New Prospector, Any Tips? Azusa Canyon.

[SilverShareHolder]

Hi everyone, i'm new to prospecting and hoping to learn from this forum.
I will be going to Azusa canyon for my second time and would love any tips and advice, both on sluicing and panning in general as well as on Azusa canyon specifically. I have an A52 sluice a couple classifier screens and a plastic pan, last time I found black sand but only one flake of gold, I was in cattle canyon. The material I was classifying was wet so I was taking my screen and dipping it into the flare of the sluice and shaking and tossing it to get the sand to separate, this was disrupting the flow of the water and i'm not sure if this would be the proper way of doing it or if it would cause problems. Thanks in advance to anyone willing to help with advice on where to look for gold and how to recover gold.

 

[golden sluice]

Hello. I have some advice for you on how to better your chances for getting the gold from your Sluice.

Bring a 5 gallon bucket and shovel with you. Also buy or make a snuffer bottle to suck up your gold.This will help you with extracting the gold from your miners moss in the bottem of the sluice box.

Your mesh screen should fit over the bucket. So you can shovel in the gravel and sand. filtering out the rocks keeps the flow of water strong behind the sluice. Sediment build up and back flow is bad. Besides, rocks over time destroy your sluice box.

Oh, stay with the east fork part of the river, unless your exploring for a new gold Hotspot... from what I have heard over the years is that the source is comming down from an area near or above the bridge to nowhere. I also heard that after rainstorms more gold washes down.

As for loading gravels on the flare of the sluice, just slowly shake out the bucket. Dont over fill the toms (riffles). You should be able to always see the toms while material is passing through. Also the 1 and 3 rule. That is for every three feet of distance you should have one foot of drop for your sluice box to work properly.

This river can drive you nuts because the first 4 feet deep of river soil is great for one thing, concrete. Try to find and area that has large boulders near the riverbank, and dig deep behind where the flow of the river had passed them at one time. And if you do need mind getting wet dig in the river too. Just becareful and let someone know where you are at. It took me a while to really start finding good gold there. I went there on the 15th of this month and I didnt find much this time, but I didnt hike very far from the east fork parking lot. Happy hunting.

 

[gollum]

Welcome SSH,

If you need anything, I assume you are in the Azusa/Covina Area. If you don't know about it, go to The New Calgold @ 827 S. Glendora Ave. in West Covina. Here is their website:

We Buy and Sell Gold - West Covina, CA - New Cal Gold - Gallery

Nice people that knew Steve and Rose Ryland (they didn't just snatch the name). Very helpful and have just about everything you could need to prospect.

You can also head further into the valley and go to Keene Engineering to get your goodies. Pat Keene is very helpful and informative. The entire Keene Family has years of recreationally getting gold from Mother Nature. They can sell and show you how to use what you buy.

Keene Engineering Online

Also ...... nobody brings tons of gold out of East Fork. It is a good place to learn. The further upriver you drag your equipment, the better things get. Hit it after a good rain. Rainwater means new gold washed down from the hills.


Good Luck - Mike

 

[golden sluice]

I want to get up there soon and run the sluice box again.

 

[MotoEd]

NEWBIE here. I have a couple of questions about prospecting on the East Fork and surrounding areas in the Angeles national forest and the San Bernardino national forest . I know that NO dredges are allowed anywhere in the state of CA. What are the current laws for using motorized pumps(gas or electric) for high bankers or trommels I've been looking everywhere I can think of but no answers. I know a lot of people are saying pans and shovels and sluice box's are ok but I cant find anything about using pumps or motors for the use of high bankers or trammel setups. Any advice or links to where I can find these rules or laws would be helpful. Thanks guys.

 

[Georgiy]

Hi,
I am in Bellflower so Azusa is very close. I went to East Fork many times. Most of the gold is beyond bridge to nowhere. A lot of work with sluice. I am going to go there one day - if interested to join - let me know. georgiy@levashov.com
Take care
G