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John-Edmonton

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  1. 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.
  2. 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.
  3. 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/
  4. 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.
  5. 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!"
  6. You bet! Much easier then shovelling gravel. You can literally pull up a chair, wash some roots and drink a cold beer too!🍺
  7. 15 °C/59.0 °F was what it was today. (probably even hotter in the valley, south facing slope) I got out this morning and had some serious gold getting in mind. I drove to an area which sometimes opens up early in the spring. Good karma today! I brought along my climbing rope along. I work healing people with broken bones at a hospital for a living. I don't want to be a patient on my unit. It's nice to have a unit that runs on a 12 volt battery. The highbanker is ABS plastic, strong and light. No gas pump, heavy hoses or gasoline to tag along. My unit runs quiet all day, and allows me to hear all the bird's sounds with spring mating in mind. I safely made it to the river's edge. A thick layer of ice was still intact in most places on the banks. I did manage to find a small open, exposed area. Hacked another 10 feet more with my shovel to expose some more gravel. The gravel had a lot of sticky silt mixed with it and little gold, so I dug up a lot of dead vegetation and washed the roots in my hopper. That got me more gold then just the gravel. Here's the flour gold after my final clean-up. I might head down again tomorrow if the weather is suitable.
  8. Took my California Mini highbanker back to the chunky-flour-gold river, and did mostly free digging, as the frost is starting to thaw out. I managed to move a lot more material, as I wasn't screening it into buckets for feeding the mini. And, the results speak for themselves. I have done quite well with this little unit. The whole system fits in a 5 gallon plastic bucket, and my 12 volt 60 amp/hr lithium ion battery (very light) fits in my back pack. I can either pack it in my sled or just carry it in a bucket to get to those far away places. I dug down to about 18 inches below these old gravel beds. Beyond that, the ground was still frozen. I dug for a bout 3 hours, which is plenty for me. Filled in my holes, went home and ran my concentrates through my micro sluices in the basement. Here's the shiny from today! I should sleep well tonite.🥱
  9. Well, the little river turned out to be a bigger river, as the temperature was rising and the snow was melting. I had to find a new river crossing to get home where the river was more shallow. I haven't tried this location.....so, that's what I dug. Adding water to my 1/2" screened gravel turned it into a sticky cement. I prefer feeding dry material. I just drop the material from a greater height to make that flour gold punch through the water's surface tension so that it doesn't float away. And.....here's todays shiny fly poop. Gonna sleep well tonite!🛏️
  10. Thanks. My grandfarher's saying was that "where there's a will, there's a away." I never understood what he meant untl I was grown man!
  11. Agreed! I's love to have one shellacked, shiny hanging on the wall showing such wonderfull detail of the wood.
  12. Back to the same river spot I was yesterday. Because there was such a small amount of water flow to operate my river sluice, I brought my California mini highbanker. And that made all the difference. I previously had to chop a hole in the ice. Can't really dam up water when the river is covered with ice. This amount was much better then my small previous attempt at this site.
  13. Of course I count my blessings.....each and every morning I wake up I am thankful getting in another day.😉
  14. Crude way of collecting gold from a highbanker. This guy really goes to work to process his gold using a batea gold pan, made out of wood.
  15. Got spanked today! I hiked down to a river, only to find it was covered with ice. I cut a hole in the ice big enough for my California river sluice, only to discover very low water flow. Luckily I brought along the "Ity-Bity sluice, which kind of worked. I only ran half a bucket of gravel screened to 10 mesh.
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