Placer gold dowsing

Oct 16, 2010
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Been gold prospecting for several years and doing pretty good. Want to increase my finds when coming to a gold field full of placer gold. Have several claims I work, one a 160 acre in size, all producers but, surely, theres spots that its more concentrated. Because winter is here and hard to get into the mountains, plan on spending the winter increasing my dowsing skills. Also has anyone taken that dowsing course that Maj. Paul Smith advertises? Thanks.
 

Hey lostinthewoods...I prospected for placer gold for over 30 years but was mostly Dredging for gold...My method was to take photos of my claims at the time of low water and marking the spots where I took the photo’s...Several times that winter I would return to those spots and take more photo’s. Then I would compare the photo’s and know where the low pressure spots were at high water.. That is where the gold would be. After the spring run off I would do my Dowsing to determine where the best gold would be..Then I could dig my test holes to determine where to start..The first few years it was amazing what learned with these photo’s..What I thought was an inside bend would not be there...You have to remember that the dowsing rods will pick up all sizes of placer gold including micro gold.. Hope this helps..Art
 

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Thanks that helps. Most of this stuff is high desert with dry gulchs, but I can see how what you said will work fine. So, thanks and Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year, best of luck in your finds.
 

I don’t know much about how gold moves in dry gulches...I have learned enough to know that when it starts raining to get away from them...I like to check them out by Looking for sweep rocks and checking the cracks for placer gold..Art
 

Do you use a dry washer or haul the gravel home to process? You could post a GE map of the claim, but crop off the coords at the bottom. If a placemark is used for the claim corners, each can be identified with naming them NW, NE, SW, SE. Then, if you have any questions, ask them.
 

A dry gulch you can walk along above it. Before the rods cross, slight movements and/or spread L-rods are experienced by some dowsers. These areas should be good locations to take photos for to map dowse.
 

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You can walk down the wash, rods should stay crossed while over a nice placer deposit. For me, as the signal begins to decrease, my L-rods may become parallel, but each pointing from the opposite direction.
 

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I normally take the stuff home and do the recirculation there. I've filled my garden up with good soil, so will run the sluice at the river now. I dig about 2 hours to fill 14 5 gal buckets, screened to 1/4". 2 hours to run the sluice, 1 hr to run the blue bowl for the cons. Cant wait to start dowsing. Google earth a few times and found some old spanish trails that lead to a mine. Even found an arista. Good info. Thanks a million.
 

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Sounds good.....here is another response I get, if passing the line of field and signal is decreasing.
 

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The above is similar to leaving a placer deposit (when directly over it), rods point opposite but parallel to each other. If you can hold the signal, slowly back up until L-rods cross like this (below). Again the responses, as dowsing from above a dry gulch.
 

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There are more types of L-rod responses, a dowser can experience on a gold placer claim. Here you see only 3 basic (starting from left to right)----- pinpointing at close range, then middle shows parallel rods pointing directly at mid range distance, on the right evenly crossed L-rods over good gold.
 

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~lostinthewoods123~
I normally take the stuff home and do the recirculation there. I've filled my garden up with good soil, so will run the sluice at the river now. I dig about 2 hours to fill 14 5 gal buckets, screened to 1/4". 2 hours to run the sluice, 1 hr to run the blue bowl for the cons. Cant wait to start dowsing. Google earth a few times and found some old spanish trails that lead to a mine. Even found an arista. Good info. Thanks a million.
Sounds like you have a good plan....I used a “poop tube” at home.....the blue bowl will get it all..
HOW TO BUILD A HENRY HENRY "POOP" TUBE

Heres How You Do It

Go to your local Home Depot or Lowes
Purchase these items.

  • 1, 1x3"x 8' pine board.
  • 1, 8' length or 4"dia corrugated plastice flexible drain pipe "not perforated".
  • 1, small pack of flat head wood screws #10 in size.

Now go to Walmart into the Sporting goods dept and purchase a 12vlt boat bilge pump 750 model.
You now have all of the ingredients to build your Henry "Poop" Tube.
NOW FOR THE ASSEMBLY...

  • Cut the 8' 1x3" pine board in half into 2, 4' peices. Use one peice save the other.
  • Cut the 8' length of corrugated drain pipe into 2, 4' peices. Save one use the other.
  • Now take the 4' of drain pipe you are using and split in to 2 halves, by splitting it length wise.
  • Take one of the halves of the drain pipe and screw it onto the 1x3"x4' pine board.
  • Put the screws into the bottom of the corrugated riffles, 1 every 6" will do nicely.
  • Now take the other split half and set it on top of the one you screwed down onto the pine board and snap it in place.
NOW YOU HAVE BUILT A BASIC HENRY "POOP" TUBE...

  • You can now use it in a creek or stream to work out your concentrates and fine flour Gold.
  • You can add on the bilge pump with a stop valve and some garden hose and by using a
    couple of 5 gallon buckets you can recycle your water and use the Henry Poop Tube at home.

IMPORTANT THINGS TO REMEMBER...

  • Remember to set up the elevation from top to bottom at 1" [one inch] per/linear foot of Henry "Poop" Tube.
  • NOW...Adjust your water flow so the tube doesn't load up with blondes or blows out all of the material leaving the riffles empty.
  • Using a scoop from those dry soap detergent boxes is perfect to feed the tube.
  • Load the tube 1 [one] scoop at a time allowing it to clear before loading again.
  • Look for all of the Free Gold and Snuffer it out every chance you get.
  • Remember to classify your cons down to #20 mesh for use in the Poop Tube.
  • Larger than #20 mesh you can pan out easily with either a 14" pan or 10" finishing pan.

You now have one of the most DEPENDABLE TOOLS IN YOUR PROSPECTING SUPPLY BIN...
Total cost to build one is less than $30 and total time to assemble one is less than 2 hours
 

I remember Henry Henry and his wife from many years ago. We met at a United Prospectors outing close to the old Red Dog hydraulic mine on Greenhorn Creek where they had a claim back then in the early 90's. Good people, we had lunch and talked about lost times and great gold days long past, got gold and made a lot of friends. I still have that old sluice sitting here today :coffee2:
 

Hey Reed...I found a small gold vein and followed it for about six feet...Late summer I fixed the mountain so a lot of the water would run into the shaft....I dug a trench from the opening into a poop tube...The next spring I had a ½oz. of gold in it....Just helped mother nature get rid of some of that nasty gold stuff ...Art
 

Yeah, you meet some really nice prospecting people, SW desert area. They came over to welcome me with a bag of chicken dinner, then join them for coffee at a campfire. One late morning sitting around the fire drinking coffee, 2 jets nearly collided making a big X in the sky.

sktcross1.jpg

Had to run for the camera, then get in the shadow of the trailer.

sktcross2.jpg
 

Here is a map dowsing technique, without rotations just simple swings. Also in gold mining you can eliminate the lesser signals, keep 1-3 strongest hits.

ir_satellite_dowse.jpg

Print out your satellite map or photo which is to be used for locating targets. Then tape the corners of it to a spot on the wood side of a bookcase, cabinet, door, etc. keeping it at a comfortable height. Have a marker or pen ready within reach.


1. First move your pendulum slowly across the bottom, but below the edge off your image.
2. If still no response, try again from left/right over lower part of the map or photo.
3. Any forward swinging movement should be observed. Lift pendulum higher, but vertically in line with the spot where the response started on the bottom edge area.
4. Mark intersecting point of any change of pendulum (from swinging a forward motion on vertical to a horizontal or a non-rotating left/right swing).

 

While hunting enriched placer deposits in gultches and streams is good (actually very good) dowsing practise, there is an easier way to practise. Take a metal detector to a school yard along with your L rods and about 20 old used cd or dvd disks. Use one rod to get a line and then use both to locate. Place a disk as a marker where the rods cross and then get the next line and do the same. When you run out of disks, go back and take your detector and see how many hits you got where targets were actually there. When you can hit 75% you will no longer have to work :) You can easily make a living in the gold field.

If you are working the gultches and streams for gold, you are whistling in the wind. Professional dowsers either hunt pockets or nugget patches and take their gold far from the stream or glutch. They hunt the source, not the "dandruff". Pockets are the hardest but pay the best! If you have never heard of them or how to really locate them after you dowse them up (getting close is all you can do with the dowsing rod), buy a copy of an old book that I believe is being reprinted called "Loaming for gold" by Sam Cash. Old Sam located and took out over 100 pockets in his lifetime!
 

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