Change Does Us Good

[Ian g]

So I had been working a pay streak for the past three sluicing and panning sessions. I took a friend last week, just to show him how it’s done, and I knew we would find some in the streak. He went home with around 7 or 8 small flakes in a vial, and even if he doesn’t follow through with the hobby, at least he has his own little vial containing Scottish gold.

well yesterday I continued on the streak, but it began to dry up, with only a few tiny specks in what I decided was the last pan. I was only half way through my day, so I had to try a new bit. Just a couple of yards upstream, and I mean two yards, there was a big pile of rocks that I thought must have come from a landslide at first glance, but on further inspection they were just too well placed. The pile was built up the side of bedrock and I hadn’t a clue what the ground was like under it all. So with nothing else for it I decided to start removing the rocks, some big some small. It must have taken me a good hour or more to start making progress, but progress was made nonetheless. At the bottom of the pile of rocks was stones which were loose and easy to remove, which I did, but it was the sheer bedrock wall that took my interest. There were cracks and crevices which ran vertically down the face, and at the bottom of a few of these cracks had bedrock that stopped any gravels from dropping into the stream. I used my gravel pump to wash these areas and let the gravel fall down into the stream where I could suck it up in the pump. Well the work paid off after finding a good picker in the first bucket. I think I must have washed it out the bedrock straight away.

change really does do us good, but I have a question. I can’t afford a detector, so here’s the question. Can a hand held pointer be any good for working the crevices in the bedrock on dry land up in the hills? Or are these only good when in conjunction with a metal detector? An amateurish question, but bare with me as I am an amateur 😄. If it’s possible can anyone recommend a good pointer fir this purpose that won’t cost the earth.

Thanks in advance for any advice and information offered, and thanks for taking the time to read my posts.

ian🇺🇸🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🥃