Little color - Aptos Creek CA

[glassbutterfly]

Well I have been practicing panning in the Aptos Creek for a little while now. Still learning ware the gold gets trapped in the creek bed. The place I tried was at the end of a gravle bar along side the creek edge. Tried my sluice for the first time in the creek the other day. Got a few specks of fine powder gold that could be picked up with fine tipped tweezers after the fines were panned. My sluice is just a cheap make it your self one out of ply wood. All the cracks between the wood peaces were cocked with wood cock so the gold would not get trapped in them. I have the green fuzzy imitation grass stuff in the sluice bed. Over that I place dowls at even spaces through the sluice for riffles to trap gold. So happy my sluice works so well that it caught such fine gold. Guss I do not need to buy one of those fancy expensive ones.

 

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[Lookin4goaled]

Congrats! Nothing better than seeing something you spent time building working so well!!

 

[glassbutterfly]

Thank you Shineynoob. I really want to go to the sierras some day. I have done plenty of reserch and have some sepsific locations in mind. But till I can go I will get good practice at the creek not far from home. I will learn even more as I dig difforent spots around this gravle bar that I am working on right now. I will run at least two square feet of dirt through the sluice each time in a new spot. So far dirt at the very end of the bar has been most productive. I still got gold specks at other spots on the bar that I have tried. Then I will go on and work other parts of the river.

 

[chevyman75]

I would like to see a picture of your sluice sounds like a neat project

 

[glassbutterfly]

I am not able to post a photo on line. But can mail some if you like. I noticed that rocks ware I found gold had dark gray stain spots on them. Ware there was no gold there were no stains on the rocks. The stains only appered on rocks under the gravel not above it. Are the gray stains a normal sine of gold in most rivers? Any thoughts here?

 

[glassbutterfly]

Guess I anssered part of my own question today about the dark stains on the rocks. I only dug gravel in areas of rocks with dark stains in a new spot on the river today. Got one tiny flake that I picked up with my fingers and two specks of powder gold to small to pick up with the tweezers. I ran only 3 small bucket fulls in my sluice. Still wondering do other folks find that dark stains on rocks indicate gold in other rivers?

 

[chevyman75]

Im not sure on dark spots.. are you referring to iron stain colors? If so its a plus for finding gold. And if you found that much im sure there is more there

 

[sveng]

Interesting. I live in the area as well (grew up here), but would have thought there was not a single place local that I could even practice, not expecting any color, without getting into trouble (being all private, city, or state park property, marine sanctuary, and even Los Padres seems to be almost entirely wildlife preserve). I've been itching to take it up, but haven't mustered enough motivation and free time to drive 3+ hours to somewhere I could practice, so I haven't even acquired a pan yet (not wanting to spend money on something that's going to sit brand new for who knows how long), despite researching and reading and watching videos for the last year or so for "some day", including lurking on this forum for a few months.

Registered because... not that I want to invade your space or cause more people in the area to poke around looking for gold that isn't there in quantity, but I'm curious to know more.

 

[glassbutterfly]

I have not asked permishon to pospect here and do not bileave it nesisary to do so. It is a publick park. Not state owned or owned by one of those land protection groups. I figure I am doing on more harm to the river bed than say a flash flood could do or a female salmon turning up a bed of gravel to lay her eggs in. Just like an ocean coast rivers have changing conditions all the time and creatures in the river have learned to live in those coditions. But life is scarse in this river in dead it seams nearly dead. I heard some years back there had been a chemical spill in the creek so hence very few life forms in it. I acsess the river through Aptos City Park. I am slowly learning to read the river and ware gold sits in the bottom. Black slained rocks are the key to finding the gold. Just to day I found huge pocket of black sand next to bed rock and the rocks are black stained under the gravel. As I grabbed for the bottom sand the water swerled dark gray. There in my hand was the thickest black sand I have set eyes on yet in the river. Bearly any gray gravel in it. This will be a good spot and next time I go in the next few days some time I will sluice there. May be this is a placer! Time will tell. If you see a bright blue car I am there. I would be glad to help you prospect the creek.

 

[sveng]

Thanks, I'll probably just join the GPAA and get my practice out on one of their closer claims, once I have time+money to burn. Working for myself, both tend to be in short supply these days. Might poke at the creek a little, but it's not likely to be any time soon, sadly.