Are gold traps a thing?

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If the fine gold in creeks move around during high water flow is some kind of gold trap a thing?
kinda like a crab pot but for gold where you chuck it in a creek and come back in a week or after heavy rain and clean it out for some low effort gold.
Probably a dumb idea but a shower thought worth asking.
 
AtomRat said:
Shhhhh... ;)

( no such thing as dumb, you'd be suprised )

Yup!! years ago I was told by an old timer that some residents of a certain sleepy Victorian high country town had chiseled riffles into the bedrock bottom of their famous creek and would clean them out a couple of times a year. The best sites were those downstream of the old battery sheds ;) and they're probably still doing it :D

casper
 
madworld said:
Like a removable set of riffles with some gold hog matting that covers the width of the entire creek ?

something like that. Maybe even just a strategically place and anchored sluice box
 
Every time (not some time... every time) I go to the creeks around the Barossa Goldfields and in Rocky Creek at Mt Crawford forest, I seem to come across the whole inside stuffing of a Tontine pillow, strategically paced in the water flow on an inside bend, or at the bottom of a small drop. Don't know if this method is effective in trapping fine gold, but someone seems to think so. At first I thought it was just throwaway flotsam.
 
is it more like a reenforcing mesh to prevent erosion? I've found a few from plastic to hessian, accidently, that hold rocks or sands in place. I think the revegitation groups have been putting them in here.. could be someone's dodgy attempt but if its floating about it probably wouldn't catch much if anything
 
AtomRat said:
is it more like a reenforcing mesh to prevent erosion? I've found a few from plastic to hessian, accidently, that hold rocks or sands in place. I think the revegitation groups have been putting them in here.. could be someone's dodgy attempt but if its floating about it probably wouldn't catch much if anything

Know what you mean, but no, not that. Definitely the inside of a pillow, weighted down with stones, and / or wedged in to the natural crevices.
Next time I see one I'll pic it and show.
 
Theres a young bloke i know who got discharged last year from the army. He started prospecting and after a month asked the question why dont people sluice off whole creeks. Well i told him theyd get burried in overburden but he found himself a rock bar that is always bare with fast flowing water. He went into clark rubber bough 5 meters of v ribb x 2.5 meters and anchored it over the bar. After 3 months he reckons he got about 3 grams of super super fine gold. Bloody genius i reckon... bit like panning grass
 
We were told of a story in tassy where a guy was using old house carpet in a creek and holding it down with rocks. I presume that he also put some rocks across it to act as riffles. He would leave it there for a few months then remove it and burn ot to recover fine gold. And more carpet was layed back down. Heard he did quite well out of it.
 

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