Dredging in Australia for recreational activities IS illegal..

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I found a nice little spot to get gold down here in Tasmania. I had to leave it because I found a dredge in the scrub near it and did not want to run into whoever had stumbled on my spot. I am not the type of person to dob or take someone elses equipment but I was very upset. It took me a long time to find that spot and it was giving up some nice colour too. Kind regards David
 
Go back and remove the dredge then dismantle it and scatter the bits to the four winds. In time your little spot will fill up again.
 
Hi all spent a day checking out a new creek. Walkef upstream for ages and found a few promising test pans. Kept walking upstream to find someone else had been working. My question is can you tell if someone has been using a dredge? They have under cut the banks and it was a real mess. :(
 
bumdags said:
Hi all spent a day checking out a new creek. Walkef upstream for ages and found a few promising test pans. Kept walking upstream to find someone else had been working. My question is can you tell if someone has been using a dredge? They have under cut the banks and it was a real mess. :(

Dredges operate under the water , the diggings under banks are usually shovel done into high bankers or sluices.
 
TASMANIA GOLD RUSH said:
I found a nice little spot to get gold down here in Tasmania. I had to leave it because I found a dredge in the scrub near it and did not want to run into whoever had stumbled on my spot. I am not the type of person to dob or take someone elses equipment but I was very upset. It took me a long time to find that spot and it was giving up some nice colour too. Kind regards David
Have a poo in the feul tank ]:D will make em think again.
 
Ok just looked very even and wasnt sure. Not much water in the creek now but maybe in winter the water level might get that high. They have made a mess of the place. Such a shame. Im guessing that they must have been getting some good colours to go to all that trouble its a fair stretch of bank?
 
Hey Wombat digger, in vic i wanted to do the same but was advised that moving material with water is not legal either (pump or gravity.)

I'm lead to believe water is only allowed for clasification and separation

Can anyone comment?
 
That sounds right to me :Y:
Hydraulic stripping of material is one of the most devistating ways of prospecting , as blasting away overburden to get down to pay dirt is irreversible because all the material is washed down stream.

If you can find old footage of the oldtimers stripping 30ft of over burden away to get to a 2ft thick paydirt layer it pretty unbelievable , with 2 or 3 cannons blasting 1inch streams of water .
 
Sure is , but what Wombat is suggesting is say a feed hopper that you shovel into, then the material is dredged out of that. Water is not being used to pull dirt off the ground, only to transport to a highbanker...
 
I dont understand all these do gooder's. In the USA dredging is a great family past time, here in Australia your labelled as a criminal. I bet 99% of the people commenting on eductor dredging have no hands on experience.

Fact suction gold dredging removes 98% mercury
Fact suction gold dredging removes 100% lead
Scientifically proven does not harm fish

I just ask you all to be open minded there is a guy named Shannon Po from American Mining Rights Association or (AMRA) check his facebook page out. Get educated on the subject.

https://www.facebook.com/americanminingrights/videos/1818315638262504/?t=363
 
The idea is to slow the impact prospecting has.
Panning does the least damage , followed by river sluice and then highbanker and finally the daddy of them all is dredging , which moves more material in a period of time than the lot.
 
Do the research. We are talking about a vacuum device in which on average 50-75 % of material must be moved by hand. U seem a little green, Its not a escavator or a bucket ladder type of device!
 
golddredge said:
See you are commenting with your feelings, there are no adverse impacts with suction gold dredging. do the research.
What part of my post is WRONG ?
I am a prospector - I know what the river looked like before I prospected and i see what it looks like after I am done .
They do not look the same
 
dredging is illegal why debate it ? In NSW we cant even run a petrol pump anymore for highbanking and at the rate they are locking us out of the bush we soon wont have any fossicking areas anyway.
So i cant see why anyone one would even try to convince anyone that dredging is environmentaly friendly.
To be honest , the way its going i couldnt give a flying fart if they banned everything except a pan or a detector as long as it was protected as law for 150 years.

Dredges suck and theres no way you can deny that :D
 
you are correct golddredge.
Suction Dredging does no harm at all.
I don't know what I was thinking.
I get back to watching the GP Qualifying.
 
Yes indeed they do thats how they work sucking up material. Reason you cant use motorised equipment is no one stands up and bands together, pmav are useless if enough numbers got together such regulations would be overturned.

As your well aware the fundamental ingredient to success in prospecting is YOU! You make the decisions where to swing that coil etc etc...

Rolling over and giving up will always leave you empty handed.
 
On Gumtree.

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