Sluice versus metal detector
 

Hey there all,

I live in a heavily mined area (tons of old abandoned mines, mostly silver and gold in the area), and would like to start doing some prospecting. However, my budget is limited and 1 could do one of two things - buy a sluice and do the rivers in the area (2-3 of them are known to have gold, but many old timers in the area scout the rivers yearly), or buy a 100-200$ metal detector and do some dry prospecting (i think i might have more chance with this? i dont see many people with metal detectors walking the hills).

which one would you recommend for a novice? the sluice or the metal detector?

if the metal detector, what model do you recommend for that price range???

cheers, and thanks!

Re: Sluice versus metal detector
 

Whether to get a MD (and which one) or a sluice box (and which one) IMO depends on

1. What geographical area you are talking about...how much overburden (how old) is in the geographic area you are talking about;

2. What size gold has been recovered from the area.....flour/dust (-40 mesh), fine (-20 mesh), medium (-10 mesh) and/or course (nuggets +10 mesh)....you may have to reasearh a bit to find out but this is VERY important information you want to know before you invest much time and effort in prospecting and mining (separating colors from the other materials in company);

3. How much water is flowing in the streams you would be sluicing in....say very small creek, medium creek, big creek or bigger;

4. How difficult is it to access the stream areas you want to prospect...very far...very difficult terrain to navigate.

If you can provide this information I can offer some recommendations.

Re: Sluice versus metal detector
 

I think you want to locate some prospecting forums. Try googling, prospecting + your state + forums. Local knowledge will be invaluable. The type of formations or geographical surrounds will shorten your hunt. MD's will be for larger items than sluicing. Perhaps an MD plus a gold pan for river/creek/alluvial work. At least to try out an area before getting heavily invested.

I would really suggest looking at forums etc because you will learn where to look, like bends in a river, places where water kind of slows down etc. In Australia there are specific kinds of features that yield higher number of multi gram nuggets than other areas. know those and fossicking can be fruitful.

Good Luck though, I'd love to do this kind of thing.

Re: Sluice versus metal detector
 

1. Canadian rockies, near BC/AB border (kootenays). Big gold rush came through area in 1800-1940

2. People have found nuggets in area, and I am told there is some very good placer gold to be found

3+4 streams are very accesible. tons of logging roads (which usally follow a stream) in the local forests. the creek mostly known for gold is pretty wide, say the lengh of 1.5 SUVS bumper to bumper

thanks for the info!

Re: Sluice versus metal detector
 

Good recommendation posted above if you're not familiar with weekend gold prospecting and gold recovery.

A metal detector will work to find nuggets in your area...the mountains geologically are fairly new. This means there isn't a tremendous amount of overburden like you would find in the mountains in the eastern U.S.

However if a person is going to use a detector for native gold /she needs to get a good one to be effective. This means on the low-end $700.00 for a Fischer Gold Bug II, and on the high-end a Minelab at several thousand dollars.

Sidebar: Anyone who wants to detect needs to get the very best detector they can afford THAT IS DESIGNED TO LOCATE THE ITEMS THEY ARE SEARCHING FOR. i.e. ferous (magnetic) relics, treasure (gold and silver coins & jewelry), or native gold nuggets. The very worst thing a person can do IMO is to get a multi-function detector designed to detect either relics, coins, treasure, etc....."just turn the selector switch". The reason these are not desirable is because the different functions share electronic circuitry which makes each less sensitive then it would be if designed only to locate one type of target.

If you want to hunt nuggets get the best gold nugget detector you can, and later if you want to look for (say) war or other relics, or (say) coins in the park, then get a detector that is designed specifically to do that job.

But regardless of how much you spend on a detector you can bet you'll find much more gold utilizing effective prospecting techniques, a good gold pan and a good sluice box. And the reasons are simple. (1) Gold nuggets are rare. More diamonds are found then gold nuggets, and (2) The smaller the colors the more of them there are. Any prospector who knows much of anything will tell you that the smaller colors (those that will pass through -40 mesh screen...this is a screen that has 40 holes per linear inch. As a comparison, a window/door screen is about 18 or 19-mesh - 18 to 19 holes per linear inch) are his "bread and butter". They are much, much, much, much, (and 15 more "much's") more common then larger colors and are easier to find and recover in numbers because they frequently don't travel and deposit like much heavier nuggets.

IMO the best gold pan to get is a green or blue (easy on the eyes and you can esasily see colors against the bottom) plastic wide-bottom style with a VERY good riffle system. Two of the best IMO are the 15" Proline (MFR.) "Professional" and GPAA's 15" "Gold Catcher".

Folks will have different opinions about this but spend some time among weekend prospectors and on the creeks in the U.S. and these are the pans you will see most often being used by folks who know have a sense about what they're doing. I don't know about Canada. This said, any pan will work, even an old cast-iron frying pan (it will also wear you out).

As for a sluice box, I would recommend a Proline or a Keene model A51. Not the A51A which is smaller, or the A52 which is a bigger.

If you don't know how to prospect you need to firstly learn or you'll be wasting a lot of time and get frustrated and disappointed pretty fast. Gold is best found in areas where it has been found in the past, and the best place to prospect is along a waterway because streams are natural concentrators of placer (the "a" is pronounced like the "a" in "platter" and "apple") gold (gold that over tens to hundreds of millions to billions of years has been freed from the rock matrix in which it was formed. Gold veins (usually quartz) is "load" gold; placer gold is loose.

If you don't know how to use a gold pan then you need to learn that before you do anything else. It's not hard' there are only three operations (1) sink the pan under water and move it back and forth or around in a circle to loosen all the materials (sands, gravels, etc.) so that the much heavier particles of gold can be drawn (by gravity) towards the bottom and lighter materials can locate on the surface; (2) Wash the lighter materials out of the pan.....repeat these operations until only 1-2 tablespoons of materials remain on the bottom on the pan...and then with a couple tablespoons of water in the pan gently wash back the remaining materials; the particles of gold (called "colors" regarless of size) will be left where they were on the bottom....if the first two operations were correctly done. Don't do them right and you'll wash your gold over the side of the pan along with the lighter materials.

If you don't know how to prospect let me know and I'll tell you the basics and more so you can be successful.

Gold in an area where gold is located is not hard to find. There's lots of it out there. The challenge is to find the concentrations that make it economically worth while to recover.

Re: Sluice versus metal detector
 

To the best of my knowledge, you are not allowed to use a sluice in the waterways of British Columbia!

You're in a real decent area for chasing gold, I was lucky enough to find a little at the Recreational Panning Area near Fort Steele just a couple of weeks ago.

My recommendation would be to stick with a decent goldpan, a shovel, and half a dozen or so plastic 5gallon pails, at least for a couple of months. Read as much as you can before you start purchasing a bunch of items that may be less than necessary.

Here a couple of important sites that you need to add to your favorites..
http://www.qp.gov.bc.ca/statreg/stat/M/96292_01.htm
http://www.mtonline.gov.bc.ca/

If you're going to be gold panning on someone's placer claim or lease you need to get their permission beforehand. The MTO link above will help you sort out what is what (view placer tenures).

Lot's of info on the following forums as well...
http://bb.bbboy.net/alaskagoldforum-viewforum?forum=2
http://www.gpex.ca/smf/index.php

First things first, use the search function in this forum to find all of the posts by goldminer! He knows his stuff!

Re: Sluice versus metal detector
 

Two Alpha may be correct about the law; I don't know but have been told there are laws prohibiting the use of dredges....which are far different then a hand sluice (box).

In any event, you need to check the laws before you purchase anything.