Sniping for gold is a very enjoyable way of finding gold. On a hot day I’d far rather be sniping than detecting.
Sniping is basically just using a Wetsuit, mask and snorkel to locate gold underwater in a gold-bearing stream. When you locate a flake of gold, you can use a “sucker bottle” to suck it up.
Sniping usually works best in areas where there is little or no overburden to move out of the way to get to the bedrock, as the majority of the gold is going to be on the bedrock.
The easiest areas to snipe are the areas where there is a moderate current,in these areas you can easily and efficiently move 1-2 foot of overburden, as once you start moving rocks and gravel out of the way, the river will start scouring away at the gravel for you, and you can use a small shovel with a cut-off handle to scrape rocks and gravel downstream.
A small pinch-bar is handy too if the rocks are larger or packed in tightly.
Sometimes there’ll be some flakes of gold in the overburden, but if it’s small enough to get swept away (provided that you’re not in a rapid) it’s usually not big enough to worry about.
When you reach the bedrock, use a crevice scraper to scratch out the crevices. Good-sized pieces of gold are very heavy, and can work their way into very tight crevices.
Last but not least, make sure you use a good quality wetsuit to keep warm. Drysuits are warmer but most drysuits are not designed to be knocked about much, and will easily get a hole in them, especially if you're sniping on a schist bedrock.
To save the knees and elbows of your wetsuit a good idea is to buy a roll of Agtape (balage tape) . If you wrap some around your knees and elbows (not too tightly) then it stops the neoprene from getting shredded on the sharp schist, and means that your wetsuit knees will last you a lot longer.
Agtape
Some gold found sniping...
Cheers
GT.
