Throwing away gold!

This post I hope will help new comers to prospecting . There are many many posts on this forum relating to people using detectors ! "Low and Slow and dig every noise " well my post is the equivalent of these posts !


This is a pic of the gold


This gold was paned from the dirt adhering to 2 pieces of timber !100 mm wide x20 mm thick x600 mm long . The dirt was only on one side of each of the timbers aprox 4 mm thick .

I see so many ppl digging up rocks and wood from where they are supposedly getting good gold ! Why do they trow these things aside without washing them ????? Sure you can get a bit wet from the spray ,not nice on a winters day, buy I ask you to look at this photo above and say " ahh it doesn't matter ! It's only a few specks ! "
As I said this post is aimed at new prospectors and I in no way want to tell my peers how to suck eggs!
But just between you and me its good to revisit the things we do without thinking and just readjust any bad habits we have developed over time . I love learning every time I go out prospecting and sometimes it's the so called dumb question from a newcomer that sits me on my tail and think!
My hope is that one person reads this and puts it away in the memory bank and uses it to recover that little bit extra while they are out there !!!!

A close up of that gold

Good stuff Ark! these are the little things that tyro's need to know. You need to carry,'as I say to newbies i meet', a little bag of tricks with you when your on the goldfields. Its amazing how many tricks you can fit in the bag and you get them from people like your self. its also amazing how much gold can be encrusted around the outside of a rock the size of your fist, or adhereing to the surface of the bed rock of the whole you just dug but did'nt scour out clean. Thats why you need to carry a small brush and scraper with you as well.I'm sure you do Ark, but the newbie might not when there is gold adhereing to stuff that just needs brushing into the pan.. cheers Rossco

Well said rossco! When I was bed rocking gold ,dry, many yrs ago I read about the Chinese gold miners back in the 1800s used to move into the gullys abandoned by the Europeans and then they would get down on their knees with a little whisk broom and they would meticusley sweep all the cracks and dust into a small pan . I followed their example and can say I got some pretty easy gold ! Grams of it every year !
I do agree that there are tricks you pick up as you go and I say to newbies that " they can't absorb all those tricks all at once " so these things have to be trickle fed to them a little at a time ! Hence my often comment" there are NO shortcuts in learning the art of prospecting .

Yes indeed, i have to agree with all that has been said. That is one reason i am so against dry sieving material and then washing the sieved material only. James

G'day
I wash everything I can, figuring if I put the effort into digging it I'm not throwing aside any of the goodness. A mate who uses a bigger set up has one of those wooden boot brushes mounted on the inside of his hopper, just under the spray bars. Makes cleaning bigger rocks a dream

Cheers

Chimpy

Agree, agree totally agree
Caught up with a fellow prospector some months ago now, he was scoring some pretty nice gold from an old gravel layer.
The gold wasn't to any extent in the smaller gravels, the gold was adhering to the larger stones sort of egg size stones.
Point being, if the egg sized stone weren't thoroughly washed then you were throwing away gold, not a little bit either!

Scares the cr@p out of me watching the guys with highbankers that have grizzly type classifiers set at steep angles where the rocks just skid
out the rear of the hopper

Good post Ark

your right on the money there someday, thats what Ive seen a lot but i forgot to say..hehe damn alzheimers,its the attention to detail that can make a BIG DIFFERENCE TO THE CLEAN UP TALLY!Great posts guys..cheers Rossco.

Someday I love to see those highbankers! Most made in America for their gravel rivers !!! Watch out here with our clays ! Lol ! I have had to level out lots of piles and fill their holes after they have gone back to Melbourne ! Easiest gold ya ever got!!!

Someday mate ya spot on the money there. I have also done the same as Ark. Easiest gold ya ever got!!! cheers

What do you use when there is no water except carry in supply that's difficult to replace ?

Nope find another spot with water lol!

It would have to be very very rich for me to truck water in ! Although I have done it once

There are places that have good gold because of no water , those areas I prefer

hi Jack, hope your Easter was a good one mate. This line of post you may find interesting it is about soak hole pumping. When I am confronted with a dry creek i can usually find water by digging down on the inside of a bend where a large water hole appeared to have been. cheers James

https://golddetecting.forumotion.net/t3706-recycling-sluices

Getting closer is she Jack

Back to the grizzly style hoppers and throwing gold layden rocks out the back, as Ark said, imagine running clay!
Can only imagine the amount of gold the clay would pick up on the way down the sluice,
yet for some reason people seem to think the quicker you can run material, the more gold you'll score by the end of the day
Like the other guys here said. We don't mind your methods at all


Waterless ground ay, new idea, how bout a thunderstorm in a bucket

Hello James ,
Easter weather has been nice , hope you had a good one also .
Thanks for the link ' some interesting information there ! Your correct about getting water in some dry creeks , always amazed me how deep the Roos could dig
You may get a PM soon for an opinion

Someday
Yes a bit closer .
Stuff all those known methods , none of them can do what’s needed , concentrate unclassified material wet or dry very quickly by muscle power only with not much effort .
Hint ~ Potential energy to kinetic then back again over & over again

Have Fun
Jack.

Jack i had a ball over Easter indeed i did. I will be away for a bit from next Monday now Easter is over i can get back into it. cheers mate.

Great to hear you had a fun time James , those of you that just use a detector & would like to make a profit after all the costs involved in your trips should consider other methods

Jack.

True mate after all every thing we use are only tools to help us get the gold ....... the more tools we have the better our chances.

Whiskers wrote: the more tools we have the better our chances.

James mate, not sure which way to take that one

someday wrote:

Whiskers wrote: the more tools we have the better our chances.

James mate, not sure which way to take that one

Only because someday wrote it !

S/D

Yeah sorry about that James.
tickled me funny bone it did

Mine two mate

'S.