John-Edmonton

Shifted gears recently and used my Le'Trap highbanker. It was my first introduction to drop riffle highbankers/river sluices several years ago. When set up properly, it is very efficient for capturing flour gold. I was running mine at about 12 degrees, 3000 GPH and it worked very well. This was probably my best outing this year judging the amount of gold I got.

It's been sooooo hot in my neck of the woods. Kinda put things on hold. Heat stroke is a consideration at my age to avoid.

I had a lot of company today. All my gravel bars were under water. Here's today's total flour gold.

Thanks! Got to keep our bodies moving as we age or they eventually seize.

Thanks. It should be a good year. I now have lots of time being retired.

Started in May, still ice around. My hot gravel was out of reach, so I hit other spots. Initialy classiffied to 1/2" for about 20%, then switched to 1/4" for the remaining 80%. I did get my exercise, finished the challenge, and am happy for it. If you are just starting, consider this. If you want more gold, classify it down to 1/8" per bucket. However, it is more time consuming than 1/4" or even less than 1/2". Test Test Test. There is no sense in screening and filling a bucket with no gold. Have fun and stay safe! FYI, as I am posting this 1 gram at 24K, it is worth $73.93 US.

OK, finished the 100 gold bucket challenge today. Mostly screened down to 1/4". Faired well today. All my flour gold photos are take with a macro lens, as it gives the gold much more appeal. The river started rising today, a little over 9 inches according to the graph. It's going to be interesting to see how others do on the NSR. Constantly filling buckets is time consuming. Much faster just feeding a highbanker directly, and you probably move much more gravel in a given time. However, this is a hobby, and it's not always "how much gold can I get?" I shall weigh my gold tomorrow. Thanks for all the support everyone has given me.

Thanks! That's a compliment. And you should get out. Good appetite, good sleep, good mood and getting paid in gold to get in shape. You just can't beat that scenario.

No idea how much I will save. I will be glad when my 100 buckets is complete. It's nice to just set up the highbanker to start digging without screening buckets for a run. This filling in my retirement time with gold prospecting is really rewarding. There's something in my DNA that seeks the constant contact with the outdoors all year round. My daughter also has it. She spends a lot of her spare time hiking along creeks, woods etc. I just never really enjoyed a lot of social events. They seem to often drain my energy. I recharge by getting outside in the fresh air without a lot of people.

Nice day.....sunny and hot! Faired pretty good today. This is the flour gold what was cleaned up in my finishing pan.

I was kind of fantasizing a motorcycle with a side car. I have never owned a motorcycle. One of my sons does. At this stage of life, 69 I thought an E-bike was a compromise. So far, so good. The trailer should be here next week so I will have to do a trial run. And my car should be out of the shop today, after a 10 days wait at the shop.

Used my new mining tool today......my new E-Bike. Third week of retirement. Thought I would try to stay in shape this year. About 40minute drive to the river. Only did 2 buckets as thunderstorms were rolling in. I managed to only get a sprinkle. Although the California mini fits nicely in the bucket, I felt a little crammed with my battery in my back pack and buckets directly behind me. I did order a small bicycle trailer, so I can also use my Geo highbanker and Le' Trap. https://www.google.com/search?sca_esv=518dda140f0233a9&rlz=1C1VDKB_enCA1095CA1095&tbm=vid&sxsrf=ADLYWIJOa1_KhYHRfZRSkOXX44t8ZUcCjQ:1718761520863&q=I+want+to+ride+my+bicycle.&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjOgJ7PxeaGAxVIFzQIHYldB2gQ8ccDegQIDBAF&biw=1280&bih=541&dpr=1.5#fpstate=ive&vld=cid:58ff77d1,vid:B4-MkHXbLJc,st:0

Summer time............🎶

Somebody in Edmonton years ago, swept up a pile of sand left over from the winter roads. He ran it through his clean-up sluice and of course did find some flour gold. It got in the newspaper, with the quote "See, Edmonton's streets really are paved with gold." I have often times been tempted to repeat his scenario. Now that I am fully retired, I just might attempt it.

Actually they do have wash plants to get as much gold as they can. These places are all gravel pits, which up until about 30 years ago did not extract any gold. The sand purchased had already gone through a wash plant of sorts. This is what they missed.

He got 1.333 grams of gold. Paid $36.00 for the 2 yards of sand.

It was supposed to get up to at or above freezing temperatures today. That never happened, however, fresh air, exercise, appetite, good food and a good night's sleep. What is there not to like? Made a quick, short video of the Easter Hunt. https://youtu.be/34GcgX7l7aw

Depends on the width of the drop riffles. Up to an 8" wide, the 1100 GPH should do fine. 10" to 12" works well with the 2000 GPH and the Le'Trap runs with a 2200GPH pump, although, I sometimes add another 500 GPH pump to to run the Letrap.

I was using the California mini highbanker. I shovelled fresh gravel into the hopper for about 2 hours, including gravel containing a lot of roots. It's flour gold in the pan.

There are lots of bilge pumps for sale at Amazon and Ebay. A lot of prospecting places sell them too, as do marinas if you happen to live near water. Did you purchase a Lithium ion battery? Below is an article about lithium ion batteries and a comparison chart to simplify things. https://tritekbattery.com/choosing-between-lithium-ion-and-lead-acid-batteries-for-e-bikes/

A couple of things to bring to your attention. Drop riffle highbankers require less water flow then your standard riffles. Drop riffles allow the gold to drop out of the water flow, like it happens in nature. Standard riffles require more water flow, to create a low pressure zone, hopefully capturing gold. Larger stones can knock flour gold out of standard riffles, but just roll over drop riffles, where the gold has already dropped out of sight. Because of less water flow, drop riffles run very well on bilge pumps. The California Mini runs nicely using a 1100 gallons per hour pump. The Geo Sluice runs well on a 2000 gallons per hour pump. 12 volt lithium ion batteries are really coming down in prices, and bilge pumps are not a great expense. The lithium ion batteries can purchaced on Amazon or Ebay. I did the math and pricing for running either the Californiaa Mini or the Geo Highbanker with different batteries. You could also run a 6" standard riffle unit on a 1100gallons per hour unit. These are in Canadian prices. US prices will be less. Using a bilge pump is quiet, no gasoline, no oil, no tune-ups, no oil changes and the whole complete system is so light that you can carry it on your back and go just about anywhere. And drop riffles have excellent retention rates for flour gold.

Thanks! You too!?

Well Chuck, full retirement end of May. At 69 I feel blessed that I still have the body that allows me to prospect. I can't comment on the grey matter in my head. I do love the photography part of prospecting, and enjoy putting together the posts. We ALL need to keep our bodies moving and our brains challenged to get the most of our senior years. "When we are young, we should exercise. When we get old, we GOT-TO!"

Too much of that stuff and you will go color blind.?

You bet! Much easier then shovelling gravel. You can literally pull up a chair, wash some roots and drink a cold beer too!?