John-Edmonton

60% chance of rain.....I got 100% of rain, hail, strong winds, lightning and thunder. I came prepared, brought a raincoat. I was out in the rain for a little over 3 hours. My boots were full of water from the raincoat runoff. Too funny! Half the trip was spent mossing and washing roots and half the trip was digging gravel. I did get some of that vitamin "G" too. Drop riffles sluices work great for mossing and washing roots. The roots just flow over the drop riffles and don't get caught like they used to on my inverted mesh.

This has been my retirement dream. Prospecting and metal detecting. I am living the dream.👍

I didn't weigh it. I usually keep myself in suspense until the end of the year.

Well said Chuck! And looking for it, keeps us healthy and allows for a good night sleep.

Out with the Geo Highbanker today. I hit a pay-streak.....got all this gold in only three hours. My riffles were bleeding with gold today!

I got back to my roots yesterday at the local river for a dig. I am just amazed at how much gold is lurking in those plant roots from the upper flood plain when I wash them. Most people ignore them, so often times the gold has been building up for many years. The drop riffle design is a perfect fit too. You can wash them in the hopper, and what roots that get loose in the sluice just roll over the drop riffles. They do plug up the classifier screen a bit, but a quick scrub with a brush cleans them up quickly!

A great day to be out prospecting. A little cool, which makes you work a little harder to stay warm. Hit a spot where I had to use a rope to get up and down to my spot. There are still bits of ice floating down the river from the recent ice breakup. I set the Geo Highbanker at about 9 degrees using a 2,000 GPH electric bilge pump. My buddy wants to purchase a Geo highbanker. He is current using a Le'Trap and likes what he sees with my unit.

The petrified wood came out nice. I had 3 rejects which split and were to be recycles at a later date. Here's what dino bones look like tumbles. I might make a ring out of one of the tiny ones. Meanwhile, I have another 3 tumblers on the go.

Headed down to the local river after work today. I did get in about 1 1/2 hours of digging. The gravel was till frozen in places below a couple of inches. I did dig up a lot of shallow roots on the higher water mark, and the gold was very fine from washing the roots. But, even a little gold is better then no gold. I am always amazed at how well a drop riffle system, when set up right manages to capture and retain even the tiniest flakes of flour gold.

Check out this build.....from a filing cabinet to a highbanker.

It's an adventure. Perfect for a semi-retired guy.

Took out the California Mini today, as the trip down to the river bank is very steep and I used a rope to facilitate the climb. I washed a lot of roots as the bench I was on was quite muddy. The hopper on the mini is just the ticket for washing roots. It creates a nice vortex, wish really washes the roots well. They don't end up plugging up raised riffles system like raised mesh over minors moss. The roots just flow over the drop riffles and leave the gold behind. It really is a great machine. Here's a short video on today's adventure. https://youtu.be/soVbN1GFnYM

Got more gold today on the local North Saskatchewan River. I ran the Geo Highbanker at about 8 degrees and it worked flawlessly! I also dug up a relic, a fossil and lots of petrified wood. https://youtu.be/wagfh2yD_ao

Dang.....No Prospecting Today

I have noticed a trend where sluices, highbankers, hoses, batteries, pumps are becoming smaller, lighter, more affordable, more popular, and nearly all manufacturers are offering a new line to include these. At one time, bigger was better. 12" wide, 12 foot long highbankers were promoted as getting it all. And, maybe often times it did. However, the downside was it was heavy, not very transportable and the amount of concentrates to process was incredible. Fast-forward to today. New materials make for very light, more portable equipment, along with smaller pumps. People now realize a 6 or 8 inch sluice works well, especially with new types of riffle and matting systems. Gasoline pumps have often times been replaced using bilge pumps, with new, light weight lithium ion batteries. The final, screened remaining concentrates can be taken home in a plastic bag. The equipment can be transported in a back-pack, a wagon or other light trolley. You can hike into areas now, not available without a boat or roads to get a much higher gold return. With science & technology producing new riffle deigns, resulting in better capture rates, smaller, leaner cheaper just might be a better choice. What are your thoughts?

I lucked out and got to prospect the NSR on March 20.......the first day of spring. I finally got to use the Geo Sluice Again. It's been a while................

Kyle from Utmost Outdoors did an excellent comparison on various cleanup sluices. He sure puts his heart and soul into his work. It is long, but just loaded with good information. Check it out!

At the end of the day, feel great, sleep good and add that gold to my vile. Life is good!

Can you smell it?♨️ Sweet with heat jerky using hickory smoke. Started the day getting a little bit of gold. It got up to one degree above freezing, so in my neck of the woods, it was fantastic. Instead of my usual gravel from the steep vertical bank, I shifted gears and ran river gravel through my California Mini. Probably a little bit more gold, but so fine. Finished the day putting my marinated jerky into my dehydrator. Going to sleep well tonight.🥱

Dang it anyways! While doing my final back-panning in my clean-up pan, I discovered a little hungry bead of mercury which ate up some of my flour gold from todays dig. Oh well, at least my ball of mercury amalgam is growing in size. Anyhow, my buddy and I went out to do a little prospecting. I used the mini California drop riffle sluice, and he used his mini Le'Trap. Going to sleep well tonite. \

Here's my first run rock tumbling. The petrified wood and dino bones used the rough grit #1 to tumble, the misc. stones used the #2 grit, as they were already somewhat smooth. There's 4 stages of tumbling normally with fresh stones, with rough edges. Next week I'll change the grit again. All these were found in the North Saskatchewan River.. Prospecting can create other hobbies too!

Out with my ity bity river sluice today. The river remained frozen due to another recent cold spell. Anyhow, the weather was good, exercise felt great and I am going to sleep well tonite. Check out my slide show from today. I got gold, platinum and a garnet.

Here's a pic on how the geo sluice works. I love mine! It uses less water flow then other types of riffles and gets the tiniest bits of flour gold.

Man....did I ever get a woody this afternoon .......a petrified woody that is! Out sluicing with the ity - bity sluice today. Pulling some gravel at about 4 feet off the ground in the gravel bank, when I saw the familiar contour stripes of petrified wood. I carefully dug it our, and stopped at a car wash to give it a good cleanup. Just a lovely specimen too. And, I also got a little ity bity gold too. It's not much, but it photographed using a macro lens to show that the pieces look like large nuggies.

I use my macro camera on flour gold. It does make it look bigger, but shows what the tiny pieces look like..