How much gold can you get from sluicing?

treasureplanet · Feb 18, 2012

How much gold can you get from sluicing and panning? I know this varies but a average estimate suposing you are sluicing where there is gold to be found and use a portable sluice or two.
I would be interested in just trying this out for fun sometime but I have also thought about if it can be profitable enough to make a living from for a while since the gold price has gotten so high. If I could get about 3 onces of gold a month or more that would be good money.

So how much do you get from an average day, week or whatever time you spend doing this.

If I will do it just for fun I will get a pan and maybe build a simple sluice box but if I could make a lot of money on it I would research and try to build really good tools to get the most gold.

cheers

TerryC · Feb 18, 2012

How much SWEAT will you give up to get it? There is a direct corrillation. The amound depends on TONS of dirt moved... not measured in hours or days. TTC

B H Prospector · Feb 18, 2012

Welcome Treasue,
There is no way of averaging what you can make prospectiing. It depends on alot of things. Are you in a known gold producing area? Are there old mines in the area? How rich is the material you will be working? Only test panning will tell you this. You could be working in an area that shows signs of good color and hit a nice pocket or pay streak and it plays out quickly. Or your pay streak may show color through out but only a 1/4 of a gram or less per sluice clean out or it may produce an ounce. You just never know. That is why it is called prospecting. I have two claims in the Black Hills of South Dakota. One is 120 acres and has been assessed to have about 20 million dollars in gold on it. Problem is the gold is spread over about 80 acres but mostly concentrated on about 15. I do it recreationally and we do pretty good but it still will vary from day today. My other claim we hit a good pay streak on ancient bedrock at the end of last season that is producing larger gold and nuggets.
Chances of you making a living at it are slim. There are those who do but their's is more than recreational mining. It is very hard back breaking work even recreational and is no sure thing. You may go days months or years before you find any gold or you could find a mother load and retire your first time out. You just never know.
Start off recreationally and have fun with the family and enjoy the outdoors. It's alot of fun and good excersize. Just don't get your hopes up and enjoy.

Good Luck!

B H Prospector

russau · Feb 19, 2012

there aint noway youll make a living,muchless 2-3 ozs per month with a sluice!!!!and for get about doing this in a "recreational" mode!!! you may hit a good pocket but those are few and FAR between! it looks like the price of gold today has everyone thinking that the ole pot of gold is just over the next hill or bend in the river! if you just want to go out and have fun and satisfy your quriosity, have fun and enjoy the outdoors. but to make a profit, youll need to move a lot of material, and that means bigger equipment and that means more $$$$$/time/work spent by you!so much for the "run out and have some fun" aspect!

Astrobouncer · Feb 19, 2012

Like many things, gold is about finding a good location. If you can locate rich ground you can do well. Panning or sluicing might take a longer amount of time then using a pump, but you can still do decent sometimes. But not 3 ounces decent unless you are on some really rich ground, and the old timers found most of those spots already.

These are all cleanups from sluicing and panning.

Most cleanups look more like this though, and keep in mind this is on some pretty good ground.

This is a good bit of last years take from sluicing + panning. But keep in mind i probably spent every single weekend prospecting to get that much. I have other cons from NC not pictured.

russau · Feb 20, 2012

really nice amounts of gold Astro!

Hoshnasi · Feb 20, 2012

I am an engineer by trade, so when I approached this question I thought about it as an engineering problem.

For example, let say there is only a finite amount of gold in a creek bed. You and another prospector want that gold! You have a sluice while he has a pan. You both have identical gear other than that (buckets, classifiers, shovels, ect). As a true scientific experiment, the only "control" here is the sluice vs. the pan.

By design, the sluice harnesses the power of the flowing water plus gravity to separate the heavy material (gold & black sand) from everything else. The big plus points to the sluice is when running it as a single person, you dig up a bucket and then apply the classified material to the sluice. Its like a little break time from all the digging! Trust me, after your 8th bucket you start to look forward to that little break

The pan however requires much more hand movement to move the same amount of a material. So you have the fatigue from digging and now another strain from the fine motor control of panning the material down. Panning out a 5 gallon bucket of classified material in a real chore. In the sluice, its becomes both, easier, faster and less of a strain on the prospector (in this scenario, you).

So in a given day of digging the sluice box prospector can move many more buckets of material than the pan can. If the gold was saturated equally in the bed, the sluice box prospector would take home more... That scenario is not reality, but you have to look at it in regards to percentages.

With all that said, how much gold you take home is all based on LOCATION. Not only the hole you dig, but where geographically you are. I frequent San Gabriel river, down here in Southern California. Its yielded consistent gold since before people thought to prospect it

Some folks have secret holes that yield more gold than others. Others like myself scout around and in some cases dig randomly (I'm still a noob!). I feel lucky when I take home about 1/2 gram of gold from the East Fork.

To do this for a living you would need a few things. One, a location of gold that is easy to get at and has a high yield. Or, multiply the material you move through a much larger production.

From the pictures, Astrobouncer has some nice spots he is working. Its probably not wise to assume when starting out you will be that lucky, unless you are being guided by hand by an expert! :icon_thumleft:

treasureplanet · Feb 20, 2012

Thanks for your replys guys, everything give me just a little more insight into this.
Some things is pretty obvius to me like the better ground the more likely to make more and the more dirt you run there the more gold you generaly find etc.
I like I'm guessing many others new to this cathed Gold rush Alaska on tv and got some goldfever. I have always been facinated by treasures and adventure and would like to go tresurehunting and diving shipwreaks and such. Where I live though gold digging is much easier accesible. I live within an hour from pretty goldrich soil, both from maps and touristdriven panning, there is a creek where it is wellknown that you can pan for gold however goldpanning isn't remotly as common in Sweden as in the US so there are mostly tourist that go rent a pan for a day. however everyone who go there and pann a couple of hours find some gold but usually not a lot, I thought if I build good sluices and try to learn it well then I can increase capasity and performance and in combination with a high gold price maybe that would equal good pay.

I have a pretty good income allready but I would like to do many things in life and this seem exiting to do for a while and to go out and do something out in nature with my hands and body working not sit at a computer all the time, but I don't want to bust my ass off if I aint even likely to sustain myself off off it. I might try it out a couple of times this summer for fun and se how well it goes

But then I would want to build some sort of sluice or similar.
Is there a difference in a sluice and a pumpdriven similar thing?
there seem to be so many different variations of theese systems I don't know what to try to build and go after.
Also I undertand you get more with a big expensive machine, I would never plan to start out with something like they got in the tv show, but when I seen videos of people sluicing some seem to get pretty much out of small devices so I thought maybe build somewhat bigger and double or tripple the capacity but not have mega machines. havn't seen much of the size I am thinking of, only small or really big.

Also I have thought about if I could build a somewhat bigger pumpdriven sluice thing at home and then collect a lot of good material and take it home in many big buckets with a car and trailer and run it at home so I don't have to drive out there everyday I want to look for gold. What do you think of that idea?

nice gold btw how much is it for the season?

B H Prospector · Feb 20, 2012

If I was in your situation of curiosity and just wanting to find out if you like doing it, I would start with an inexpensive sluice and work it in a creek a few times and see if you are willing to put that much back breaking work into it. And it is back breaking. I wouldn't spend alot of cash on a highbanker just to find out you don't like it. Taking buckets of dirt home can be a pain because of the set up you need and dealing with the waste material. Just start small and work at a creek.

Good Luck!

B H Prospector

russau · Feb 21, 2012

i agree with BHP. screen off your material and work it down on the creek and bring home only those cons that you got. bringing home buckets full of material isnt the smart thing todo! i personnaly work my dredge cons down to the blacksands and fine gold and bring that home to work over the winter.

rtenpin · Feb 22, 2012

Astro and Hoshnasi are right.

I did this all this last Saturday (2/18) sluicing.

It is 8 buckets worth of material (filled to about 3" from the top) and I did a clean out after each bucket.

It is only .3 grams of gold. I did the math and it works out to about 2 grams per cubic yard, which is a good yield.

russau · Feb 23, 2012

id be happy with that amount but theres always a hope for more! i guess its the greed comeing out of me!

seveneyes · May 21, 2012

A buddy and I have gotten into sluicing over the past year. He has been into it, but hasn't had anyone to go with until i was infected with the fever. We have done ALOT of research on where to dig for gold, and outfitted ourselves pretty well with not only classifiers, nice sluice, and pans, but crevice suckers and diggers, breaker/prying bars, sniping tweezers, modified cordless vacuum and various picks. We even got a come along with super high strength 1/4" line (1600lb test) to move boulders with.
We have done some camping trips up the east fork of the San Gabriel river where we hiked in almost to the narrows by the bridge to nowhere and stayed for 3, and then 5 days the following week. The best gold we found there was pocket where we could get one gram a day. We didn't find it until the end of our trip and are planning to go back there and dig only there for the whole trip this time. Before that we were getting a little over 1/2 gram per day (based on an average of our net). We are youthful and strong, and can between us process about a full yard of dirt each day. We get through 30-50 buckets (I fill em pretty high) and dig pretty deep holes to get the gold. After 5 strait days I thought I was gonna keel over with exhaustion! All that work for a measly 3 grams. I am not ready to quit my day job yet...

We are about to go to the mother lode area where we have permission to sluice on a claim near Downieville. We are going for a week this time. Hopefully we can get more than a gram a day up there. We shall see. I would like nothing more than to get my own claim with some earth moving equipment and a large trommel/ sluice set up and dig full time, also to dredge. That is really the only way to make real money at this unless you get lucky and find a million dollar nugget or something.