DESERDOG'S
ORIGINAL GOLD SUCKER HAND DREDGE

   When I go out gold prospecting, be it panning or sluicing, my basic stategy is to move as much material as possible while I am at the creek.

   The first thing I will do when I arrive at the crrek is to sample to find a spot that holds enough gold to justify moving larger amounts. When I find the spot, then I set up my sluices, or just start panning.

  If I am panning, I use a la trap pan as it is much faster and easier to use than any round pan that I have ever used.

   If I am sluicing, I will either use a la trap sluice, or a conventional sluice.

   If the material to be processed is above the water line, I just use a shovel. If the material is below the water line, I use either my 2 inch super gold sucker or my 3 inch super gold sucker. Either of these work much better than trying to use a shovel underwater. If you are using a shovel underwater, you lose a lot of your heavies when you lift the shovel out of the water.

   When I am using my la trap pan, I will work it down to black sand and then just dump it in a bucket until I am ready to do a clean-up before I take off. If I am sluicing, I try to run at least a 100 shovels or 100 suction strokes from my 2 inch super gold sucker or 3 inch super gold sucker. Most gold prospectors clean-up way too often.

   When I am cleaning up, I will first use my la trap pan to et rid of most of the blond sand. Then I will use a magnet in a pipe to get rid of the magnetic black sand. I stir the magnet in the water above the black sand, making the black sand jump up to the magnet. And I save the black san collected by the magent as a small amount of gold always gets trapped.

   Then I will further pan the remaining black sand, usually in a round pan. And I will suck up the larger gold with a snuffer bottle.  I don't try to get all the fine gold, I pour the remaining black sand in a bucket and work it at home.

TESTING NOZZLES TO SEE THE AMOUNT OF MATERIAL EACH SIZE CAN SUCTION UP.

Today, 02-08-2010,  I went out to Cajon Creek to test the amount of material different sized nozzles could suction up. I loosened up the material first with my 5 foot iron digging bar. I took for the test my 2 inch super gold sucker and adaptor and 3 nozzles, and my 3  inch super gold sucker. I suctioned up the loosened material, and then emptied it into my 14 inch blue proline gold pan, and then took a picture of the material collected. I also had a 3.5 gallon bucket and my 5 foot iron digging bar.

1/2 INCH NOZZLE

I first tried the 1/2 inch nozzle. Each stroke I could only suck up a small amount of material. Also I noticed htat it is much easier to get a plug up, and it is much harder to draw the handle when you use the 1/2 inch nozzle. Here is the amount of material suctioned up in one stroke with the 1/2 inch nozzle.

3/4 INCH NOZZLE

When using the 3/4 inch nozzle, you still can't suction up a lot of material and you get plugs pretty easy still. It is a little easier to draw the handle when using the 3/4 inch nozzle as compared to the 1/2 inch nozzle. Here is the amount of material suctioned up in one stroke with the 3/4 inch nozzle.

1 INCH NOZZLE

With the 1 inch nozzle, you can suction up more material than either the 1/2 inch or the 3/4 inch nozzle. And it is easier to draw the handle. Here is the amount of material suctioned up in one stroke with the 1 inch nozzle.

2 INCH NOZZLE

You can suction up a lot of material with the 2 inch nozzle! And the draw is much easier than than when using any of the smaller nozzles. Here is the amount of material suctioned up in one stroke with the 2 inch nozzle.

3 INCH NOZZLE

You can suction up lots and lots of material with the 3 inch nozzle! And the draw on the handle is very easy! Here is the amount of material suctioned up in one stroke with the 3 inch nozzle.

RESULT OF 10 SUCTION STROKES USING THE 3 INCH SUPER SUCKER

This is the result of 10 suction strokes using the 3 inch super gold sucker. I placed my 1/2 inch classifier on top of the bucket. Loosening up the material, pulling out the bigger rocks and sucking up the material took about 7 minutes.

The rocks and gravel you see in front of the bucket and 3 inch super gold sucker came out of the hole I was working on.

CONCLUSSIONS

The results of the test show that larger nozzles suction up much more material.  And it also shows that reducing the size of your nozzle just makes you work harder to suck up smaller amounts of material. Much larger amounts of material can be moved with less effort with a larger nozzle.

If you use a set up test, using just small gravel and sand in an aquarium, larger amounts of material can be moved with a smaller nozzle. But in the field, you just cannot move much material with a small nozzle. Regular motorized dredges are rated by their manufacturers by the amount of small gravel they can move, but they never come close to that in the field. If you were to use a 3 inch super sucker in an aquarium test, you would soon see what a difference there would be in a set up test and an actual field test will . I invite any gold prospector to come on out to who wants to to come on out to Cajon Creek, and do the test themselves. Or if someone would like to shoot a video of the test to come on out.

Enough rain fell that Cajon Creek got rearranged a bit. Every time this happens, you have to sample around again before you start processing material.

I use my sluice with the ribbed rubber matting on the slickplate for sampling. I put a bucket of material through the sluice, and then check the matting in the slickplate for color. If there is no color, or just a small amount, I get another bucket sample from another area and run it through the sluice.

If the area is underwater, I use my 3 inch super gold sucker to suck up the material. If the area is above the waterline, I just use my old shovel.

When you sample before running a  lot of material, you will get a lot more gold. If you run a bunch of material with no gold, you won't recover any gold. And if you find a sample with some nice gold, do a little more sampling to try and outline the area that contains the gold.  Then run the material from that area.

I went back to Cajon Creek to do a little sluicing again. I used my 3 inch super gold sucker and my slickplate with astro turf followed by a sluice with expanded metal riffles.Here is a picture of the sluices in the creek.

I was working in the same area that I had befroe. Here is a picture of the area before I started working this day.

I concentrated on the area above the big rock in the center of the picture.I was working right above that rock, and didn't get much gold, so I started working toward the bank. And I ran into a layer of hard packed material. Her is a picture of it.

You cannot just suck it up. It has to be broken loose with a digigng bar first. I ran this material through my slickplate, with just the ribbed rubber matting, and got some visible gold on the matting. Here is a picture of the amount of material that was left on the matting.

As usuall, I have to toss rocks that I cannot suck up out of the hole. Me tossing rocks.

Here is a picture of me feeding the sluices with the 3 inch super sucker.

All in all, it was a good trip. I was on the creek about an hour and a half.

I built myself a 3 inch super gold sucker hand dredge and took it out with me to Cajon Creek to give it a trial run. And all I can say is "WOW!!!" The 3 inch super gold sucker hand dredge can really move the material!

I was sluicing again as usual, but using the 3 inch super gold sucker hand dredge instead of the 2 inch super gold sucker hand dredge. The 3 inch super gold sucker hand dredge can move at least 2 times the amount of material that a 2 inch super gold sucker hand dredge can, and it sucks up a lot of the rocks that you have to toss by hand if you are using a 2 inch super gold sucker.

The 3 inch super gold sucker sucks up so much material that it is easy to overload a sluice, so you cannot go too fast.

I was working the top layer of packed rocks. The 3 inch super gold sucker literally took the stream bed apart!

I will be at Cajon Creek on Monday or Tuesday again if anyone wants to come by and see it. Email me at deserdog@aol.com.

What type of gold sucker do you use? And why?

The gold sucker that I use the most now it the 2 inch super sucker. I use it because it is very simple to use, and it can move lots of material. In side by side by side tests, the 2  inch can easily out pace a gold sucker that pumps into a bucket. Every time you fill the bucket, you have to take the top off, and then feed your material through your sluice, or what ever else you using. With the 2 inch super gold sucker, you directly feed  your sluice. No wasted time taking off and putting on a lid. And no wasted time messing with jammed flapper valves. 

Plus rock removal becomes more and more of a problem the smaller your nozzle gets. Every rock that  your gold sucker will not pick up has to be tossed by hand. When I started using the 2 inch super gold sucker about 3 years ago, I soon learned why dredgers who started out with a 2 inch usually move quickly up to a 4 inch or larger. Too many rocks to toss by hand!

Now if I am working a creek with exposed bedrock and crevices, I use my gold sucker with the nozzles. I usually carry a bucket, my pan, some crevicing tools, and a classifier. The gold sucker quickly cleans out crevices, with no bucket lids to mess with, no flapper valves to jam, and no bucket tethered to a hose to restrict your movement. All gold suckers work, just some are easier to use. And Deserdog's Original Gold Sucker is one of the easiest.

I went sluicing the other day again on Cajon Creek. I am just using astro turf in my sluice, as no gold is making it down to the second sluice. As usual, I have the shopping cart grizzly set up at the head end of the sluice. This keeps all of the larger rocks out of the sluice.

I am using my 2 inch super gold sucker to feed the sluice. I have a hole about 2 foot deep so far. The gold is getting bigger, and I am also getting more mercury, so hopefully I am getting close to bedrock. The 2 inch super gold sucker works so well in this application.  I set up my sluice near the hole I am working. I suck up the material that I loosen with my digging bar, and then feed it directly into the sluice. It is easy to overload the sluice if I am not careful. I cannot imagine using a gold sucker attached to a bucket. You would be taking off and putting the lid back on all day long! The only thing that would work by hand better than the 2 inch super gold sucker is a bigger one!

I go sluicing at Cajon Creek with my 2 inch super sucker a couple of times a week, if you are interested in going, email me at deserdog@aol.com

I did a little sluiceing in Cajon Creek today, 09-21-08. I only processed about 10 or 12 shovel fulls of material. And I got a nice showing of gold.

Kirk, another gold prospector I meet last Sunday on the creek was there, along with another gold prospector, Robert.

Another gold prospector, I didn't get his name, was there also and I shoed him the la trap sluice. And he was impressed with it.

Kirk and Robert were using there new dredge, set up in the high banker configuration. They said no ranger had come by. Awhile ago a ranger had come by and told another gold prosepctor that he could not dredge in Cajon Creek. But according to the Ca. Dept. of Fish and Game you can, and they are the ones who regulate suction dredging.

If it comes up and a ranger says you have to have a letter of intent, here is what the law says: (and this is taken from the Federal Register, when the Final Rule was posted. The part I am refering to is in red)

"’s prior‘‘operations which might’’ This means that the trigger’s reasonable

Therefore, section 228.4(a) of the final

rule will require the operator

submission of a notice of intent to

operate for

cause significant disturbance of surface

resources.

for the submission of a notice of intent

to operate is the operator

uncertainty as to the significance of the

disturbance which the proposed

operations will cause on NFS resources.

If the operator reasonably concludes

that the proposed operations will not

cause significant disturbance of NFS

resources, the operator is not required to

submit a notice of intent to operate (or

a proposed plan of operations). If the

operator reasonably concludes that the

proposed operations more probably than

not will cause a significant disturbance

of NFS resources, the operator should

submit a proposed plan of operations to

the District Ranger. However, if the

operator reasonably concludes that the

proposed operations might, but

probably will not, cause significant

disturbance of NFS resources, the

operator should submit a notice of

intent to operate to the District Ranger."

Here is the Federal Register Volume:

Deserdog's Hand Dredge Gold Standard Guarantee: If after purchasing a Deserdog hand dredge,
a gold sucker or a 2 inch super sucker,and you are not satisfied, your purchase price, shipping and handling will be
refunded, you will be out nothing! If you decide to purchase a hand dredge from another maker, insist
that they match this guarantee. And as of this time, 09-02-08, I have built and sold over 2000 gold hand dredges, and have
never had a customer ask for a refund.

Now lets look at the guarantee of some other hand dredges.

Fissureman products:

All items must be returned clean and securely packed in the original shipping box
 and dunnage materials. Postal costs for the return will be the buyers responsibilty. Purchase price minus shipment 
costs will be refunded. Please contact d**12c within 7 business days of receipt of shipment for a return. I will work
 with you and your return to obtain your complete satisfaction in as short a period of time as possible. 

So lets see, you are out the original shipping and handling, plus the cost of shipping it back! Such  a
 guaraantee if you buy a fissurman, a bluedog, or a pickerstick! 

Feel free to leave  your comments.