In Stream Gold Trap

[QNCrazy]

My wife and I recently purchased a new house in the Motherlode. Last weekend I was assisting with our club's booth at the Motnherlode Fair in Sonora, CA and decided I was going to bring some material from the creek behind my house to see if there was any gold. Early Sunday morning, I grabbed a bucket, a small shovel, and my 5/8" inch classifier. I walked up a dry wash to an area I previously researched and dug at the base of a bedrock waterfall. I took the top 4-6 inches of an area about 1 sq. ft. I classified 1/2 a five gallon bucket of material. When I got back to the house, and just for the fun of it, I took half a shovel (small shovel) and quickly panned it with low expectations. To my surprise, I found two +30 pieces and a lot of fines (dust). I took the rest of the material to the fair and finished panning it out. I was pleasantly surprised at what was in that half bucket. Interestingly none of the gold was flat. All of it was very corse like it was fresh from the source. Sorry, no pics as of yet.

The wash has several natural drops in it which got me thinking about placing in stream traps during the winter when the heavy rains come. The widest part of the wash might be three feet across. I was thinking of building a couple of simple drop riffle sluice boxes out of wood and anchoring them in the stream with stakes then cleaning them after the water subsides. Has anyone done anything like this? Was it successful and what did you learn? I am looking for easy and inexpensive ideas?

Thanks in advance for the advice.

Mike

 

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[bobw53]

I've thought of doing that in my driveway, but I'm not so sure how well it would work... I think it would end up down stream or buried under a pile of sand...
If you have some exposed bedrock there, carve some riffles in it.

If its nice and chunky, it is coming from somewhere close... Why wait for it to come to you? Go upstream and figure out where its coming from and get
the gold before it even has a chance to erode out. How far up hill does that little wash go?

 

[arizau]

I would clean out a few natural traps then reclean them as soon as I could after the next storm. They should replenish after each storm and maybe to a lesser extent making future cleanouts easier. If there are some pools of standing water after a storm then I might use a Pyramid pan to run the material I cleaned out then take the cons home to pan out. Be sure to clean out natural cracks and crevices too.

The storm flow would probably flush out small man made sluices then fill or cover them with mostly lighter sand and gravel as the flow slowed down or they would just be washed down stream as bobw53 stated.

 

[QNCrazy]

Thanks Bob and Arizau for the advice. Expecting some heavy rains tonight, remnants of Deloris. I'll have to go back and check the hole I dug out Saturday. There are about seven natural traps as you have described so I'll heed your advice and start cleaning them out. I think it would be best to start at the bottom and work my way up. Would you agree or would you recommend starting at the top and work down?

Sarcasm: I love the way this works, I describe what I have in front of me, explain what I would like to do, and ask for advice. Then I turn around and thank those for the advice instead of insulting them and telling them what worthless miners they are.

 

[arizau]

Probably bottom up to start just to potentially conserve what you may have between the traps and what may wash down upstream of them from migrating out of your area or at least that is my logic. By the way...plunge pools are not always the best trap. Heavy flows may scour them at first especially if they are shallow then refill them with lighter material as the flow slows down. I also would look for traps/natural bedrock riffles just downstream from them where the grade moderates giving material a chance to settle out since the flow is slower. As you probably know, a sluice traps the majority of the gold in the upper end where the water speed is relatively slow.

Yeah. I think I know who you are talking about.

Good luck