It’s been great to get out to a local Public Fossicking Area this season. An area we are lucky to have nearby, something that is taken for granted by locals i guess, in terms of it can be easily stopped if folk don’t keep to the rules.
I did some panning in the area after Xmas and a couple of people i came across mentioned a guy they saw using a dredge. I mentioned i dredging was illegal there are presumed they had their wires crossed.
I went for a walk after the rain there yesterday. Saw a guy and waved out but the fellow scurried off. Thinking this was a bit odd i continued on and soon saw the issue. The guy was running several sections of white drainage pipes and lay flat hose into a sluicebox. Gravity dredging. Knowing this was not cool i had a bit of a heated chat with the guy. He reckoned he had a email from NZPAMS saying it was ok for him to run his 4 inch gravity dredge in the public area in DOC land. I thought that odd and questioned who it was that ok’d it but he couldn’t remember.
My question is, is it ok to use gravity dredges in public fossicking areas? I know it didn’t used to be. Something along the lines of it’s looked at as a industrial activity and you can move too much ground, and it discolours the water downstream?
I wished this fellow well and went off on my walk. It had rained overnight so creek was up and a bit green but i did see a nice native fish, common to see at this time of year. A good size too.
Returning i again came across the dredging, moved out of sight a bit below the old slip on the track. Amazing how much ground had been moved so quick. But boy the pools below were solid with sediment.
Anyone clarify this? Fellow said it wasn’t a gravity dredge but it sure seemed it. Probably why it’s called gravity dredging and has the word dredge in the title.
I know it doesn’t use an engine but simply googling it and it seems pretty clear cut. Sure, everyone wants some fun but is this taking the piss in a public fossicking area?
A gravity dredge has a suction nozzle can pick up and process material the same as a conventional suction dredge but you have no motor and pump . The motive force comes from a long pipe upstream generating head pressure/ flow
This is a sluice box set up somewhere being shoveled into like normal but being fed water through a series of pipes?
That one is a questionable grey area .
Technically it is compliant with the statement of “ non powered “
Assuming his box is legal size and hes within the active water way then its still just a sluice with a big awkward intake ?
No. It’s a gravity dredge. No shovels needed. The top end of the setup is way upstream at a higher level, creating suction. The box is at the bottom where the hose dumps into. 3 long lengths of drainage pipe, the bigger size stuff, and a heap of red lay flat like firemans hoses. Presuming there was a nozzle underwater as you’d want to have a gate of some sort to stop most blockages.
Gravity dredges are generally not allowed in public gold fossicking areas (GFAs) in New Zealand. Public fossicking is restricted to non-motorised hand tools such as pans, sluice boxes, and detectors. Using motorised suction or gravity dredging in these areas is illegal and can lead to penalties.
This i think is straight from nzpams’s own wording. I just googled “is gravity dredging allowed in public fossicking areas in nz”.
I can’t see lay flat being any good for gravity dredging. My days of gravity dredging where on the principle of siphoning. Flexi suction dredge hose at the top end used just like normal dredging to suck material up & transfer it down to the bottom end discharging into a sluice box fitted with a highbanker type classifier bars to dump large rocks & stones with the finer gravels & gold getting processed in the sluice box. No need to have to sort the bigger material as you are working higher up.
Worked a treat & I started out with a 2” set up but upped it to a 4”.
Quite a few years ago I busted a guy using a 4” Keene with air working in 12 mile creek below the road bridge. He knew full well he wasn’t supposed to be but that didn’t stop him.
JW, not 100 percent it was lay flat, might have been some dredge hose too, but was definitely some large diameter red hose. From memory looked a bit like fireman’s hose. Was right under the old slip creek edge on the Mt creighton track just few minutes up. Plain as day to all walkers. Maybe the plan was to be so visible everyone would think it was legit. When I returned it had been moved 50 metres lower down out of sight and was dredging by the large stacked stone wall. If you walk the track it is so bloody obvious someone is dredging up there as the telltale sign is the muddied up big pool at the start of the track where people swim, just above the footbridge. Yeah, I remember years ago people told me there was someone dredging below the bridge. Some of the canyoning staff I think. Dredge was under a net and they suspected they were dredging at night as they were canyoning by day and never saw or heard it operating.
