bearclaw
Greenie
New prospector's finds
Hello everyone,
I'm a long time reader of this site and thanks to a move a few months back was finally able to try my hand at prospecting. I've been going to the Bear River Campground near Colfax, CA and think I'm doing fairly well for a newbie. Attached is a picture after three days of sluicing on the river. I don't quite yet have the tools to weigh it so I have no idea how much is there, but I am certainly hooked and go out every chance I get!
Being new I do have a few questions. I bought a Keene A51 to use from a friend but he never got around to showing me how to do a proper setup and now I live a few states away. I have been doing a lot of research and watching many videos and think I have the general idea. However, when I am out on the river doing my end of day clean up I am finding that 95% of the gold I get is in my assay mat. I actually clean this out separately since there is so much in it. Research tells me that the assay mat should represent 10-50% of what is in the sluice.
During set up I watching my angle (even brought a level to help with this), my water depth (keep it at about an inch or a little higher than the metal riffles), water speed (basing this on how fast material moves through the sluice), and my feed rate (I haven't timed this, but a 5 gallon bucket probably takes me 20-30 minutes to go through.
The gold on the Bear is mostly small flakes and dust but I don't want to move into new territory until I know I'm doing it right close to home. The two conclusions I came up with are 1. I am losing gold or 2. I'm not losing gold, its just all getting stuck in the assay mat. I guess a third conclusion would be a mixture of those, but does anyone have similar experience with way more gold in the assay mat? I should also say I usually clean out after two buckets. First, this gives me a good idea on how much gold I am getting in the area and second it gets me more experience setting up the sluice.
Thank you.
Hello everyone,
I'm a long time reader of this site and thanks to a move a few months back was finally able to try my hand at prospecting. I've been going to the Bear River Campground near Colfax, CA and think I'm doing fairly well for a newbie. Attached is a picture after three days of sluicing on the river. I don't quite yet have the tools to weigh it so I have no idea how much is there, but I am certainly hooked and go out every chance I get!
Being new I do have a few questions. I bought a Keene A51 to use from a friend but he never got around to showing me how to do a proper setup and now I live a few states away. I have been doing a lot of research and watching many videos and think I have the general idea. However, when I am out on the river doing my end of day clean up I am finding that 95% of the gold I get is in my assay mat. I actually clean this out separately since there is so much in it. Research tells me that the assay mat should represent 10-50% of what is in the sluice.
During set up I watching my angle (even brought a level to help with this), my water depth (keep it at about an inch or a little higher than the metal riffles), water speed (basing this on how fast material moves through the sluice), and my feed rate (I haven't timed this, but a 5 gallon bucket probably takes me 20-30 minutes to go through.
The gold on the Bear is mostly small flakes and dust but I don't want to move into new territory until I know I'm doing it right close to home. The two conclusions I came up with are 1. I am losing gold or 2. I'm not losing gold, its just all getting stuck in the assay mat. I guess a third conclusion would be a mixture of those, but does anyone have similar experience with way more gold in the assay mat? I should also say I usually clean out after two buckets. First, this gives me a good idea on how much gold I am getting in the area and second it gets me more experience setting up the sluice.
Thank you.
Attachments
Upvote
0