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The Reg Wilson Gold Album


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Post script 3.

After hearing the story from the Ballarat boys about their aborted poaching expedition, I bought another round of beers, and asked them, "I've only detected around Dunolly a couple of times, but you blokes know this area pretty well don't you? I'd hate to go home to the 'better half ' with nothing to show for my time here. Is there anywhere you can think of where I might pick up just a small color or two?" After a bit of thought, one of the boys suggested I try a spot at Patchy Flat, which was just off the Timor road. "When you get to the tree line turn right, and a few hundred meters along the track you will see where a claim has been worked on the left. There is a gap of about twenty meters between the worked ground and the fence marking the edge of the private property. We've picked up a few bits there, so if you go slow and poke around the bushes you might get something ". I thanked them for the information and they left.

That night I told John of our conversation, and we agreed that we would pay a visit to Patchy Flat the next day as he had picked up some information about some ground on the left side of the road. Ian was at home with the flu at the time. Taking two cars we separated at the tree line and went to our spots. I found the worked claim without difficulty, and taking out 'the unfair advantage', ( prototype PI ) set it up and ground balanced. The 'scrape and detect' claim had been worked and rehabilitated to the edge of the track, leaving the track and the unworked ground  between the track and the fence. I decided to grid out the track and then the ground out to the fence. I had only gone about ten meters or so when I got a nice broad hum on the left hand side of the track. Thinking it must be junk I started digging the rock hard compacted ground. When I got down about a foot I realized the ground was intact, and this signal was now unlikely to be rubbish. It was in fact a nice nine ounce slug. The next bit in the track was about five ounces, and by the time I had finished gridding it I was up over the twenty ounce mark with a lot of smaller colors. It was slow going as the track was like concrete, and it took me all day to finish it.

John had got a few colors where he had been working, so we phoned Ian and told him of the new spot. Next morning he turned up coughing and spluttering, but determined not to miss out on the fun. We went back to finish the ground between the track and the fence, where I managed to dig a twenty and a fourteen ounce bit plus a few smaller bits, while John and Ian brought the total patch weight up to about sixty ounces.

 They never knew it, but the Ballarat boys had more than made up for their sneaky intentions, and the 'unfair advantage' had struck again.

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A question to either Reg or jrbeatty if they care to answer.

I was wondering if there is a lot of difference between the prototypes you were using and what's available today? Now I know that today's detectors are better at finding the small stuff and probably handle hot ground better,  but do they actually go deeper? Let's say for argument's sake that you had 5 patches of gold-bearing ground that the prototype handled ok and you grided and worked those patches to death, did a later model detector find gold "AT DEPTH" that you missed with the prototypes? (Surely you would have revisited some of those patches with new release detectors.) Or did those prototypes do a pretty good job?  

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Thanks again Reg, always an interesting read.

Also, I have sent you a message - check the little envelope up in the R) hand corner.

Cheers. 

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So you missed a few big bits in there then Reg,  saw a 70 and a 90 oz come out of patchy Flat with production SD 2000's

In fact one of them, can't remember now if it was the 70 or 90 featured on the front cover of Gold Gem and Treasure, my mate Barry Taylor is holding it, next to his yellow Hi Lux. :smile:

 

   

 

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Yes that's the pic Ashley, thanks very much for finding it

Although that nug looks a lot smaller than I remember it, bit like fishing stories :wink: 

Now my old mate Yellowfin pulled heaps of nuggets out of patchy flat, dozen's of nug's up to 5 oz's with a modified garrett sea hunter XL 500 pulse, he purchased it in or around 1992 and had it modded by a guy is SA, This was some 2 or 3 years before Minelab came out with a PI, It was hip mounted and he snuck around with it under a longish coat.

It looked bizzare in summer to say the least, I remember one time he got busted by a guy swinging one of the newest Groundhogs, the bloke gave him a real hard time, laughing and telling him he would find nothing with that thing.

Shame he didn't get to see what was in his full pockets. Damn he found a lot with that thing.   

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Thanks so much for that info Ashley, that's one of the one's Reg missed, Old Ray (Yellowfin) always yapped on about how Pulse induction was the way to go, In hind sight his finds were limited by the 8" mono coil fitted to the sea hunter.

He would have cleaned up with it with a bigger coil. his bigger finds came with the SD 2000 on and his largest with the 5000, so it's still out there to be found Ashley.

Good hunting

Mal

     

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egixe14, you really know how to hurt a bloke, don't you?

You got me thinking of all the big gold I've missed over the years, so I'm going to start a new post listing the gold I've missed.

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