A Very Hot Hunt

[fredmason]

Did you find that first meteorite while hunting at GB?

 

fred

[jasong]

Steve, do you mind sharing how you did at gold basin? Its ground i'm really familiar with and I'm curious if the 7000 pulled up any nuggets for you. Looks like Docs vid is there too and he got a couple dinks out of an old patch.

Did it seem necessary to run in difficult? My experience had been running the 4500 wide open with no probs everywhere except a few small tougher hot patches so was surprised to see the zed in difficult. GB to me is some of the mildest quiet ground ive detected.

[Steve Herschbach]

Yeah, I will give details shortly (doing yard work) but tell me first what you consider "wide open" on the 4500.

[jasong]

By wide open I mean running it at a point where I feel I have reached close to max sensitivity while still remaining fairly stable and quiet: Stabilizer 5-8 clicks higher than normal (less stabilization), RX sensitivty 12-14 (out of 15 on the 4500), ability to use any timing you want (mostly Sharp and Sens Extra for me), big mono coils without a lot of EMI, small monos without a lot of ground noise.

[Steve Herschbach]

OK, you and I think the same way on that subject. You never know.

 

We were not really detecting for gold. Chris and I were at the Mesa show and of course bumped into Kevin Hoagland. He was going to be filming an episode for his Gold Trails TV Show at Gold Basin. It is mentioned on the page I just linked to. Anyway, it is an old GPAA claim at Gold Basin, very accessible, right where the RV crowd parks.

 

Chris and I were on film a bit but it was mainly about a new guy going to the claim. We were to wander around with detectors in the background. I fired up my GPZ which was in default settings which includes being in High Yield and Difficult Ground. All I did was bump the Sensitivity up to 12 and went detecting. I was not looking for the hottest settings - frankly I was not wanting to work hard. I had loaned my pick to the film crew for the guy they were filming to use so had no pick. All I had to dig with was my scoop.

 

The place must have had thousands of detectors over it so I expected nothing - I was just a background prop. I ignored a couple strong surface targets. Got one tiny signal that was a tiny steel bit. Then a got a sweet little signal. I had been detecting maybe 30-45 minutes. I scraped with my scoop and at 4-5 inches got this little 3.8 grain (0.26 gram) nugget. I walked over to the crew where Chris was on camera. I waited for an appropriate moment then walked on camera and said "is this gold"?

 

Anyway, should make for a fun episode as what you see was a real moment caught on camera. No big deal, really proves nothing but was a pleasant surprise given the circumstances. We had a 10 hour drive to Reno that night and so I never did go detecting any more after that.

 

Long story short is maybe I could have used Normal but never tried it. On the other hand do not underestimate the Difficult setting. The machine is nutty powerful on High Yield mode.

[jasong]

Nice, wish I had cable to see it!

 

Well, that's honestly pretty impressive... To snag a one where you did as quick as you did with just the default settings on the Zed tells me a lot. That's one of the most flogged gold fields in the State, probably one of the most flogged in the country at this point now and a lot of those guys camped out there go weeks without a nugget.

 

Did anyone give the 7000 a try on a meteorite out of curiosity up there? I've been wondering how they sound of on them.

[Steve Herschbach]

No but I have some Gold Basin meteorites Jim Straight gave me. I will dig them out and try them on the GPZ on Monday.