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An article I wrote for a magazine years ago, now on their website for free..... A Beginner’s Guide To Gold Panning

https://www.facebook.com/reel/2124940954527990

He has various videos of the design and build in progress. He analysed every square inch for both strength, weight and angle of his design for maxim gold retention. It's a two (tiered 10" + 10") highbanker, also great with sand.

My final felt run was completed. After running this years concentrates 7 times, my 7th and last felt run got 0.1 gram of gold. My purpose of this experiment was to see if felt could be used in the final cleanups of concentrations from gold prospecting. I was pleased with the results. Not only will felt bite and hold a lot of gold, but please look at how tiny some of the micro gold it caught. Could felt be used to clean up cons? Absolutely! To remove a good percentage of tiny micro gold? Absolutely! Could it be added as an extention to your sluice? Absolutely! Could it test your tailing for gold loss? Absolutely! After all my concentrates were reduced to -50 mesh, the felt managed to get one gram of gold out of the pre-run 10 gallons of original concentrates. What are your thoughts? Any other uses come to mind for your set-ups? Let me know. Last nights final run.....it still caught gold. I guess you never really get it all. Notice how tiny some of the micro gold is. Here's what half my felt-concentrates looked like.

Picked up some new classifiers from a gentleman up in Cottonwood AZ, Dave Garner is the name of the person, and I will say these things are heavy duty and very well made stainless steel classifiers, they work well with 5 gallon buckets, four different sizes 1/2 inch,3/8 inch, 1/8 inch and 1/16 inch, the 1/16 inch also works great as a bowl to drain water off of spaghetti and salad because it is food grade, a food strainer is what I kept the 1/16 for as I cannot see classifying dirt down that small, I have the Gold Fox Mini Monster with the Mini Trommel that I run material down just for a fun project at home I carry 2 or 3, 5 gallon buckets out with me when I am able to go out and bring it back to my house for days I cannot get out and detect.

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................