Succeeding In Hot Soil

[LuckyLundy]

It's been and extreme wet season in my hunting areas for months!  Back in the day when I dredged, I'd be jumping in the creeks hitting my known gold lairs.  But, and extreme wet season for chasing nuggets with a metal detector isn't necessary for success.  Wet soil means extra hot ground as we fight the minerals in the different soils of our goldfields.  I swing the GPZ 7000 and like many High Yield/Normal is my favorite setting when the ground permits a smooth Threshold.  But, for months I've been stuck in High Yield/Difficult.  Using Difficult, means some different gold tones to store in your mind too.  Our entire hunting group this year has had to simmer down their SDC 2300 and GPX's to combat this wet season soil conditions.  In these hot soil conditions expect numerous hot spots of minerals that sound like a likable target.  You have to check these spots out!  Mineralized hot dirt most of the time will not get louder as you dig a couple inches.  Hot rocks can/will get louder as you dig, but most of these spots you can try to ground balance out before you dig deeper...some!  A real target will sometimes fool you in hot soils.  It's may sound good as your digging it and out of the hole.  But, in the pile hard to hear and may sound like hot soil.  Kick your pile flat helps to bring your target back to life.  Who said, in metal detecting you'd need a Criminal Justice Degree in syphring out a true target and catching a sly nugget in hot soils...hard enough in good conditions!  This trip, there was no skunks in our hunting party of 5, my two are top center and the big one was just shy of 1/4 oz 4.89 dwt.  Until the next hunt!

LuckyLundy

 

[fredmason]

Nice gold, Lucky!

Yeah, when I was around /in Rye Patch a few weeks ago I got a fantastic signal.  After digging deep I went and got a shovel...dug some more ( breathing hard the whole time) and then, and then...the signal was gone gone gone...a true hot spot with nothing but work to show for it...

so sad

fred

[Steve Herschbach]

I get those deep sweet signals out in the desert from time to time that sound exactly like a large deep nugget. They are ones that usually require I get the shovel, and every one so far has turned out to be a mineralized spot that finally just disperses out into a pile of hot lumps. The only thing good about them is they have been fairly rare for me, as I seem to have no solution but to dig them. I can indeed use settings that alleviate or eliminate them, but then I go crazy thinking that maybe I have talked myself out of digging that big nugget. So I dig them.

There is a hot signal out there also that turns out to be this particular type of shattered rock. It is a hot rock, but they are always broken into shards, like they exploded underground. Weird.

[LuckyLundy]

Fred, 

Rye Patch, is a tough gig this season!  By the time it's dries out there you'll be fighting the heat.  Pine & Cedar Trees are calling me, if Summer ever arrives!

Rick

[beatup]

congrats on no one getting skunked Lucky also you shared some good points on hot ground.

[fredmason]

"It is a hot rock, but they are always broken into shards, like they exploded underground"

Steve, you might check carefully to be sure it is not some type of chrondrite...although,I have found a few weird hotrocks that do not not look like the usual suspects out that way...

fred

[phoenix]

5 hours ago, fredmason said:

Nice gold, Lucky!

Yeah, when I was around /in Rye Patch a few weeks ago I got a fantastic signal.  After digging deep I went and got a shovel...dug some more ( breathing hard the whole time) and then, and then...the signal was gone gone gone...a true hot spot with nothing but work to show for it...

so sad

fred

I feel your pain Fred.  At a spot not far from where I live I have dug three deep signals in hard ground that I was totally convinced were actual targets and I dig out that last scoop of dirt and the signal is gone completely 

[phoenix]

very nice gold there Lucky 

[LuckyLundy]

Kiwi JW,

Theres still a ton of snow in the high country of Northern California.  Talking about snow skiing into July!  It will be nice to look at it from a distance and wishing to be rolling around in it soon enough here, lol.

Rick

[beatup]

we got around 18 inches of snow wednesday and thursday in the high country here it just won't end this year.