mills84
Jr. Member
A few weeks back I picked up a Proline hand sluice. I was planning on buying the keen A52, but the store I went to was sold out and the Proline looked comparable (with the exception of no expanded metal after the first two riffles, is that ideal? 
). I didn't like how the rubber mat was so small, so I modified it:
Wednesday I went out to the East Fork of the San Gabriel River to try prospecting for the first time. I followed East Fork road until it ended (where it turns into a dirt road) and went down the switch-backing dirt road that comes off of the parking lot. I brought more gear than I could take with me in one trip (first mistake of the day), so by the time I walked back up and down again I just wanted to get started. I set up the sluice in the first section of river you come to at the bottom of the dirt road (probably the second mistake). A friendly gentleman I ran into while leaving said the other side of the parking lot, near tree roots, was better. Anyway, I couldn't seem to get the sluice box setup the way I wanted - the water level would either be too high, or the water speed would be too slow. I finally settled on a spot that had a little bit of both problems. I didn't want to dig too far from the sluice, so i started digging into the side of the riverbed (I'm sure that was a mistake too) and classifying down to a quarter inch. Since I was pretty slow it took the whole day to go through 6 or 7 five gallon buckets of classified material (fourth mistake).
From the short video clip below, can anyone tell if it looks like the sluice is running properly (I should have fed some dirt down it while I was filming, but didn't think to do so at the time)
Dirt was filling up behind the first riffle, but the other 6 riffles (where the water speed picked up a bit) didnt fill up more than an inch or so.
I've panned through half of the concentrates I brought back, and only found the equivalent of 10 or so grains of sand of gold (at least most of it I'm sure is gold), not even worth photographing. Regardless, I'm hooked.
Any general advice about the river from TNET members who prospect there (or any other advice)?
Thanks,
- Mills
). I didn't like how the rubber mat was so small, so I modified it:
Wednesday I went out to the East Fork of the San Gabriel River to try prospecting for the first time. I followed East Fork road until it ended (where it turns into a dirt road) and went down the switch-backing dirt road that comes off of the parking lot. I brought more gear than I could take with me in one trip (first mistake of the day), so by the time I walked back up and down again I just wanted to get started. I set up the sluice in the first section of river you come to at the bottom of the dirt road (probably the second mistake). A friendly gentleman I ran into while leaving said the other side of the parking lot, near tree roots, was better. Anyway, I couldn't seem to get the sluice box setup the way I wanted - the water level would either be too high, or the water speed would be too slow. I finally settled on a spot that had a little bit of both problems. I didn't want to dig too far from the sluice, so i started digging into the side of the riverbed (I'm sure that was a mistake too) and classifying down to a quarter inch. Since I was pretty slow it took the whole day to go through 6 or 7 five gallon buckets of classified material (fourth mistake).
From the short video clip below, can anyone tell if it looks like the sluice is running properly (I should have fed some dirt down it while I was filming, but didn't think to do so at the time)
Dirt was filling up behind the first riffle, but the other 6 riffles (where the water speed picked up a bit) didnt fill up more than an inch or so.
I've panned through half of the concentrates I brought back, and only found the equivalent of 10 or so grains of sand of gold (at least most of it I'm sure is gold), not even worth photographing. Regardless, I'm hooked.
Any general advice about the river from TNET members who prospect there (or any other advice)?
Thanks,
- Mills
Last edited:
Upvote
0
