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Folks -- Just wanted to say Hi.  I'm Bruce from the Northern Virginia area.  I have been piddling with prospecting for about 6 years here in VA.  If you didn't know, the eastern gold belt runs from MD just west of DC, across northern VA and south parallel to I-95 to about Fredericksburg then angles off to the southwest crossing into NC and on thru Charlotte.  It clips part of SC the into the GA mountains and terminates in AL.  If you are not an east coast person then you may not realize that there is very little public land and unfortunately the gold vein doesn't run thru any of what  there is (couple of spots under roadway bridges).  I belong to the Central Virginia Gold Prospectors (CVGP.net) and the club has leased access to about 6 streams around the Dilwyn, VA area.  These are generally small low gradient streams with pretty fine gold.  Here's my question for the group:

I have on order a Mini Bazooka Gold Trap Sluice.  I got the smallest one since it will fit inside my favorite back pack. Do these Bazooka sluices require any drop other than what might push material down the top section to the grizzly.  In the early spring in VA there is enough water in the creeks to maybe run a normal sluice but often by wet wading time its hard to find a spot with enough drop and water flow for the sluice.  Since this sluice has a total height of 3 inches, I am think the top section for material is maybe one inch deep and the bottom intake for the fluid bed is maybe 2 inches.  Since the total length is 16", with maybe a one inch drop I can get away with as little as 4-5 inches of water and this thing would work ok if it was not quite level (side-to-side) and the water entered at a slight angle (not parallel) to the long direction of the sluice (off line water creates eddies in my other sluices).

Who had any experience or insight they might want to share?

Thanks

Bruce