Jump to content

Have You Ever Pissed Off Your Prospecting Partner?


Recommended Posts

Great story.  Goes to show you, blood is thicker than gold.

Took a customer out once for training.  He purchased a SDC2300.  So I am driving down and old wash and I see this small gully winding it's way down out of the hills that really was calling to me.  I said let's pull over here and start your training.  OK, so the basic machine adjustment speech is given.  Really not very involved with the SDC2300, it's a pretty simple machine.

We start up the gully, I am coaching him on his swing, telling him to make sure he rolls rocks, check under bushes, kick off a couple inches of dirt.  Good student, he is picking it up pretty quick.  Doing all the right things, making all the right moves.  So I go ahead and turn on my GPZ7000 and work off to the side of him.  Far enough away so I am not interfering with his detector, but close enough so he can yell at me if he has a question.  Not a speck of trash in this area..

Unexpectedly, I get a really nice target.  So I call him over and tell him to swing his coil right next to the bush.  "Can you hear it?"  He can, so I tell him to go ahead and dig it, if it's gold it's his.  So I teach him how to get it in the scoop, split it, check the scoop and check your hand, etc. etc.  WHAM,  a nice nugget over a gram.   Winner winner chicken dinner.  OK so we go back to detecting.  I hit another target.  I call him over.  Ask him if he can hear it, he says he can.  I tell him OK you got the first one, this one is mine, and we will just keep trading off sharing the finds.  Anything you find on your own, you can keep but I told him I would share my targets with him.  So I dig a sub gram piece.

I'm starting to think we may be on to something here.  Oh, btw, both of those pieces and the other pieces we found that day were nice little specimens.  So I get another target, right in a small little tributary behind a bush.  I call him over.  Can you hear it?  This one he could not hear.  So I told him, well it's there so just keep digging and checking the hole until you can hear it.  So he does.  It's down about 14 inches a really nice 1.5 dwt specimen.  I told him to put it in his pocket.  Next one I find is a gram plus.  I told him, this is great, we are on a little virgin patch so we want to make sure we really cover this area thoroughly and go slow.  So we keep detecting and I get another target and I call for him and he's no where to be found.  Last I saw him he was headed up and over the hill out of the gully.  I thought maybe he had to attend to the call of nature.  I mean who walks away from a virgin patch?  I called for him and no answer.

So this happens for the next four targets which are all nuggets.  I'm digging gold, and he is off wandering around.  So the training day is drawing to a close and I go looking for him and he is two ridges over happily swinging his detector, apparently for exercise, because he hadn't found anything.  I asked him why he left the area.  He said he wanted to see if he could find something on his own.  I told him well there is a rule in gold prospecting.  Never go looking for gold, when you are finding gold.  "Your best chance of finding gold would have been to stay in the area we were in and do what I had suggested, be thorough and go slow."

Well here is a gentleman that had two nice nuggets in his pocket, and I was trying my hardest to make sure he had a successful day of training, and for some reason, he thought he was ready to venture out on his own.

I see this happen sometimes.  When I just happen to get lucky and actually get someone on the gold, they automatically assume it must be easy to find gold.  They don't understand that it's an anomaly and it rarely happens that I take someone into the field and just happen upon a virgin patch.

So I think my customer had sort of mixed emotions.  He was happy he had some gold to show for the excursion, but ticked off that he didn't stick around in the area to snag a couple more nuggets.

Gerry you know how it is, sometimes you just can't win, no matter what you do.  Thank you for the great story about your brother.  I never had a brother, and I really wish that I did.  I have two sons, and I see the great relationship they have.  They ride ATV's together, dirt bikes, go shooting together.  They are both dentists so they have a lot in common.

Happy New Year my friend!  Happy New Year to all my friends here on the forum,

Doc

  • Like 9
Link to comment
Share on other sites


Fantastic addition story Doc.

Two sons who are both dentists?  Now I know why you have such perfect teeth and all the fillings are solid gold.:biggrin:

Link to comment
Share on other sites

22 minutes ago, Gerry in Idaho said:

Fantastic addition story Doc.

Two sons who are both dentists?  Now I know why you have such perfect teeth and all the fillings are solid gold.:biggrin:

Hey, don't think for a minute that I don't take advantage of that perk.  I don't have gold fillings, but they did get rid of all of my mercury amalgam fillings and replace them with composite.  The composite is matched to your teeth color, so it doesn't even look like you have fillings.

However, my boys have told me that they have ran into people with gold fillings.  Some of this dental work done over 40 years ago.  They tell me that gold is without a doubt the most reliable and durable material for working with teeth.  They tell me that because gold is malleable,  as a person chews that gold used in the filling works it's way down into even the smallest nook and cranny under the filling and seals it up.  They have told me they have never seen a gold filling that has decay underneath because it "seats" so well that there is simply no way for bacteria to get under the filling.  So even though gold fillings are more expensive, they literally can last a lifetime.

Doc

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

On ‎1‎/‎1‎/‎2018 at 9:30 AM, Doc said:

They have told me they have never seen a gold filling that has decay underneath because it "seats" so well that there is simply no way for bacteria to get under the filling.  So even though gold fillings are more expensive, they literally can last a lifetime.

So you can take your gold with you when your time is up (or is that down) :laugh:

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Jim,  You are even more fortunate than most of us to have your mate as your prospecting partner and she even swings a detector.

The only time my wife will detect is when we are in England together in which she usually finds the better pieces of history.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...