Hunt4gold - First prospecting adventures and beyond

[Vance in AK]

Such beautiful gold... havnt checked in for a while... my creek is currently frozen solid... im going crazy!!!!

Still at least 1.5 months before I get out

I can relate. Probably another 3 months to much open water here & I have new toys to play with!!!
The stuff on this site keeps me distracted... I am thankful.

 

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[Hunt4gold]

I use -30 and -60 classifiers (as opposed to -50) so my cleanouts might look slightly different. I don't quite follow your observation of the ratio between the +&- 50 size gold however. Is it that you noting an increase of smaller gold from your last few digs as opposed to your earlier ones?

David, just noticing that Kevin and I are getting around the same amount of -50 size gold and +50 size gold out of this particular section of creek.

 

[Hunt4gold]

Yet another sunny day (Super Bowl Sunday) drew me out of the house for a little prospecting in south Denver. Was excited to see how my new Gold Hog stream sluice work on a little creek that I've been working. Actually had both sluices out - GH and my Bazooka 36" sniper.


You can read my review of the Gold Hog in the 'Sluicing' forum, "Gold Hog - Low Flow Mat" title.

Ran each sluice for about an hour, each one collecting about the same amount of gold.
Gold Hog, 1st clean out after about 30 minutes (was curious to see what it caught!):


Bazooka clean out after an hour:


Combined gold from both sluices for day:

 

[mytimetoshine]

that's really nice!

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[Goldfleks]

Im so Jealous of how close you guys are to gold. I'd have ounces and ounces by now if I could dig so close. My river is so far away I need to dedicate an entire day to digging and dont get half as much lol.

Nice cleanout.

 

[shofs]

Wow super nice cleanout, I'm impressed how much dirt you moved and it sure paid off. If I fell in that hole you dug I think it would have gone up to my waist! Really nice gold pic and chunky flakes too, I bet you could continue digging along that stretch and keep getting that great gold

 

[Hunt4gold]

Hey Shofs, thanks - but that was from last Sunday's outing. Have not processed the cons from our outing yesterday. Will likely be Friday before I get to panning out those cons.

 

[Hunt4gold]

Mytime and Goldfleks,

Thanks - we are fortunate to have gold in the Denver area. Must admit though, I am ready for spring/summer so that I can get up into the mountains to explore some of the potential sites I've researched and mapped out this winter. Panning around the Denver is great, but to set up a sluice in a mountain valley stream at 10,000 feet with no one around for at least a few miles sounds awesome - better scenery!

 

[Goldfleks]

Hah. If the creek by my house had gold in it I would run my box there every morning. But after all the dams and flood control the chances of gold making it down are slim to none.

 

[shofs]

Hey Shofs, thanks - but that was from last Sunday's outing. Have not processed the cons from our outing yesterday. Will likely be Friday before I get to panning out those cons.

Oh I see haha well either way nice job your gold pick put mine to shame!

 

[Hunt4gold]

Finally processed the cons from my outing with Tnet friend Shofs to south Denver creeks. I was alternating between running the Bazooka Sniper and my new Gold Hog Stream Sluice. Great sluices to own.
Gold and weight from outing:


Some day I will get some flakes or nuggets that don't require a close-up lens on my phone to see their detail - but until then:

 

[arizau]

Finally processed the cons from my outing with Tnet friend Shofs to south Denver creeks. I was alternating between running the Bazooka Sniper and my new Gold Hog Stream Sluice. Great sluices to own.
Gold and weight from outing:
View attachment 1414258 View attachment 1414259

Some day I will get some flakes or nuggets that don't require a close-up lens on my phone to see their detail - but until then:
View attachment 1414262

Lets see...gas money and some payback on equipment purchases. Hard to beat that for a short outing. Shore looks purty

 

[mytimetoshine]

Nice gold! I must admit you CO guys sure do a great job of cleaning and classifying your gold. Beautiful shots!

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[Hunt4gold]

Thanks mytime, Thanks to Kevin, Doc, and others who I have learned from, I have a pretty decent process of processing my cons down in the panning process. Back in my youth I was an outdoor writer and photographer, so I also like taking the time to photograph prospecting from panning and sluicing to separating out the gold. Its a great hobby!

 

[Jeff95531]

That last pic is now my desktop pic. PUURRTTY!

 

[Hunt4gold]

Well cool Jeff, enjoy the image! One of these days I will take some extreme close up photos of gold with my 35mm macro setup. All of these shots are with my clip-on macro lens for my iPhone.

 

[agolddigger]

Hunt4Gold - are you using a blue bowl or anything of the kind for your cleanups or just doing the finish processing by hand? It all looks super clean by the end!

 

[Hunt4gold]

Digger - I pan out my cons to what you see in gold photos - panning it 2-tablespoons at a time. On occasion I need to lift out a few specs of magnetite before using the snuffer bottle.

 

[KevinInColorado]

You two have met right? Jim, Dennis is basically using my method. No need for fancy finishing gear.

 

[Goldfleks]

Hunt4Gold - are you using a blue bowl or anything of the kind for your cleanups or just doing the finish processing by hand? It all looks super clean by the end!

Getting gold super clean without any fancy finishing tools is just a matter of classification and patience.

Bluebowls are great when you have 89079868765765644534323243 pounds of black sand concentrates. But for the typical prospector running a hand pans and sluice opperation you can clean a gram of gold pretty quickly with a pan and snuffer bottle.