My New Explorer

Posted: Mon Jun 04, 2012 8:49 am

I went with a friend and his daughter prospecting for a few hours during the Memorial Day weekend. I was able to christen my new Angus McKirk Explorer. I was impressed. We were able to see gold specks stay on the skid area even if we dumped our 1/2" screened material on it. It definitely liked being flatter than I would have thought. If I set the drop too steep it got a backwash and packed the last two riffles. I gave his daughter the bigger pieces and what I could easily separate on the creek but there were so many fines I couldn't get to separate I dumped the cons in a bucket and brought them home. I dried the material and used my 16, 30, and 50 screens. Most of the gold was -30 or -50. My loupe says there's some still that I can't see in the sands. I may try going to -100 and trying again. This is what I brought home minus the larger pieces, which would have been +16. There's more pieces in the pan than it seems in the picture because most of those smaller "specks" are actually clumps of -50 material. There was gold in every spoonful I panned. Good day on the creek. Sorry I didn't get any shots of the sluice in action. We were in production mode trying to get in as many buckets as we could run in the time we had. Ran over 12 5-gallon buckets through this sluice.

Posted: Mon Jun 04, 2012 9:07 am

sounds like you hade a good day

Posted: Mon Jun 04, 2012 1:33 pm

Looking good buddy