New prospectors finds

bearclaw

Greenie
Oct 7, 2013
13
23
Grass Valley, CA
Primary Interest:
All Treasure Hunting
New prospector's finds

Hello everyone,

I'm a long time reader of this site and thanks to a move a few months back was finally able to try my hand at prospecting. I've been going to the Bear River Campground near Colfax, CA and think I'm doing fairly well for a newbie. Attached is a picture after three days of sluicing on the river. I don't quite yet have the tools to weigh it so I have no idea how much is there, but I am certainly hooked and go out every chance I get!

Being new I do have a few questions. I bought a Keene A51 to use from a friend but he never got around to showing me how to do a proper setup and now I live a few states away. I have been doing a lot of research and watching many videos and think I have the general idea. However, when I am out on the river doing my end of day clean up I am finding that 95% of the gold I get is in my assay mat. I actually clean this out separately since there is so much in it. Research tells me that the assay mat should represent 10-50% of what is in the sluice.

During set up I watching my angle (even brought a level to help with this), my water depth (keep it at about an inch or a little higher than the metal riffles), water speed (basing this on how fast material moves through the sluice), and my feed rate (I haven't timed this, but a 5 gallon bucket probably takes me 20-30 minutes to go through.

The gold on the Bear is mostly small flakes and dust but I don't want to move into new territory until I know I'm doing it right close to home. The two conclusions I came up with are 1. I am losing gold or 2. I'm not losing gold, its just all getting stuck in the assay mat. I guess a third conclusion would be a mixture of those, but does anyone have similar experience with way more gold in the assay mat? I should also say I usually clean out after two buckets. First, this gives me a good idea on how much gold I am getting in the area and second it gets me more experience setting up the sluice.

Thank you.
 

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johnnysau

Full Member
Apr 23, 2012
233
117
Reno NV
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I like you don't have much practical experience, for me I would be sticking a catch tub at the end to check later. A lot of labor goes in to what your trying to do if gold was going out the end, I would like to be the first to know. My hats off to those of you out there doing it. Good luck
johnnysau
 

Doitlaynstyle

Hero Member
Feb 21, 2013
683
352
Idaho
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Rock Nose and sniffer belly
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You cant beat an underflow gold trap for flour gold. Maybe you might consider it...
 

425jesse

Hero Member
Feb 10, 2013
588
817
Mountlake Terrace
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4" Dalke Original Compact Dredge, 36" BGT Prospector, 30" BGT Sniper, D&D/Brawn Super Concentrator and Highbanker top, Brawn/D&D finishing table, pans and more!
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Prospecting
Hello everyone, I'm a long time reader of this site and thanks to a move a few months back was finally able to try my hand at prospecting. I've been going to the Bear River Campground near Colfax, CA and think I'm doing fairly well for a newbie. Attached is a picture after three days of sluicing on the river. I don't quite yet have the tools to weigh it so I have no idea how much is there, but I am certainly hooked and go out every chance I get! Being new I do have a few questions. I bought a Keene A51 to use from a friend but he never got around to showing me how to do a proper setup and now I live a few states away. I have been doing a lot of research and watching many videos and think I have the general idea. However, when I am out on the river doing my end of day clean up I am finding that 95% of the gold I get is in my assay mat. I actually clean this out separately since there is so much in it. Research tells me that the assay mat should represent 10-50% of what is in the sluice. During set up I watching my angle (even brought a level to help with this), my water depth (keep it at about an inch or a little higher than the metal riffles), water speed (basing this on how fast material moves through the sluice), and my feed rate (I haven't timed this, but a 5 gallon bucket probably takes me 20-30 minutes to go through. The gold on the Bear is mostly small flakes and dust but I don't want to move into new territory until I know I'm doing it right close to home. The two conclusions I came up with are 1. I am losing gold or 2. I'm not losing gold, its just all getting stuck in the assay mat. I guess a third conclusion would be a mixture of those, but does anyone have similar experience with way more gold in the assay mat? I should also say I usually clean out after two buckets. First, this gives me a good idea on how much gold I am getting in the area and second it gets me more experience setting up the sluice. Thank you.

Wow, if that is your first take using your sluice, you should feel really good. Couldn't tell about your fines, but your gold is for sure something to be proud of. Keep it up, up, your future looks to be lined with gold:)

Cheers!
 

goldenIrishman

Silver Member
Feb 28, 2013
3,465
6,151
Golden Valley Arid-Zona
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First off WELCOME to the neighborhood BearClaw!

I keep my sluice mats in three sections solely for the purpose of being able to check where I'm catching my gold. As a rule I catch 99% of it in the first third of my box with maybe a piece or two in the second third. If I start seeing gold in the last third I decrease the flow angle by a degree or so but not so much that the riffles start packing up with materials. If the riffles are packed up you're just "Flatboarding" and not catching your gold.

Sounds to me like you've got a good grasp of the basics already. Here I though I was the only one that brings a level to check the side to side of the sluice. ;) I take it a step further though in that I bring a machinists level with a protractor so I can set the angle from feed to discharge at 4-1/2 degrees which seems to work very well for my current setup with the materials we've been running. Keep in mind that this is a re-circ system and I've got a lot of control over flow than you will have with a stream/river sluice.

Jeff
 

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bearclaw

Greenie
Oct 7, 2013
13
23
Grass Valley, CA
Primary Interest:
All Treasure Hunting
Thanks for all of the advice and the welcomes!

Sounds like a catch basin is a good way to do some real world testing and know for sure what is getting through, as well as giving me some peace of mind that I am not giving anything back to the river. I should be able to get out again this Sunday and try it out.

goldenIrishman, I like the idea of three sections of sluice mats to monitor where the gold is catching, does it also make cleaning up a little easier? Do you use miners moss or carpet? I currently have the carpet but have heard good things about miners moss.

This things they call "gold fever" is certainly addictive. Honestly it only took one little speck in the pan for me to catch it!
 

Goldwasher

Gold Member
May 26, 2009
6,077
13,222
Sailor Flat, Ca.
🥇 Banner finds
1
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SDC2300, Gold Bug 2 Burlap, fish oil, .35 gallons of water per minute.
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your doin' fine you should find most of your gold in the first part of your box.
 

goldenIrishman

Silver Member
Feb 28, 2013
3,465
6,151
Golden Valley Arid-Zona
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Fisher / Gold Bug AND the MK-VII eyeballs
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I'm using modified carpet right now but plan on going to the Gold Hog mats in the near future. Now by modified I mean that it started out as a "high-low rib" runner. What I did was to cut it to the sizes I needed and then I removed all of the low ribs so there is a gap between all of the high ones. Works very well for catching gold and exchanging the lights out for the heavy materials. I know it's time to do a clean up when the carpet starts looking dark with black sands. Depending on the materials we're running at the time that can be anywhere from 2 to 6 buckets worth of materials. I also keep a couple of sets of carpets with me so instead of having to wash the used one out, I can roll it up and replace it with a fresh set.

Miners moss also works fine and because of the way it's made you can also run it in sections. Your underlayment carpet (usually indoor/outdoor) should be a single piece though. I don't use MM now but have used it in the past in a friends sluice box. My current sluice is 12"X48"x5" with a header box for feeding materials. I am pushing almost 2000 gallons an hour through it and I'm catching at least 95% of the gold that is in the materials we're running. Gold here is very course and chunky, but there are also areas with a high clay content so that accounts for the losses in the field. When running materials here at the house I can take more time and get a higher % on my recovery.

Feel free to PM me if you want more details.

Jeff
 

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bearclaw

Greenie
Oct 7, 2013
13
23
Grass Valley, CA
Primary Interest:
All Treasure Hunting
I did some testing on my tailings and after several pans I only came out with one tiny spec. I feel pretty comfortable with this small amount, thanks again for the advice!

I have been out a couple more times but today I encountered something new. I picked up a hand powered suction dredge to clean out some crevices in the bedrock. It has made it much easier to get into those tiny cracks. While sluicing the material I noticed small shiny balls showing up in my assay mat. During clean up I confirmed that they were drops of mercury. I know mercury has been used in gold mining in the past but has anyone found it while sluicing? Quite a bit of my gold ended up getting stuck in it and attached is a picture of my mercury ball. It might be small but it has some heft and is almost overflowing with gold! Does anyone have a safe method to separate the gold from the mercury?

Will be heading out again tomorrow!

mercury.jpg
 

KevinInColorado

Gold Member
Jan 9, 2012
7,037
11,369
Summit County, Colorado
Detector(s) used
Grizzly Goldtrap Explorer & Motherlode, Gold Cube with trommel or Banker on top, Angus Mackirk Expedition, Gold-n-Sand Xtream Hand pump
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Yup, I've run into liquid mercury in my sluice, as have many others. Keep it stored in water so it doesn't vaporize and stay safe...it vaporizes at 80degrees if I remember correctly.

Ways to get it off your gold:
1. Put it outside in a black pan on a warm sunny day and it will all vaporize away (not so good for the environment...)
2. Burn it off with flame...similar to above
3. Soak in nitric acid. Merc will dissolve into the acid. Recollect it by hanging a piece of aluminum (sanded beer can works). The merc will collect on the aluminum, you can suck it up and reuse it.
4. Find a retort, or a friend with one and separate it via retort. Safe and you can reuse it or send it to me :-)

Liquid merc is no big deal but vaporized is pretty dangerous so always store in water.
 

Fullpan

Bronze Member
May 6, 2012
1,928
1,528
nevada
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Welcome bearclaw - the Bear river is about the most mercury contaminated river in the northern sierra. If you browse back thru the forum here, u will run across Reed Lukens comments and videos on the Bear river, as well as mercury recovery. Good luck.
 

63bkpkr

Silver Member
Aug 9, 2007
4,069
4,617
Southern California
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XLT, GMT, 6000D Coinmaster
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Howdy Bearclaw and welcome to Tnet!

In addition to watching your angle, the amount of material that builds up at the riffles and using a catch pan you might care to test out using less water going over the riffles. The type of gold you show indicates that likely you are doing just fine with your setup but a good amount of comparison testing is a good thing before committing to a single type of setup. You will run into many variations in samples from all over the Sierras so as you are already concerned about understanding what you are doing before going somewhere "Good" you are doing the right thing by asking and testing various conditions. Another thing that helps is to classify your raw sample before running it through the sluice as this keeps the big rocks from knocking the gold out of the sluice.

I once was shown a video of a "perfect" setup of a Keene sluice. the left to right angle was at about zero and the angle along the length of the sluice was good so the water was just going over the riffles AND from the input end of the sluice the water would form a V then a bit further down the water would form a second V only upside down making an X and V to X and repeating all the way out the sluice. Now "perfect" means that everything was just right or the water flow of the stream was not that swift, the water was not that deep, there were plenty of rocks available to set the sluice up just right and this sort of thing does not happen that often. The pattern is nice to get if you can get it but many times one can not be "perfect", after all we are humans and anything but perfect.

By the way now that you are "near by" be sure to check the water out a few times during the off season. It is good to understand what conditions the river is in at various times of the year. February through May it can be in high flood stage making it extremely dangerous so enjoy it from a safe distance as it will be high, flowing quickly to Darn Fast downstream, milk chocolate brown, roaring and boulders will be bouncing on the bottom of the river. This is a dynamic situation and is quite a thrill to see and understand just what Ma Nature does to the River every year.

Best of success with your testing and finding and remember to have fun. Just being "out there" is more than half the fun of the adventure you are having..............................63bkpkr

A few pictures of some of my past adventures:

0008.JPG I usually go down into the country in the background as my Bronco just wont fit on the hiking trails

183_8326.JPG Campfire memories

170_7010.JPG It can get rough and yes there is gold there

184_8416.JPG signs of gold

182_8290.JPG a comfortable camp
 

Doitlaynstyle

Hero Member
Feb 21, 2013
683
352
Idaho
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Rock Nose and sniffer belly
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Removing mercury from gold isn't difficult but it is very hazardous. I built a retort and show it in operation at around 3:10 time stamp in the following video. A retort is perfectly safe to operate because it vaporizes the Merc but then condenses and cools it to be trapped in water again. Vaporized mercury NEVER hits the atmosphere outside the retort as long as you use ice and you wait for the retort to fully cool before opening it up. Please remember to recover your Merc and recycle it at a reclamation center. Most of them will take it free of charge.

 

Aufisher

Bronze Member
May 12, 2013
1,948
4,830
The Golden State
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Whites Goldmaster V/SAT. VibraProbe. Bazooka 48" Prospector Sluice. Shorts. Chickens + Goats + Goldhounds. 35' Chris Craft Caribbean motorsailer. FISH OIL + BURLAP
Primary Interest:
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Go up river and look for bedrock with cracks
 

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bearclaw

Greenie
Oct 7, 2013
13
23
Grass Valley, CA
Primary Interest:
All Treasure Hunting
Wow, thanks to everyone for all the info on mercury. So far to be a prospector it seems you need to be a geologist, hydrologist, and chemist and that doesn't even get into doing the actual work and fabricating your own tools! Its definitely a lot of fun! I think I'll collect my mercury separately for now until I have enough to justify the retort (excellent doitlaynstyle!).

Thanks for the pictures 63bkpkr. I hope to be doing a lot of that next summer once I hone my skills a bit more and find some out of the way places to get into. I've noticed a V forming in the past and I'll keep an eye out for the Xing next time I get out.

Aufisher - I just got permission to go a little further up river on some quarry land. I'm hoping to find a few less people and less worked over ground. Last day out at the campground I made it down to the bedrock and was prying into cracks and trying to scrape and suction them out. I found a nice deep one just as the sun went over the ridge and all of my light disappeared unfortunately. I will definitely be looking for more crevices in the future.
 

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bearclaw

Greenie
Oct 7, 2013
13
23
Grass Valley, CA
Primary Interest:
All Treasure Hunting
Hello and thanks again for every ones advice! After a week long illness and a hectic work week I finally got a good day out on the river. I went to a new spot that is permission only (don't worry, permission received!) that is further up on the bear river. This was actually my second trip there but the first time was more of a scouting trip. I ran 10 buckets total with the best being the last one. It was full of clay scraped off of the bedrock at the bottom of my hole. When I got to the bucket the sun was already low and since it was clay it was slow going but boy was I glad I did it. By the time I finished it was darker than I was comfortable with and while cleaning out my sluice I found my first picker, which ended up being .2 grams! As if that wasn't enough I found 2 more pickers in the mat now that it had my full attention. Not as big but I am still feeling pretty lucky. I didn't have time to clean any of my cons but I cleaned out the assay mat and ended up with 1.25 grams and my best single day. I have honed down on where the gold is now with some experimenting. The top 10 inches or so only had some dust and a couple of small flakes but below that down to bedrock there was some nice big flakes. I am heading back tomorrow and will just remove the top layer and focusing on the good dirt.

Attached is the pic of my finds. The fine stuff doesn't show up real well but it's there.

IMG_20131116_184002.jpg
 

DizzyDigger

Gold Member
Dec 9, 2012
5,787
11,447
Concrete, WA
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Nokta FoRs Gold, a Gold Cube, 2 Keene Sluices and Lord only knows how many pans....not to mention a load of other gear my wife still doesn't know about!
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For a new prospector you are really kicking arse! :icon_thumright:

Keep it up and it won't be long till you've got an ounce or 2 in the poke...
americanasmiley.gif
 

Hangtowndiggins

Sr. Member
Oct 1, 2013
327
1,088
placerville ca
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GBpro. BGT 48" miner, 36" prospector and super mini
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Good job dude! looks like an awesome day congrats on your first pickers! And best of luck tomorrow
 

63bkpkr

Silver Member
Aug 9, 2007
4,069
4,617
Southern California
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XLT, GMT, 6000D Coinmaster
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bearclaw,
That is truly impressive and a job well done!! At some point you may become curious about the overburden you are digging through as to whether or not there is anything worthwhile in it and this is where a detector might come in handy.

I was once faced with a similar issue, 'was the sample I'd just gathered in my 5 gallon bucket worth any further effort/work/time? I detected the gravel bar I was on to locate a spot that had a 'minimal' signal content. I poured my bucket of raw sample onto that spot and then detected the raw sample. If the detector did not give me a good zip zip signal I did not perform any more work on that pile. I did cross reference this method by running one of these piles through the sluice and did not find any gold in the sluice from the sample. Note: detectors will not signal on the flour gold but they will signal on some small pieces of gold, at least that is what my GMT will do.

Almost all of the gold you show in your pan will be found by a detector in a shallow pile of dirt..............................63bkpkr


181_8170.JPG The wire mesh "waste paper basket" was being used as a classifier. The small size of the mesh requires more work than 1/4" mesh or 1/2" mesh classifiers but it is what I was using. I still had ~ 1/8" diameter flat nuggets go through this fine mesh. Once the sample has been washed, in a typical 5 gallon bucket, only the larger really clean rocks are left and they are easy to detect once dumped on the ground. Remember only the larger nuggets will be in the classifier and it only takes 30 seconds to pickup the detector and wave it over the pile, that way it is less likely any gold will be left behind.
 

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