a lot of the videos i watch show some high bankers and sluices in action in gravely and pebbely country which begs me to ask the question how do these go if your digging out dirt in a creek bed or river section and hit clays,most of the creeks around my area in the GT have high levels of clay sitting in the base of the creek between reef rock and large rocks i attempted once to use a home made high banker and found that the clays seemed to build up in the base of the banker creating a false bottom which i assumed would then let gold bounce along the top and out the end of the sluice,while attempting this scenario one day an elderly fellow passed by stopped and asked me how i was doing i explained the basics to him he casually smiled and replied "wont work around here son, thats for the high country boys and their pebble bound creeks, down here its all about AGGITATION and DURATION" the longer you can hold onto the dirt and wash the more chance you have of breaking the clays and extracting the gold, to remedie this some machines i have built and building are large heavy and quite robust in design certainly making them unafordable to your average joe and way past portable...........do you think the ole timer was right? are high bankers and some sluice boxes really just for gravelly creeks and streams....? 8)
