Hey,
I’m new to this stuff since talking to a miner last weekend… Now I am looking to try this stuff out and was wondering if I can combine my other hobby of scuba diving with finding gold…
The two fossicking areas of five mile creek and 12 mile creek end up in the lake… And my thinking is that gold should be sitting there on the bottom of the lake, right?
So, any experience with these things?
Cheers
Pax
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Oh… I just checked a depth chart of the lake… Looks like it goes over 100m of depth just 100m from shore… Still about 100m to check for gold!?
Yep, sure does.
JW 
Hmm… Looks like there’s no dive shop in Queenstown… So the closest one would probably be Milford sounds, which makes this quite challenging…
mate gold very heavy and its not just sitting on the bottom, Im a scuba diver to and carted a dive tank into the sluice box at Maruia many years ago , found a few flakes in berock crevices but not sur how much bedrock youd find at the bottom of wakatipu, but certainly a lot of gold would have been blown down those creeks into the lake , probably meters of overburden to get to any kind of hardpack , i have a portable floating compressor awesome for sniping rivers but dont give up your day job
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At a hundred meters you’d be giggling at stones let alone the cold! 
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Been there done that also. The speed of the water on the sluice box is impressive. I remember being slightly concerned after watching the stick i threw in off the swing bridge get sucked down and dissappearing before i jumped in, then the regultor being purged continously as the flow and pressure of the water acted on it.
Fun times.
The 5 mile creek at the lake was done I think with a tractor motor to lift material decades ago. It’s drops off deep as at that point too. The 12 mile delta used to be a bay, the delta was created when the creek was declared a sludge channel and the hill up by the hut was all sluiced away, creating the land where the campground is. I guess there is probably gold under all that.
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Yeah everything would be glowing yellow , no need for a decompression stop fill your pockets then ditch your weight belt lol
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Seems like I need a submarine then to get to the huge pile of gold at the bottom of the lake at like 350m depth…
Years ago there was a submarine that was going to run in the lake. For tourists I think. Not sure what happened to it. Remember talk was there was stuff all to see in the lake. Even the few old steamers that were scuttled were all said to be in shallower water. Down deep was just barren.
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Think you are pushing shit up hill mate. 5 mile was done years ago by a Diver Dan type diving suit with the big metal bell helmet with air line coming down from a boat at the surface with compressor feeding the diver.
While they found gold it just kept on going down. She’s a DEEP lake lad. They didn’t make there fortune. But then… fortune favours the bold. They gave it a crack.
JW
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Might need a proper dredge with very long hose…
And a very powerful pump & motor to get the material to the sluice box on the surface. Probably best to use a sub surface setup aye. But you will still be a long way down. You will have to keep an eye or two out for the Taniwha that lives in the lake that creates the lakes heart beat. True story. The lake has a tidal influence said to be from the heart beat of the Taniwha. Maori legend says so, so it must be true. What’s even more bazar is that Lake Alta up above the skifield on the Remarks rises & falls in sync with it. Another true story. Make of that what you will.
JW
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I think it might work when you just pump air into the nozzle as that will expand while going up the hose and suck a lot of stuff up the hose… Might need a really good hose as it might implode if something gets stuck maybe… I’m not an underwater mining expert (yet)…
Only one way to find out. Go hard. You will be getting into legalities though too which means $$$
JW
That’s something I thought… Like, from which size do I need some kind of approval and who would I have to talk to? 
I’m definitely interset in this thread, having the same thought, however see quite a few problems. I’m a commercial diver by trade and know that diving in the lake is “problematic” for a number of reasons:
Queenstown sits 300m above sea level so which means it would be considered an altitude dive, and that would need to be factored in to any decompression table/no decompression dive.
The other problem is if your going off the 5 mile or 12m mile public claims, the claim ends at the high water line of lake Wakatipu (i.e. where the water level is).
Lastly is obviously the logistics of diving in Qtown, with no dive shop, it would mean carting your own gear.
All that said, I’m certainly curious what is at the “bottom” of lake Wakatipu, though 400m is a bloody long way down!!!
I suppose there’s a lot of mud… More mud than gold, definitely… But also a lot of Gold… 
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Gold is heavy. Gold sinks into mud, sand, gravels & usually ends up on bedrock.
Pax, I really don’t think you are taking any advice you have been given very seriously. You don’t seem to be thinking logically but just talking for the sake of talking. Goggle is your friend. Ask Google for the answers you seek.
JW
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