Use a high-banker when working near to, but not in the stream. This will allow you to process bank
material more quickly than carrying it to the stream and running it through a sluice. You can see in the picture below,
it is the same as a sluice, but it has a hopper on it. You will need an engine with a pump, and enough hose to reach to
the stream. This is a little more expensive, but certainly beats hauling the material. The other option would be to use a
dry washer, but using water whenever you can is preferable. The hopper is designed to spray water over the material
washing off any gold that is sticking to the rocks and gravel. The rocks, sand and gravel that are small enough to pass
through the grate in the hopper will continue directly into and through the sluice. The larger rocks that won’t pass
through the grate in the hopper can be removed and discarded by hand, checking first to make certain that no gold
is still sticking to them.
If you haven’t already seen the sluice box information, please link to that page. The sluice on this unit
is modified from that one by removing the up-stream flared end. Otherwise, the sluice operates the same way.
You can remove the concentrate from the sluice and recover just the gold using a pan. You can be panning like a
pro with the 5 easy steps shown in “The Basic Technique Needed for Recreational Gold Prospecting” PANNING -
Volume III in “The GREAT AMERICAN SERIES” of e-books on gold.
