Ordered a Bazooka gold trap sluice

[replicaprops]

Nice equipment, good luck tomorrow. If you notice the trap holding too much bigger gravel, you can run a 4 mesh hardware cloth zip tied over the stock grizzly to cut down on that.

Ya after watching the videos on youtube, that was the first thing that popped in my mind. Im gonna stop by the hardware store on the way to the river in the morning.

 

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[forhorsmn]

It is all getting dirty tomorrow. We are all going out to the Llano river to really mess it up.

Is there a group that gets together on the Llano for prospecting? I'm up in North Texas and was looking for a place to go and have a little fun. Oh, and good luck today. Hope to see pics of a little color

 

[replicaprops]

Is there a group that gets together on the Llano for prospecting? I'm up in North Texas and was looking for a place to go and have a little fun. Oh, and good luck today. Hope to see pics of a little color

It is still a little cold today for us to take the kids in the river, so we are putting it off till tomorrow or next week end.

This is a public area, rules are posted in the left side of this link. No fees or permission needed. Just follow the posted rules.
http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=U...569990652038174708.000460e1364da3d855815&z=15

 

[nuggetshooter323]

I finally tried out my Bazooka gold trap sluice this last weekend, prospector model. I only had about an hour, so I collected two five gallon buckets and ran them. I was on the Arkansas River around Buena Vista CO. The river is still low, so I was able to collect from exposed riverbed. I only got about 10 course flakes, not bad for just scooping from around rocks quickly. I'm happy so far with the performance of this sluice, hopefully I'll be able to spend more time this weekend putting this thing through it's paces. By the way, you don't need to worry about the bigger, lighter gravel in the trap. As you feed it, the heavy material builds up in the bottom of the trap and slowly pushes the lighter gravel out. Since I didn't run very much last weekend, I had a lot of light gravel in the trap, so an 8 mesh classifier seperated it from the heavies in about 5 seconds.

 

[UncleMatt]

I just bought the prospector model for use in the San Juans in CO where the sediments are very course. This design should allow easy seperation and collection from that type of sediment. Literally zero clays, just coarse particles. Dirt that hasn't had a chance to become fine yet you might say.

 

[KevinInColorado]

I just bought a slightly used bazooka Prospector, am very excited to get it wet! I would love to hear your experiences with yours

 

[replicaprops]

I used it 2 times last season, and this season I am going to modify the stand I built for it to be more sturdy. The Llano river is really fast and it knocks over the stand, so I am planning on mounting pontoons to the stand and that should keep the bazooka submerged at the proper depth no matter what depth of water Im working in.
This is what my stand looks like now, Ill post photos when Im done modifying it.

 

[NeoTokyo]

neat stand.

 

[UncleMatt]

I just bought a slightly used bazooka Prospector, am very excited to get it wet! I would love to hear your experiences with yours

Unless we get some more snow in CO, might not be enough water to run a sluice come spring!

 

[KevinInColorado]

Ran for just under two hours yesterday...nice, easy sluice to use, sure can shovel a lot when you dont have to classify!

 

[replicaprops]

Ran for just under two hours yesterday...nice, easy sluice to use, sure can shovel a lot when you dont have to classify!
View attachment 704553

Now that's some fine gold. With my eyes I would have missed it.

 

[KevinInColorado]

Yep, the Bazooka catches the fine gold! The stuff on the right side of the pic is VERY fine but more bigger stuff on the left ...totals 0.15 grams which is pretty good for me. BTW, that is all finish panned manually including some very aggressive bumping/tapping which drove those fines quickly out of the classified cons

 

[replicaprops]

How many shovel fulls would you say you did to get that?

 

[KevinInColorado]

I can't count that high LOL...seriously don't know but the hole was about 10-12 cubic feet I would say. I worked hard!!

 

[replicaprops]

And did you do clean outs or did you leave it for the end of the day? I would do about 50 shovels, then transfer the trap to a 5 gallon bucket then start over. But I have heard you could literally shovel for weeks into the bazooka and when you see actual gold spilling out the front you know your full. I of course was very skeptical of that, but next time I am going to just shovel all day and see what happens.

 

[KevinInColorado]

I only ran 1 hour, did a clean out to see how I was doing then ran 45 min until dusk. Definitely could have run a LOT longer between cleanouts based on the material in the trap. Each time it was basically one fairly full pan with over half lighter weight gravel/sand. Next time I will run longer and get the same amount of material I think but more heavies and less lighter stuff.

 

[nuggetshooter323]

I shoveled for four hours the last time I used mine, and the trap was not anywhere near to being full.

 

[blynch35]

i put a couple buckets through in my super mini week before last and only got a cup full of cons and some really fine gold not bad for only an hour.

 

[Astrobouncer]

I used the prospector model in my newest video with 4 mesh hardware cloth over the stock grizzly to keep out the big gangue. Worked great and you can checkout the fines I got at the end of the video.

 

[replicaprops]

My Fever just went up a few degrees. Sping time can't come fast enough.