

Looks good, you could pick out a lot of the finer stuff that gets caught in that matting with a sniffer bottle.

 

[mellowyellow]

Looks good, you could pick out a lot of the finer stuff that gets caught in that matting with a sniffer bottle.

Yep, I use to leave the flakes in the matting, and wash em up when I clean out, but I think I have lost a few flakes doing this. So now, I just suck em up as I see em appear!

Lol

 

[419GottaMinute]

Using your snuffed bottle to clean up the mat while sluicing is probably the best trick I learned this year. I can't say for certain whether I was losing flake before I started doing it, but I will say my daily totals have been a lot higher since I started the practise...

 

[mellowyellow]

Using your snuffed bottle to clean up the mat while sluicing is probably the best trick I learned this year. I can't say for certain whether I was losing flake before I started doing it, but I will say my daily totals have been a lot higher since I started the practise...

Amen to that .. Just last week, saw a few decent flakes in the matting... Took those cons home and no flakes! What the?? Next time.. Sniffing those babies out. Thanks..