California Sluice Box - River or Stream sluice box?

63bkpkr

Silver Member
Aug 9, 2007
4,069
4,618
Southern California
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Joel,
Basically this choice is between you and your maker. Go by the companies info or even call them and ask as long as you give them some input on what you will do with this and where and on what type of water. Drive in all the time, backpack with it, large river heavy water, small creek hardly any water, lots of sand, mostly gravel, fine gold, heavy gold and the like type of info is needed for others to have a clue what to suggest to you. I can tell you that CAsluicebox's products are pretty good but I only have their highbanker add on for a Keene A52............63bkpkr
 

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Joel1316

Full Member
Jul 18, 2012
174
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Thanks 63bkpkr.... I'll drop CA Sluice an email and see if they can share their thoughts. I want the River sluice but wonder if its so wide that when I lay a rockbridge on top, will it flare out? I'll ask them....
 

shovel-humper

Jr. Member
Sep 24, 2012
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Get them both, get all three!!!

I'm looking at a California sluice box. I am looking at (2) models, the difference looks to be width.

The Stream is 10" wide and the River is 16" wide. Which should I go with? A rockbridge will added to either one that I purchase....

Howdy,

I dont know if you called fresno yet or not but Dale's a good guy and he'll get you rolling. On those the difference is width and the placement, number, depth and geometry of the riffles. There are square and v grooves on the large vs. just square profiled on the smaller two boxes. I use these and I sell these (not commercially). They rock and will catch the smallest fly poop gold no problems. I use them (every size) exclusively. No kidding at all. I own them all, as well as most of the popular "tools" from pans to sluices to high bankers and the best is these light weight abs boxes. I DO NOT class generally, but you have to use the right model for the volume of material ur pushing.

If you are in So Cali Id be happy to let you run one for a few hours side-by-side to prove it to yourself! Matter of fact we could drop a keene in next to them or inline to further demonstrate how awesome these things really are. No Obligation at all! Or if you ever see me out on the river ask me to use one.

Matter of fact, Im always looking to play show and tell --haha and Ive seen some really nice gold come out of a CA Sluice box over the last 18 months of use HERE IN So Cali. I have a 'small' box on my quad that I use in the desert to work in the dry. It recirculates ~4 gals of water in a square 5 gallon bucket and runs off a 20w solar panel.

When I say get them both I really mean get all three :) Forget the clean up sluice that they sell, the backpack sluice cleans it up just fine. This is what I call the Medium in action
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. Here are a couple action shots of my better half running a 'Small' box in the river
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Dont let those pink gloves fool ya, she kick most guys a$$ with that thing working riverside bedrock cracks!
SAM_0247.jpg
SAM_0243.jpg
. Forget about the grizzly material.. I been there done that.. dont need it on rocks up to golf ball sized in the 'small' box.

Much of where we prospect we have to hike far to find the goods. Heavy gear is fine if'n yall gots mules. I dont :( just this HU-mule and hes gettin old. We pack in 60-100lbs and mine for a week at a pop usually. Sooo the reason I tell you this is because I can literally stack and carry 5 sluice boxes on my back now where before I carried one. So now I setup multiple boxes and sample run lots of areas without confusion. Im rarely alone so having the ability to drop and move to a new spot on a whim/whatever poke around is easy to do. And setting them up is a breeze.

Here is tiny gold I pulled out of middle fork of Lytle Creek.
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Thats a dime.. it started raining and lightly snowing so we had to pack and bug out fast and I really couldnt get good pics.

All the gold you can hump!
shovel-humper:headbang:
 

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Joel1316

Full Member
Jul 18, 2012
174
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Thanks Shoverl-humper! I appreciate all the information.
I did purchase a CA River sluice and installed a rock bridge to secure the sluice easier and to add rigidity.
The sluice worked good, it just takes a while (for me) to setup the sluice. Its so wide and a bit flimsy, that the sluice flexes easily. But once the sluice is placed properly, the sluice works great!
 

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