Recommendations for a sump pump to drain a small hole of water?

[firebird]

A particularly nice hole I'm finding gold at keeps filling with water even when the creek's water level has already dropped. Do you have any recommendations for a portable, battery powered sump pump to drain the water? Right now it's almost two feet deep and I haven't even hit bedrock, but I have to resort to just scooping out the gravel by hand. The gold just keeps getting bigger and bigger the deeper I dig into it.

 

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[Duckshot]

Nice pan.

Look for a 600 or 800 gallon per an hour bilge pump for a boat. Should be around $20-30 dollars. About six feet of hose at around a buck a foot, and a $20 12 volt lawn tractor battery will run that pump for several hours until it needs charging.

Edited to add, you can run a home made clean-up sluice off the same pump.

 

[Underburden]

Wish I had that problem right now. I would use the water as a hydraulic advantage and use my hand dredge to extricate all that good looking gold.I repeat...that's some good looking gold you've got hiding at the bottom of that hole. Keep us updated.

 

[1637]

i just got a johnson 1000 gph from bass pro shop.and my graden will not keep up with it,they have lots of defence one,
thats a great spot,please keep us posted,
brad

 

[firebird]

Look for a 600 or 800 gallon per an hour bilge pump for a boat.

Would it be enough to keep the hole empty enough? A lot of water keeps filling back into it, I tried emptying it with buckets and it just filled right back in less than 20 seconds.

Wish I had that problem right now. I would use the water as a hydraulic advantage and use my hand dredge to extricate all that good looking gold.I repeat...that's some good looking gold you've got hiding at the bottom of that hole. Keep us updated.

I don't think a hand dredge will do much good because it's also full of large rocks, most of those rocks surrounding the hole came from the bottom and they keep getting bigger as well making it harder and harder to pull it out by hand with the water filling it up. The gold is getting trapped in between or on top of the large rocks and it takes a lot of time to clean them individually by hand.

 

[smokeythecat]

They come in larger sizes. Try looking online once you figure out how much is coming in the hole. If you're getting 3 gallons in 20 seconds, you're going to need a monster of a pump. And a battery to go with it.

 

[Duckshot]

Would it be enough to keep the hole empty enough? A lot of water keeps filling back into it, I tried emptying it with buckets and it just filled right back in less than 20 seconds.

A 600 gph pump will pump about 3-1/3 gallons maximum in 20 seconds. Looks like about a five gallon hole. You would maybe need to bail with a bucket and pump at the same time. It would never get dry but at least you could reach down, grab all the big rocks you can, grab some gravel, bail out the hole, repeat. When you get to bedrock you will need a hand dredge.

What you really need is a coffer dam driven down to the bed rock.

 

[No gold in NY]

Get down in the hole and start throwing rocks. When the water gets deep, get chest waders. If need be get a wet suit and snorkel. At 76 I still dig a mean hole. If I can't pick them up, I roll them up.

 

[arizau]

If you widen the bottom of the hole enough you should be able to loosen the material and be able to scrape and scoop material out of it with a kitchen pan or something along the same line. You will be fighting a losing battle trying to de water it until the water level/seepage in the drainage drops or stops.

With a big enough hole, you can probably use a hand garden rake or regular rake to rake out oversize cobbles. https://www.amazon.com/slp/garden-hand-rake/omxmpukxxfm84cd?tag=treasurenet01-20

Good luck.

 

[seafox]

Firebird please consider my dumb questions why is all that gold in that little hole? would it not likely that at least some of the area around it also have gold and therefore why not start throwing rocks off the top or better yet wrap a tire chain or bolder basket atound them and winch the big rocks away. are you a long hike in? I like running a generator and using a a house hold sump pump but even better do the dry land dredge thing and suck out the water into a highbanker. are you hand panning all the dirt now? best of liuck and hope your good gold continues

 

[firebird]

Thanks for the advice everyone, ordered a pump online and will be coming back there soon.

Firebird please consider my dumb questions why is all that gold in that little hole? would it not likely that at least some of the area around it also have gold and therefore why not start throwing rocks off the top or better yet wrap a tire chain or bolder basket atound them and winch the big rocks away. are you a long hike in? I like running a generator and using a a house hold sump pump but even better do the dry land dredge thing and suck out the water into a highbanker. are you hand panning all the dirt now? best of liuck and hope your good gold continues

Yeah I just scoop the gravel out and haul the gravel back home to pan. I've already sampled the entire area and there is gold all over but this particular spot had a higher concentration of it over any other area and I'm hoping there are more of those pickers in the bottom which weigh around 0.1 grams each, it was upstream of a curve of a gravel bar and was completely underwater last month. Water levels got low enough again this week for me to come digging it up again.

 

[arizau]

Thanks for the advice everyone, ordered a pump online and will be coming back there soon.



Yeah I just scoop the gravel out and haul the gravel back home to pan. I've already sampled the entire area and there is gold all over but this particular spot had a higher concentration of it over any other area and I'm hoping there are more of those pickers in the bottom which weigh around 0.1 grams each, it was upstream of a curve of a gravel bar and was completely underwater last month. Water levels got low enough again this week for me to come digging it up again.

Just a thought......It seems to me that you are missing a step if you are hauling out raw, unconcentrated gravel as it seems you are per your description above. Have you thought about doing some production panning and just taking home concentrated material? You have water available from the hole now and if you were to take a panning tub with you to the site you could do some preliminary production panning on site and possibly bring home more than twice as much gold (in concentrates) as you are now if you are not doing that already. In addition to that, if you are screening on site what you are taking home, then that step can can also be largely eliminated since production panning eliminates most of the gravel over about 1/4".

Good luck.

 

[Bejay]

That water in my hole would make my day. I would dig away and love the water in my hole. Then I use my shrimp gun (2 inch PVC suction gun) and rid the hole of water and dug material...then I keep going. (I shoot the sucked up material and water into a meat lug...then I either run it through a sluice or pan it). You just gotta love water for mining placer deposits.


Ghost Shrimp suction gun is about $22.00 http://shrimpguns.com/shrimp-guns/


Bejay

 

[johnedoe]

arizau is spot on regarding your current situation and technique.....
Make your time and situation count. Production pan and carry home the concentrates for cleanup.
Here is a perfect pan for what you should be doing.

Also a little later in the season may help dry up your water problem.

 

[QNCrazy]

I will second what everyone is saying about only taking home the concentrates. If you are just panning, are you using a safety pan? About four years ago, I was told about the safety pan after one of my mentors watched me take over a half hour to pan to the gold. Using a safety pan allowed me to pan faster knowing I was catching any gold slipped by. I would conitnue to switch out the pans until I didn't see any more black sand. I went from hiking a gallon or more of concetrates out to a cup or two of super concentrates.

 

[Capt Nemo]

Looks like you have a spring there. All the gold has fluid bedded down. Might try digging a trench to drain it, and maybe you might get enough flow/drop to sluice.

Door County has springs that run just above the bedrock, and act similar to what you're describing. I heard from locals that there's a few similar springs in the UP as well.

 

[firebird]

Just bumping the thread back up for an update. I bought a 600gph pump but it still couldn't keep up with the water levels until now that it's warmer and the water levels have lowered further.



Finally got to draining the hole yesterday and I finally found an answer to the mystery of why gold had particularly concentrated in this area, a big 3 foot flat slab of rock that somehow wedged its way here.



Cleaning up the top of that rock yielded some nice pickers.



Sadly though that was it, I was able to get some gravel underneath the giant slab rock but there was almost no gold now except tiny flour sized specs. I think there's bedrock underneath the rock but the water levels are still too high and the pump can't keep up. Gonna have to wait a bit longer until I can get to bedrock, I can see the bedrock in the nearby creek but I'm estimating it could be up to 2 to 4 more feet underneath this slab of rock.

 

[juneaupanner]

Nice gold if it’s remote and the gold is good enough dig a trench downhill and sluice or stockpile the material. The trench should help pull out some of the water or all depending on your capabilities. It will also help you know more about the area you’re working.

 

[trdking]

Follow it till you find Mr Pocket