Southern Tassie Gold

Hi guys been a while since iv made a post so decided to share a few bits and pieces from the last couple of months. They were not wrong about how fine and elusive our gold is in the south of the state! I ended up making a little rocker box first as most areas iv been looking in has little or no water which is a major pain.. found a few colours here and there but very few and far between so panning was an easyer option. Have been planning a trip away to the west coast for a while now so decided to make a river sluice based on Wals high banker design. The first design is made from local cheap pine 9 inches wide and just under 1m long "sluices in tas must be under 1m".. The second design requires less water and is the same length but only 6 inches wide made from channel. Had to play around with the boiler section and bread create section but pretty happy with the results the rocker and both sluices all catch the flour gold so im pretty happy lol i stuck with the steel pan for a few months then upgraded to using the minelab pro pan now iv recently got the garrett super sluice as a birthday present and has made sampling much quicker and easyer to use. My gold total since xmass is well over 100 pieces but due to it being so fine it still doesnt register 0.01 so its flour gold alright! Photo is of some courser pieces. As soon as i can get to our other gold fields im sure that will soon change "fingers crossed the photos turn out" Cheers

The image size seems to be to large with the other photos ill have to try and find away to resize them once i can get access to the computer..

Hello Nexen,
Looks like you are doing OK for down south. Not a great deal down there and mostly private land where it was found. If you get on the Tasmanian Prospecting forum you might meet some locals to share a few spots or a trip up north to some old mining areas. Also get on www.appleisleprospector.com for some info on finding gold here. There are a few youtube videos on Tas. gold being made lately which are pretty good . I have made my sluices from old aluminium signs picked up from scrap yard and taken to a sheetmetal place to be bent. If you have it all measured and layed out they usually will cut and bend it for around $20. Wal had a good idea with the breadcrate and dirt matt, it really catches fine gold. Good luck

Thanks alwayslooking! The old timers certainly didn't leave much, been great fun researching I think iv read nearly every report I could find covering the south of the state the reports are all pretty accurate which is great. Spent last weekend digging petrified wood and agates down Lune river for something different got some small specimens so will certainly be going back down for another look meet some amazing people so far!

Nice Pan of gold there Nexen

Thanks jonesy. Recent flooding should reveal some more gold been itching to get back out for another look. Been building another rocker box to pass the time. Still undecided what to use for the riffles and matting.. I have deep groove matting with small expanded metal in my small one I built last season with 2 angle riffle bars at the end which seemed to work OK during testing. The new rocker is a bigger version so might give the rubber backed mats and small expanded metal a try with 4-6 angle riffle bars on the draw and bottom deck. Once I'm happy with the design I'll look at making one out of aluminium to reduce the weight

Nice gold mate