I don't believe any particular brand or model is going to be any better or worse than another. It will likely require tuning whichever model you do use to work under the conditions you are working in and then testing to see what your losses are. I know I have had good luck with Gold Hog matting on fines and small flakes. Heck the big stuff is easy if it is there so if you are catching the fines you will be catching the nuggets unless you classify them out.

Thanks for the advice. Have another question. What's the smallest you would classify down to? I've been using an 1/8 inch classifier.

What I have always operated under is to classify to the lowest level you are likely to find plus 1/8". Where I am, finding anything larger than -20 is a pipe dream and most of it measures -100. So, I classify to 1/8" when panning. But when I am running the highbanker I don't classify what I put into it. If I happen to shovel up that 1 in a trillion 1/2" nugget, it should be in my nugget trap or in my mats. Even then, I like to run a detector over my large tailings because you never know when a miracle could happen.

When I am panning and I get down to the bottom of the pan, even if I don't see any colors I put everything that is left over into a bucket to go through it later at home when there is more time. It is good practice panning to have just the heavies and you would be surprised out how small the gold in the bottom of the pan can be that you will find at a later date.

I would look at the Keene Mini Max. It is a portable highbanker, runs off a car battery and comes with a second, clean-up mat you could use for your main runs if your gold is really fine. I have this highbanker and catch a lot of fine gold and small flake.