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Detecting In The Sierras


normmcq

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 After having spent a lot of time with ZED and finding nuggets behind myself from my GPX 4000, I know ZED is a much better detector. I have found several nuggets that made me question my ability as a detectorist, how did I miss that? I will admit that a large portion of my finds have been at no great depth. Now that brings up the thought that inspired me to write this post. Detecting in the Sierra is much different than the deserts of Arizona or Nevada. Most places are covered with many inches of organic material. After a boot scrape, a weak signal that is shallow becomes a booming signal.  Does that layer act like a good insulator? Would it be better to detect when it's wet or dry? Any thoughts out there?

                                                            Norm McQ

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Hi Norm,

 

You are so right, there are difficulties working in the forests of the Sierras,

that have layers of organic material.

 

I understand I am talking to someone who knows all this cold,

this is more for folks who may not have hunted in the conditions you are talking about.

Good hunting in this kind of area requires an even more acute attention span than normal

and then all the usuals;

great ground balancing, perfect coil control, uniform coil height and swing speed (slow).

If it's in a place you want to detect more closely, sometimes a small rake can work wonders.

 

I personally love when the ground is damp. It seems more conductive. One of the really great times

to detect in the mountains is after the snow melts and when the surface ground is not too muddy.

I don't know whether the organic layer being moist is a hinderance or a help but I'm sure

someone will chime in.

 

all the best…

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The consensus I have seen from experienced detectorists everywhere is that they prefer detecting in damp as opposed to bone dry ground. I generally share that preference but I think it can go either way from a straight up performance perspective. For instance compressed dry forest duff would normally be invisible to the detector, but when wet there may be enough tannin content to set up a weak conductive signal. Something a PI would probably miss but a hot VLF or GPZ??? I know large fern root wads will give off a signal when wet more than dry.

 

The only issue I have had personally in the Sierras is that it seems no matter where you go even far off the beaten path there are tiny bits of steel flake and wire about. Most from old logging operations but some is like it just fell out of the sky. I can be in a spot where I would swear the only thing that could go beep is gold, and up comes a tiny bit of steel out of the duff. Very annoying.

 

No matter what after a good rain the air is sweeter and the forest quieter. There are few places I have ever been as nice as the Sierra Mountains.

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   You can thank N McQ and myself for scattering hundreds of pounds of logging cable shards through out the Northern Sierras. The thick ground cover does make ground balancing easier and allows for higher gain settings on the X models and higher sensitivity on the Z and allows me to be lazy and drag my coil on the ground.----- I much prefer damp conditions.                        

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With the amount of organic matter that can build up on the ground in the Sierras it can be and is impossible to get a perfect ground balance.

I know this is true with a GPX or a VLF. I have no idea about a GPZ I don't own one.

Without a perfect ground balance targets are missed.

As for the dampness of the ground I'm on the fence I like it bone dry with a large DD coil and the detector in the Sharp timings or damp with a mono in the Fine Gold or Enhanced timings. The ground I hunt in just seems to spit out more gold if I hunt it like this.

Not sure if it really matters.

With a VLF I can tell you the ground is a lot quieter when the ground is dry.

No where near as many false signals or hot rocks in dry ground with my GMT.

To tell you the truth I like the ground frozen I believe the nuggets become denser and can be detected at a greater depth.

Normmcq I know what you mean about the 4000 I to had the same thing happen. I would go over the same ground later with the 4500 and just shake my head when a loud booming signal would come from under my coil. I know that I had gridded over this ground more times than I can count with a 4000 but there it was.

This didn't happen a lot but it did happen.

Not sure if the 4000 had holes in its detection field or it was because of soil creep making the gold lay at a different angle after time.

I can also say I dug a few larger nuggets with the 4000 that I could only get a signal off of in one direction. I have not had this happen with the 4500 or 5000 on gold bigger than 1 DWT.

I'm not knocking the 4000 I dug some wonderful stuff back in the 4000 days at depth with the S/S timings. Those timings help quiet down the hot ground I was working in and the gold really started coming out.

Root

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 I agree with most opinions that detecting while damp is better than dry. The conclusion that I have come to is, the organic material is a very good insulator and the detector does not penetrate it very well. I say that ,because I have found several nuggets up to 5 dwt that were fairly shallow that had been missed by 4ks, 4500s, and 5ks. The ZED seems to penetrate that insulation little better and is finding lots of small gold. Larger pieces give a better signal and most of them have been found with previous PI models. 

                                    Norm McQ

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Remember the only thing a detector senses is conductivity, magnetism, and EMI. Anything non-conductive and non-magnetic is invisible, just as invisible as air. All most forest duff or other organics like tundra in Alaska do is add space, just like holding the coil off the ground. But they can't act to "insulate" signals unless there is conductivity or magnetics involved.

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Norm have you tried to see if the nuggets that you found with the GPZ that were up to 5DWT make a signal on any GPX.

Like Steve has said the organics are not blocking out a signal they are just keeping the coil from getting closer.

There are just so many different scenarios as to why nuggets are missed you could write a book on it. Those of us that have been in the game long enough have seen it all and we have learned from it. Things like not checking your hole after recovering your target or missing part of your grid pattern becuse you were on it while recovering a target at the end of a row or a EMI spike right over a target ect.ect.

Most targets are missed becuse of poor ground balance and coil control.

The point being every once in awhile you figure out why you missed it and that helps you be better at detecting from then on.

Root

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 The nuggets that I am referring to came out of a patch that has been covered by several very good detectorists since 2008. The most recent amazing find was last week, 3.5 dwt just about 12 feet from where I found my largest nugget to date 39.9 dwt.  I showed my friends where it came from and you can bet that we have all covered that area carefully. The 3.5 dwt was under about six inches of duff and 6 inches of soil after a rain. The organic material was moist, but the soil was dry. If that was the  only one, I would agree that we all missed one. There have been others that were basically on top of the ground, but under a heavy layer of organic material.

                                                                     Norm

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Just to add one more thought, if  the organic material only adds distance between the coil and target, shouldn't you be able to air test a 3.5 dwt nugget at a total of 6 and a half inches?

 And no I did not test the signal on any other detector, I can't even imagine getting it out of the closet.

                                                                   Norm

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