Hog Moss Matting

[mu50stang]

I just installed hog moss matting in my 4" Keene Mini. I have it installed over carpet with a section of expanded metal near the top. I was wondering if anyone has tried this matting yet in their dredge and if putting it over the green carpet that the keene dredige comes with is the right way to do it. I did use riverhog matting on my previous two trips and was happy with the amount of gold I had caught. My only concern with the riverhog matting is if its possible to lose any big gold as their isn't any real riffles. The area I was dredging had alot of lead fishing weights and from time to time I could see them making their way out the front of the dredge but it would take a while for them to make it out. I know lead isn't as heavy as gold but I think the thing that made the lead make its way out is that if a bigger rock hit it it would make its way out of the sluice. This made me think that if there was a bigger piece of gold then a rock could knock it out also. Now where I dredge most of the gold is 20 mesh and smaller but I have found a couple of pickers in the past. I did test my tailing of my riverhog and I would find a 1 piece of gold 50 mesh and smaller. This would be after about 2 5 gallon buckets of tailings Not sure if Doc can chime in regarding bigger pieces of gold being pushed out by bigger rocks as they go through the river hog mat and what his experience has been.

 

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[goldgit'r]

You should not put anything under the miners moss. Your riffles should be adjusted so they hold the moss tight against the bottom of your sluice.
Putting carpet or vmat under the moss does not allow it to exchange properly. IMHO

Wes

 

[GrizzlyGremlin]

I agree. Either run moss or matting but not both

 

[russau]

moss runs fine IF you don't stop your eng. BUT if you do stop it, clean out your box because the BS will lockup / packup and wont losen when you do start again! dredges are particularly bad for this. hibankers can get by with it,because most don't turn the eng. off until its time to eat/drink/be merry! Ive stopped using Miners Moss for this reason. I want to add that ive never seen or used Gold Hogs Moss, so I cant respond to it , only the Miners Moss.

 

[mu50stang]

Today I tested the miners moss setup against the gold hog matts and hands down the gold hog matts are the best setup. I caught more gold in the same amount of time running with alot less of the extra sand. My only concern still is a bigger piece of gold getting knocked loose and making its way out.

 

[Goldwasher]

I wouldn't worry about a "piece" of gold coming out of the end.

 

[goldhog]

No prob with the big gold. It's the easy part.
The riverhog is great for it.

All but 3 of these caught in RH.



Pic from the field.



Doc

 

[mu50stang]

Very nice gold. Thanks.

 

[mu50stang]

I also was thinking about separating my matts into two separate sections. I have all riverhog in my dredge and wanted two separate the top two pieces from the rest of the matts so I can easily pull out the top section to see if an area is good without having to do a full clean out. I was thinking about getting a flat piece of metal and drilling some holes and securing both side with bolts and wing nut for easy removal. Do you think by doing this it will interrupt the the way the matts were supposed to work? My understanding is that gold should usually get caught up closest to where the water enters the box and by being able to remove the upper section I can get a better idea of how much gold the area I am sampling has.

 

[goldhog]

Any time you have "sections" you have to be real careful. Sometimes you get a "float" situation under strong flows.
When you have water pushing on the mats and something holding them down further down the sluice.
As long as the first section slightly overlays the lower it should not be a problem.
This is what we have our commercial ops do that we work with.

Next, yes... most of your gold should be in the top 1/3 of your sluice.
However if you're REALLY dogging it... feeding the dredge REALLY heavy with material, then incremental processing kicks in and
gold will work down your sluice. (There's a video about that.)

Doc