First flake - yippee - but help needed with specks

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Had a good day today - back and legs sore but was great to see a gold flake in the bottom of the pan that I could actually pick up with my finger.

I am still struggling with the finer bits/specks and would love some help/tips.

How do you try to ensure only gold goes in the snuffer - especially in far from clean water? I seem to get 5 bits of sand for every speck.

How do you capture the gold from the snuffer and into your vial? My dinner plate strategy has its faults and its nearly impossible to pick up the smaller flecks.

Any tips appreciated.

thanks David
 
I'm not as advanced as using a snuffer but I find that if you fill your vial with water... you can typically press your finger onto the speck in the pan... if it doesn't stick first go try, try again. Once it's on your finger, place said finger over vial (making sure obviously that the gold containing portion of your finger is over the opening). Make sure your finger is creating a seal around the top and quickly tip the vial upside down and then back to right way up... you should find that the gold has dropped off your finger tip and into the vial... it's worked for me and unfortunately most of my gold is the "did I get it... I think it's there... ah yes that's it... I think" size.
 
Pretty hard to only get the gold unless you can pan nearly all the black sands out or get the gold separated from the black sands etc in the pan. If you do get a fair bit in the snuffer with your gold then you can always tip it back into the pan when home, use clean water & suck up just the gold.
 
Thanks for all your tips - particularly liked Freddy Dodge you tube - he must be the bright one out of the Team Todd rednecks!

I brought a bucket of material home with me - see if I do any better with clean water.

thanks again David
 
Best thing to do is suck up all of it and put it in a finishing pan with clean water when you get back.

Unless your getting heaps of black sand in the bottom and I mean teaspoons full. Then you could use a plastic wrapped neodymium magnet to remove most of that black sand and suck up the remaining bits - hopefully your gold is now visible.

Snuffer bottles are the quickest way to get those little flecks, less time spent gathering means more time for more pans and hopefully more gold!

Happy hunting
TGW
 

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