A Little Gold From Western Washington

[kikinit247]

I was fortunate enough to be able to make it out to the river for the first time in a while. I managed to go 2 out of 3 days I had off. On day one I was solo and had a mission to just dig as deep as possible in a place I had prospected before. I was pleasantly surprised to find a thick layer of clay after removing a boulder jig saw puzzle. I am not sure how deep the clay goes, but it is more than 5 inches thick. I decided to clean the layer sitting on top of the clay and call it a day. I filled in my hole, ran the material, and started the trek back to the truck. After completing the cleanout I was curious enough to return. A couple days later a friend and I returned to the same spot and cleared out my old hole. We decided to widen the hole rather than try to punch through the clay. On day 1 I ran roughly 14 gallons of 1/4 classified material through my Keene A51 sluice. Water levels were low this day so I left the Bazooka at home. Day 2 I ran 13 gallons of the same stuff through the same sluice, but was wishing I had the bazooka as there was considerably more water flow. This material was tough to dig so saving the classification time would have helped a great deal. Sorry the pics are sideways.


Day one's cleanout.

It was a personal mission of mine to remove the piece of granite that the shovel is resting on, but time ran out.





Day two's cleanout

Now back to tinkering in the garage until time off and good water conditions align again.

K/247

 

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[et1955]

Another mod for your sluice, The mat I have on the front of the sluice has 2 purposes, one it holds down your sluice, no need for a rock to hold it down, second it creates a dam that speeds up the water running into your sluice so you don't need to be in faster water. Also add more black mat like I have on my A52, believe it or not when you have the sluice running right almost all the gold will be in that area and very little in the riffles. One other suggestion, don't classify under 1/2inch, waste of time plus depending on the river there are still 1/2 inch flakes in western Washington.

 

[kikinit247]

Thanks for sharing Ed. I like that modification. I classify smaller when water flow is an issue. I also think retention of fines is better when classified smaller. I have tested this area extensively and found 1 flake that would have screened out at 8mesh, but never anything larger.