# gold traps



## Geo (Oct 25, 2011)

i havent been on the forum for long but in all the time ive been lurking and as a member ive never seen anyone mention a gold trap. ive set a few and had mixed results, some places did good and others didnt.you would expect a place where you can get color in your pan to make a trap would be a good spot but ive done better in places where people generally shy away from like swift water or on the inside of a bend (these tend to do better but are harder to find). anyone else using gold traps?


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## notch (Oct 25, 2011)

Geo said:


> i havent been on the forum for long but in all the time ive been lurking and as a member ive never seen anyone mention a gold trap. ive set a few and had mixed results, some places did good and others didnt.you would expect a place where you can get color in your pan to make a trap would be a good spot but ive done better in places where people generally shy away from like swift water or on the inside of a bend (these tend to do better but are harder to find). anyone else using gold traps?



Here's a good article:

http://www.goldgold.com/stories/placergeology.htm


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## glondor (Oct 25, 2011)

What do you use as bait??? :lol:


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## jpdriver1 (Oct 25, 2011)

glondor said:


> What do you use as bait??? :lol:



bacon?


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## Geo (Oct 25, 2011)

that is a good article but what im asking is, does anyone on the forum use gold traps and how well do they work for you. a gold trap can be as simple as cutting a piece of carpet and placing it in a place where water will move gold bearing material across it naturally, such as the bottom of a creek or stream and they can be placed at the bottom of a dry wash that gets a little rain in a years time. if its a good quality carpet that will hold up to the test of time then they can be left in place for several years before they need to be replaced.small gold particles will become trapped in the carpets mesh just waiting for you to come back to retrieve it. when collecting your traps it may be buried in silt (hope that it is) dig till you find it and roll it up and place in a plastic tub to be washed out at your convenience. there's more to the technique than i can put here in one post.this is not hoodoo,it works because ive done it myself.


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## philddreamer (Oct 25, 2011)

On my prospecting trips to Ca. I've met a lot of folks. One of them is Bruce, a retired Army MP, that's been working the N.F. of the American river for many years. He showed me once a spot where there's a big log & a fellow miner used to dredge, every year after the winter & I understood that the fellow did pretty good. The miner died some 3 years ago, so I don't know if anyone works the spot. Bruce has also retired from mining since his health has deteriorated. 
You know :shock: , I should probably try the spot myself next time I go down there!!!! :mrgreen: 

Thanks Geo!


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## TXWolfie (Oct 25, 2011)

Instead of carpet what about that fake grass material, and no not astroturf :lol: but the plastic. It seems it would be better and wouldn't have a problem drying faster then carpeting.


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## Geo (Oct 25, 2011)

from my experience, its the loops that catches the gold. ive seen guys take miners moss and glue it to the black rubber mat with the ridges thats used for flour gold.im not sure its any better as ive never used it personally.im not sure if its the physical barrier or the fiber that catches the fine grains but you dont want the carpet exposed to the current. ideally you would pick your spot that has a good current but not too fast that has sand and gravel on the bottom.dig out all the sand down to solid rock and place the carpet fiber side up.use a good sized rock on each corner to hold it down and if its a large piece say 6 feet across, place a rock in between the two on the current side to hold the middle down so its three rocks facing the current.cant catch gold if a strong current blows your carpet away. come back in a year and retrieve the carpet (unless someone stumbles across it) it should be covered with silt as deep as the original silt you dug out to place it there.gold will seldom travel on top of the silt(only during a heavy storm and the water is very muddy) gold tends to move across the top of the bedrock under the silt so the fact that the carpet stays covered with silt poses no problem for its ability to trap the gold that moves across it. and be sure to check the silt under the carpet when you pull it up and before you put the next piece down as the carpet is a physical barrier that will hold whatever gold gets under the carpet as well.


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## Richard36 (Nov 20, 2011)

A sheet of that black ribbed rubber material with a green brillow pad blanket covering will work wonders in such operations, 
try it. :mrgreen: (The coarser the pad, the better. Space between the fibers is what we want.)


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