Sluicing Sand for GOLD! 

Great lessons as always. Over the years of watching you, my gold take panning has gone up in quantum leaps. Thanks Chris 👍😁

@ 4:45 .... Sounds a lot like Arizona! Cheers Mate!

"I have to walk 62 paces between digging and sluice", those Klondike rushers had nothing on you for hard times. The trick with sand is you have to run it slowly to lower losses in any sort of sluice. It takes time for the sand to clear out of the capture zones so the gold has a place to go. A big lump at once just means the sand fills the captures and lets the gold ride right out on top. We are in a glacial area here as well but much removed from the lode deposits the gold originated from. The hills here are glacial moraines and largely unconsolidated till. The difficulty here is that once the water moves the gold away from the moraines any distance the bottomlands are loess which is just a bottomless mire with bedrock up to 100's of feet below. Even in areas with exposed bedrock unless the gold came out of the moraine directly on top of it, there is a lower area above it where the gold sinks completely beyond reach.

Glad to hear that the plants and animals have your back Mr. Prospector.

Thanks for sharing your experience and adventures. I've found 3 tiny flakes in a Michigan creek behind my daughter's house and I've been dreaming about prospecting ever since. I can't wait until I retire and can have my own adventures with the Grandkids. Good healthy fun.

Great lesson on picking the right piece of equipment

In NC I have had success with a drop riffle sluice classified to 1/4 inch. All flour gold. Like you mentioned no equipment has 100% recovery

Hey there Chris another enjoyable video and a good laugh at your comment on having to walk 61 steps. I saw how you got your gift on your back pack very nice mate and in easy reach.

That bee is sat on my nations national flower but its covered in something unusual for my country that being sunlight 😂

Bunnings should hurry up with their sponsorship before you get scoliosis from carrying one bucket,regards George

Don't sweat the people who are mad you find more gold than them. Enjoy the people who cheer you on.

Paydirt! I love paydirt. Maybe we could do some swapping! Good education for the community, thanks Chris!

I actually enjoyed this video as it portrays reality. Not every day is a winner. I have watched a few other video creators finding one nugget after another. Or at least yellow painted rocks. Which I suspect had been planted.

"Fitting this whole creek into my sluice! " I have that hoodie. Thanks for sharing Chris. Awesome video. Cheers

I broke my shovel, rip Dig Doug

Nice! I too sometimes go for the sand. I cover my drop riffle highbanker with either felt or cotton, and it really bites the tiny fly poop size specs of gold. Makes for a nice easy day digging, and the cleanup is quite easy too.

Chris please do more building the equipment I learned so much when you built the rocker box and then the Miller table my God I learned so much from just those 2 episodes

The real treasure is the entertainment value of your videos. You're doing a great job!

a blackberry in the hand is worth 2 in the bush

Don't let the naysayers get you down mate. I've been following you now for about 4 years or so and love the work you are doing and the ethics behind it. Sure you COULD lace your pans with gold or seed the areas you are going to metal detect but that would be lying and that's just not our way. Stick to being true to yourself mate and stay strong. P.S. love the bits of bush wisdom you toss in - folks just don't know how tough the Aussie bush is!

Maybe letting the tailings run over a Bunnings floor mat might catch the fine bits. They only cost about $8 and works well for the tailings from our Rota-pan

I'm learning as you go brother! Godspeed , oh I need my shovel back...😅

The spikey plant with the bee is a Scottish thistle, therefore the Scottish plants in Australia are also trying to hurt you. Good luck!😉

my OCD goes off the charts seeing all those black bits going onto the scale with the gold lol

Really appreciate your style of teaching and sharing your knowledge!! There are far too many snobby snobs out there.

I would love to try one of those cans of dirt. I love a good challenge have tried most of the Canadian and American Impossible pay dirts. Great video!

I've just spent a few days away with my 5 year old using the exact same sluice. I watched this vid the night before I left and after not being happy with what I was capturing I checked the tailings like you did. I was disappointed to find between 1/3 and 1/2 of all gold that went through was lost to the tailings. Like you I was on relatively fine gold but also some larger flakes were lost. I stole my son's dream mat explorer sluice and did a real dodgy setup running with that at the bottom of the thermoform and at cleanup both cleanups showed a similar amount of gold. The tailings were a lot better after this as well. I'm only new to this but having watched a lot of your videos I felt how I was setup wasn't that bad. So now some no.8 wire thinking to modify the top end of the thermoform in an attempt to catch the finer stuff. Thanks for the great content. I always enjoy watching.

We have Bull thistles in America too. You should invest in a pair of loppers.🙄😁

Little gold, but big fun. You can’t put a price on enjoyment

appreciate the new music interludes

Great content again, I always learn something every time. 1 thing I have learnt with my homemade mini high banker and bucket trommel is to have multiple capture zones ( 4 in main sluice) 3 in the longtom River sluice attached at the end. It adds up to 2 metres of sluice. I do clean up the lower sluice separately to the rest and on good ground , I'm lucky to have very little in it. Thanks for the continued education. ❤it 😊

I do not usually respond in this way to content, however this i have to say! The keyboard warriors are always gonna try to shoot those down that offer great educational content! You set the bar pretty high Chris. You keep it real young fella and demonstrate positivity, tenacity, and pride in oneself! Thanks!

Can't speak for Reedy Creek, but my favorite all around matting is the medium cell sized dream mat... does a great job exchanging the chunky black sands out and holding on to the gold. Now i don't have that horrible tin stuff you've got, but it works great over a wide range of gold/sand types

Thank you so much Chris! This was a great day on the creek. I'm just so sorry that a lot of gold disappeared because you were sluicing and not panning. I was shocked when you shoveled some tailling sands and looked! All that work down the drain (well, creek). However, a valuable lesson was learned about the whole ordeal. Thank you for sharing the real outcomes in your videos, good and bad. Blessings from Alabama ❤️

The speed of the water and angle of the sluice also make a difference on small gold. Got lots of experience on that myself. Not a lot of places in So Cal with big gold.

Miners moss .

A Prospectors dream sponsorship. 5 gallon bucket sponsor you betcha 😂 I'd take that any day 👍

I'd blame it on gadzees shovel Chris , great watch as always mate

Have been watching your show for some time and have enjoyed every moment, having lived in Benalla years ago I use to have a bit of fun in panning at Eldorado .In one episode you were asking about some bullets you found around an old mine in Beechworth area, they look like early .303 before they were changed to the spitzer design in the early 1900 hundreds.

you weighted up gems with it not just gold

20:00 you can see the piece of gold float away as he brushes it

I have found that the Dream mat rubber instead of the pressed plastic, seems to catch more. Perhaps because of the sharpness on the edge that the rubber mat has.

4:55 it sounds like Texas

Thanks Chris!

yerp mat is the go. Even better, a recirculating highbanker? Awesome vid as usual pal.

Great job Chris. I have found amazing gold in the light sands here on the west coast of the US.

Hey Chris, how big are the leeches in Rainy Creek? Ah, that's the reason for sweatpants!! LOL😀👍✌

Wouldn’t you need a much longer sluice when processing sand, perhaps double the length?

That spiky plant that had the bee on it best pain reliever all you have to do is mush up the leaves and rubbing on bye-bye pain

Education is key! Thanks for the video.

Hiya Chris, awesome video mate, and the music was awesome. I know I've personally been watching your channel for a long time, ever since the Old Moldy Hat, you had long hair and long beard. And you were always trying too help people....find gold. Maybe if they would have been Listening better, maybe they could really learn something, because you have tin to worry about and not just black sand. I know I have learned a lot over the years. Thanks for all you do. And I want too wish you have a awesome blessed day mate. Cheers! Cya! 😺🐟 out!

When you go home, make sure to take some wood for a rocket stove to dry the gold out with you. Every aspect of expenditure must be addressed and refined for efficiency. With fuel prices as high as they are, i even cook on wood stoves these days to save the coal and money expenditure . As a race we must ALL tighten out belts AMAWC to provide a more stable future for all.

I have a tool that you need - a tracked, powered wheelbarrow ! The best dirt transport ever.

It would be interesting to put a pan at the bottom of the sluice so you can pan out the run off.

Great vid Chris 👍. Have you ever considered doing a vid locating black sands on the coast for potential fine gold deposits? Would be interesting to see 👍.

Nice informative video mate, I think I need to get out and do a little more panning in a beautiful creek with a few cold ones🍻. Cheers Lee.

Thank you so much chris I always learn a lot on your videos I hope that you have a great 2024 out there 👍

Love it. Wish we had even that little bit of gold here it's hard to find more then micro flakes of flood gold here in Jefferson County Washington in quilcene.

Nice M8!

Take your bucket and with a few twist you can con at the bottom of the bucket. Toss top.

You need to heap-leach that fine stuff.

Love the education. Keep it coming teacher!! Excited for this season!!

4:18 Happy Gilmore reference. 😂👌🏻

You've found a lot of garnets, Chris!

Bloody awesome vid engaging as always thanks Chris

Maybe you can get a wagon to bring buckets down to the river instead of dragging over to the river. Might be a lot easier and then maybe you could bring about 8 to 10 buckets at a time

Looks like that is pretty neat to just sliuse a bunch of sand and you get a good amount of gold

nice gold thank you for sharing the adventure and information

Awesome video sir, good education as well.

Chris, the content you continually put together is exceptional and very entertaining. #Bunnings, IHopeTheyGiveYouAsManyBucketsAsYouCanPossiblyCarry

Seems like the same reason the gold is in the sand is the same reason why we have such a hard time getting it out. The size of gold seems to mesh with that size sand really well. And just travels with its sandy friend out our systems eh 🙈

New to all this and super keen. I have spent hours going back through your vids mate, you’re an awesome teacher. Thanks. Look forward to more

A Gem seller in Oregon a few years ago got some beautiful Adamooka opal at the Quartzsite Gem show in Arizona. At the time he gave me a deal 1 dollar per gram so I bought a 55gram stone . Showed it to my other Gem person and he said 10 dollars a gram easy wish , I would have got a grand worth. Adamooka is a type of sinter opal 😅

Thanks for educating!! Looking from Sweden. 😃

We need to all chip in for a bucket 🪣 for this man 🎉

Thank you for another amazing video Chris, it’s the perfect thing to watch while doing work to get back into the swing of school. Hope the new year is treating you well!

Yer works well on micro that little sluce

Love your content Chris - and just like Metal Detecting (my main hobby) its absolutely not about getting out there to find masses of treasure - it's about getting out there, exercising and maybe a little bit of treasure.

Hey mate you should come to Ballarat and check out some of the spots down by the Yarrowee. Happy to take you on a tour. Have a work mate who has 10s of thousands in his collection, mainly with the detector and heaps panned also.

I appreciate what you do. I don't even live in a gold producing region and have never prospected and still find you, Gadzee, and many others entertaining and informative. Keep doing you bro.

Nice I have been considering trying one of those little sluice boxes,I got handfuls of black sand per 10-15 colors on a real good spot,and usually old blue shale that's broken down to a slimy clay ,it is heavy material and the gold is tiny to invisible sluices load up fast with black sands it takes a good bit to pan it down,tricky to run bulk with good capture for sure

For god's sake man, list a Bunnings Bucket on the Old Mouldy, and I'll buy it for you. No longer for this I will not stand!

Love your videos!! Your videos and tips have helped me to find a little gold!

I am currently testing different sluices on beach sand type material its been fun so far still testing

Finders keepers on the shovel? hahahahaha. Only joking, Gadzee.

i feel for ya..."soggy footed long walk"...................

What about below or behind the root at 18:18? On the other hand, thanks for all your work!

Too fast of feed for that small of a box, and that area is a lot like one we have here. My best luck was miner's moss and expanded metal. Still love the video, and you're content, thanks brother ✌️✌️✌️

Could you cut out some v matting the same shape as the base of that sluice with a couple of clips at the top to hold in place to catch the fine stuff if your test pans show that sort of ground?

You should give your DIY low banker a run

drop riffle sluice for that micro gold

Mmmmmm gold sand, bloody Bunnings first they fk with the sausage sizzle now no sponsorship….

Bunnings are in violation of many ohs laws by no providing you with an extra bucket

Another great documentary-quality tutorial,- I have become a Patreon today (first time I've ever done that anywhere), because you're sincerely and generously sharing a lot of hard-won knowledge free, (and I'd feel guilty just being a taker) - thanks Chris.

Hi Chris, good job bud ,pay dirt would be fun to do, keep it up bad

We need an old moldy shoulder yoke and duel buckets. Let Bunning be damned.

convert to miller table i recall some one saying a clean up sluice is all i need

Would it make sense to put your pan under the end of the sluice to catch the tailings and whatever gold the sluice misses? Just pan out whatever is in there when it starts to fill up.

Chris mate you have helped my families passion exploring and hunting a bit of treasure LOADS glad for the info and inspiration really helped a Dad out 👍

A great video have a wonderful day!