Can a $12 Drain Pipe Catch Gold Like a Real Sluice? I Tested It All Day

I paid twelve dollars for a piece of black corrugated drain pipe, the kind every plumber will tell you belongs underground. I cut it open lengthwise, set it in a creek, and shoveled gold-bearing gravel through it from sunrise to late afternoon. No miner's moss. No aluminum riffles. No rubber mat. Just cheap plastic and running water. When I shut the water off the bottom looked almost clean, and I figured I'd wasted the day. Ten minutes later I panned what was sitting in those little grooves, and there was gold in there. Catching gold was never the real question. The question is how much went straight out the back. My name's Amos. I've spent most of my life poking around old creeks, dry washes and tailing piles looking for the yellow stuff. In this one: the exact cut I made, the slope I had to flatten twice, salting it with flakes I already owned, the noon mistake when black sand packed the grooves level and turned my riffles into a smooth road, the tailings I ran back through a real sluice to see what escaped, and an honest answer about where twelve dollars of pipe beats a two-hundred-dollar sluice and where it doesn't. If you've built your own, tell me what you made it out of and what creek you ran it in. I read every single one. Next test: ten dollars of matting in the first two feet. Subscribe so you don't miss it. #GoldProspecting #GoldSluice #PlacerGold