vision-sciences

Another great day down at the creek doing some underwater gold sniping with my wife.
Today we spent about 3 hours sniping, hitting our spot from both sides meeting in the middle.

We still have a little left in our spot before hitting the bank and we really hope to find a nice nugget like the one I found my 2nd day out. The bedrock started to go sideways making natural riffles for gold to hide in.

The largest nugget in my pan came from one of those natural riffles that we uncovered at the very end after meeting in the middle.

We made a new friend today named Eric (I am Eric too!) and he was digging the shore where the creek was before. He found a HUGE boulder under about 6″ of dirt and started to dig it out.

He uncovered the crest and this thing is as big if not bigger than a fully dressed BOSS 429 engine. I hope he gets to the bottom of that hole and finds some good material.

Eric and his wife were sluicing and panning what they were digging out of cracks and from around the boulder.

Duration : 0:1:13

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Heya everyone;

I bought a Bazooka Gold Trap Sluice box last week and got a chance to give it a try today. I bought the Miners version which is the largest one that they sell.

I went up to a spot close to where we snipe and cleaned out some cracks in the bedrock that seem to be worked over every year, the gold there replenishes itself.

It was nice not having to classify what I fed into the sluicebox and it really worked out well. It caught so much fine gold I was really impressed.

If anything I could have given it more water and more angle to help keep from having to clean our so much material.

The amount of gold that I recovered was from a few cracks in a bit of bedrock that filled a 5 gallon bucket.

Next to underwater sniping, it is a lot more work and you dont get to stay as cool but when the weather gets colder I plan to use this sluice a lot more.

Duration : 0:2:1

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Another good Day (Night) of Sniping.

We went back to the same patch of creek that has been good for us for another round.
We arrived so late though that the last bit of light was going away. No problem though, I had my wife toss down my Coleman Max LED flashLight and off I went.

I was working a small spot for less than 45 minutes but our total outing was about an hour to an hour and a half. What I have to show is from that small spot.

The Coleman Max LED Flashlight worked amazingly well without a problem, even with water getting inside I still had no problems. The gold lit up like Christmas morning under its 110 lumens of LED goodness.

While the Coleman is not waterproof, it is water resistant and works perfectly under water. After you are done just dump out the water, take it apart and put it in a bag of dry rice. Coming in at just $25 dollars, this should be in your bag of tools.

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What is underwater sniping?

Whelp it is looking for the best places that may hide gold underwater, behind big rocks, pitfalls, exposed bedrock, cracks and crevices.
Once you find a spot begin to fan away the silt, mud, dirt, leaves and overburden.
Use a snuffer bottle or tweezers to suck and pick out the gold you find.
If you dig a large hole through overburdge be sure to fill it back in when you are done.

Tools that I use while sniping.
A sturdy 1/2″ squared Flat head screwdriver with a slight angle at the head for leverage, a LONG thin flathead screwdriver as my tiny crevice cleaner, cheap rubber palmed work gloves, tweezers and a snuffer bottle. Cleanup in your pan when your done.

Less than $15 dollars in Harbor Freight tools, Snuffer bottle and 1oz vile. A nice 10″ Keene Pan is about $8 dollars more. A cheap investment for tons of fun.
If you dont already have a mask and snorkel you can go cheap at first to see if you like it.
I bought a US Divers kit for my wife and an Oceanic Ion 3x & snorkel for myself, both on craigslist cheap and both came with nice flippers too but we dont use them for sniping.

Video shot with a HTC Evo 3D through an Otterbox Defender Case.

Duration : 0:3:51

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