Gold Operation in The UK, looking for advice

[KravenMineralIndustries]

Hello there, I just signed up to the forums and wanted to ask for advice/show off our operation, I'm new to the whole prospecting hobby as over in The UK, there isn't enough gold in the rivers for you to make money from it, it is seen by the Estate land owners as purely a recreational activity and as such powered sluices/dredges are not allowed, so we have to make do with using a sluice box and hand dredges (called henderson pumps I think)



This is the river we are working, called Menock Water, up near a place called Wanlockhead



This is our sluice, its all home made and yes in hindsight its far too heavy to carry long distances, but its well built and can take a beating



View of the riffles/expanded metal and carpet



This is my mate digging out behind the large rock, we worked this for nearly a day and half and we think we were pulling stuff off the bedrock, we were getting lots of ironstone, and the water looked really heavy with a dark metal like material which I think must be black sand, but unfortunately we never found any gold, is there anything about our sluice that you think we could modify? does it look like its set up correctly? I have considered ordering a Bazooka Gold Trap as I've seen nothing but positive reviews and I think we have been approaching it wrong as if you'd seen the amount of equipment we took it looked more like an industrial scale operation than prospecting!

any advice would be appreciated!

Regards

James

 

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[Duckwalk]

Have you done any panning? I would test pan the area prior to setting up the sluice. There's no point in setting up a sluice if you haven't found gold in your pan. Just my two cents

 

[KravenMineralIndustries]

the gold is so sparse test panning wouldn't help, we have to run a lot of material, which was why I was considering the BGT

 

[KevinInColorado]

the gold is so sparse test panning wouldn't help, we have to run a lot of material, which was why I was considering the BGT

sounds smart then, the BGT will let you move a lot of material quickly ...also maybe head west to Wales where there's more gold...or north to Scotland - I think the law is easier there if I recall correctly.

 

[Fullpan]

Nothing wrong with your homemade sluice set-up - if there was lots of gold, it would certainly catch it, but...

 

[Hoser John]

Look for solid bedrock where the works been done for you by nature whenever possible. Work them cracks,crevices and folds with screwdrivers,picks,hammer/chisel, even a coat hanger to clean'm out to the very bottom. Way back in the day I believe it was Jimmy Sierra used to run a gold tour to England as reported in GPAA rag back in the 80-early 90s I believe-kudos,party on-John

 

[KravenMineralIndustries]

Cool, thanks for the advice guys, we think we got to bedrock behind that large rock in the photo, but we aren't sure, the geology was very odd with a slate like ironstone running through parts of the river, so not sure if this was bed rock or not, we are going to give it another go, but we are going to order one of the bazooka gold traps and travel lighter next time, hopefully we will have better luck! still, I've been bitten by the gold bug and all I can think of is getting back to it and chasing that elusive nugget!

 

[BVI Hunter]

Great scenery!!

if you ever want to 'job swap' for a few weeks let me know!

 

[Duckwalk]

Look at maybe using a hand dredge behind that big rock. If you are in fact on bedrock, a hand sedge would suck your gold up instead of you pushing it around the bedrock by hand.

 

[KravenMineralIndustries]

we did have a hand dredge, I was operating it but put it down to take the photos lol, we are looking at making some modifications to it, maybe a non return valve and a pipe leading to a bucket, not sure though

 

[Hoser John]

Black/gray slate are great gold catchers if the crumbly kind. Like pages in a book with gold (by vapor deposition) in between the pages for you to find. John

 

[fishnfacts]

If it were me I would also work up the side of the valley testing all the way to the top. Of course I am a newbie to this hobby but found my best gold with dumb luck by accident. No telling where you will hit some good colors.

 

[KravenMineralIndustries]

I think we might not have dug wide enough to hit the gold, when I was watching the water flow around the rock, It was flowing on either side of it and nothing was circulating around the back of the rock, if we had gone wider we might have found something, this is all hindsight now like

As for digging up the side of the valley, we aren't allowed, we can't touch the bank sides or dig anywhere other than the river and any holes we make we have to back fill, which was painful after we'd spent all day digging to possible bedrock behind the rock! lol

 

[Hoser John]

KUDOS as you are protecting your rights. Just do what ya gotta do to feed that fever and your responsibility is indeed refreshing as I seem to have lost quite a bit of my own with insane laws/rules/regs/insanity here-tons a au 2 u 2-John

 

[ALewis]

the gold is so sparse test panning wouldn't help, we have to run a lot of material, which was why I was considering the BGT

Just my opinion...But, yes, and no. No matter how sparse the gold, there's a reason you will see "test it" over and over....and over. To me, that's just part of what you have to do. Dig down as deep as you can, that pic looked good...but instead of running that material like crazy, pan it & see what is down there....Black sand ?, etc. Just my suggestion, but if you cannot find ANY flake / spec's panning then it does not seem worth running ? Hiking / Bushwacking, Adventuring is half the fun ! Take a day pack, water/lunch & a pan...leave everything else and hike until you don't see anyone. then, go a little farther.

That said, I totally agree w/ the Bazooka ! Can't go wrong w/ that choice.... I personally don't always sample w/ just a pan either... I have a homemade BGT type, is similar & they setup in moments. I can run 5-10 buckets pretty quickly, cleanout takes seconds, quick pan & I know if I should work hard or keep looking.....

 

[KravenMineralIndustries]

Just my opinion...But, yes, and no. No matter how sparse the gold, there's a reason you will see "test it" over and over....and over. To me, that's just part of what you have to do. Dig down as deep as you can, that pic looked good...but instead of running that material like crazy, pan it & see what is down there....Black sand ?, etc. Just my suggestion, but if you cannot find ANY flake / spec's panning then it does not seem worth running ? Hiking / Bushwacking, Adventuring is half the fun ! Take a day pack, water/lunch & a pan...leave everything else and hike until you don't see anyone. then, go a little farther.

That said, I totally agree w/ the Bazooka ! Can't go wrong w/ that choice.... I personally don't always sample w/ just a pan either... I have a homemade BGT type, is similar & they setup in moments. I can run 5-10 buckets pretty quickly, cleanout takes seconds, quick pan & I know if I should work hard or keep looking.....

Nice, I never thought about it like that actually, thats given me some more food for thought! cheers!