The Best Sluice Box Options for adventurous gold prospectors
Being able to change and adapt to suit your needs should be a consideration for any serious gold prospector. Being successful at finding gold means that you go to where the gold is.
Of course, some of the best places to find gold nowadays aren’t right by the road. Most of the easily accessible prospecting areas have been hit pretty hard over the past century, so being able to hike into more remote locations should be a consideration if you want to find good amounts of gold.
Gearing up for the Adventure
It’s a good idea to put together a good prospecting kit if you are going to head back into the woods. Do some preparation to make sure that you have everything you need.
Also Read: The 4 Best Gold Panning Kits on the Market
In addition to a prospecting kit, it’s always smart to bring a basic first aid kit and make sure that you are physically fit enough to venture away from the roads. Never get yourself in a dangerous situation that you are not comfortable with.
Best Sluice Box Options
A simple gold pan should be your primary tool for basic prospecting, but assuming that you locate an area that is rich with gold then you will want the best sluice box available so that you can process more material.
You may have seen those huge sluice boxes that they use on the mining shows on TV. They feed them with a backhoe and process tons of material per hour. That’s way bigger than you need right now!
A good lightweight sluice box
The early-day gold miners had to use wood to construct their sluices, but luckily today we have aluminum and plastics which allow for much lighter, compact, and portable sluices.
Here are a few of the best sluice box options:
Keene A51A Sluice Box
The Keene A51A is the lightest, most compact sluice box that Keene makes. This is a company that is well-known for designing quality mining equipment, and this sluice box is no exception. Its dimensions are just 6.5″ x 11″ x 33″, making it a perfect size for using in small creeks.
Le Trap River Robber Sluice Box
This sluice is made with high impact ABS plastic, which makes it extremely lightweight. It measures 46” long and 15” wide, which is still manageable for packing in on your back, especially because it is so lightweight.
These sluices really shine in areas that have fine gold. They work beautifully on tiny gold particles and fine gold dust. They are also the best sluice box in places with low water flow.
Tee Dee EZ Sluice
This is another great little sluice box for prospectors. It is also made from high impact plastic so it weighs only 2 pounds, yet works beautifully using a combination of Hungarian riffles and miner’s moss pads. The entire sluice is just 24” long and 7” wide.
Gold Rush Nugget Bucket Kit
While the Gold Rush Nugget Bucket is not really a sluice box, it is an option to consider because it does allow a prospector to process considerably more material than you could with just a gold pan alone. It uses a patented fluid bed concentrator to capture fine gold. It works quite well and the entire kit weighs only 7-pounds so it can easily be carried into a remote location.
Keep it Lightweight and Explore More!
The benefit of using any of these sluices isn’t necessarily that they will find the ‘most’ gold, or that they are ideal for every mining situation. Where you will really benefit is from the fact that they are all lightweight and portable.
Getting good at finding gold in a creek is an art. The first place you look is rarely the best place. You need to be prepared to explore and try different areas to find the richest gold concentrates. That is what prospecting is all about.
All of these sluices are very lightweight, allowing you to take them into the places where other prospectors aren’t willing to go.
Next: The Best Classifiers, Sieves, & Screens for Gold Prospectors
