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One of the hardest things to do at Rye Patch NV proper, is to find a specimen gold piece attached to quartz. Not sure how many of my Rye Patch NV swinging buddies are left from the mid 90's but we all have agreed on a couple things when it comes to gold at RP. Chevron gold is the most desired and valuable. There have been some amazing high dollar pieces discovered at the patch. Specimen gold on the other hand (gold and quartz mixed) is most rare to find at Rye Patch than many realize, why is that? I personally have found thousands of nuggets and have seen 10X dug up from all the local legends back then. But to see a piece of gold with quarts on it that came from RP, just does not seem to happen. There's big quartz boulders and quartz pockets scattered all over that area. Heck, one of the locals (Peg-Leg) used to dig out some of the pockets to discover massive beautiful clusters and even single solid monster crystals, but he never found any with gold. This is the largest specimen I have ever seen from Rye Patch proper and it was found in 2005/6 by one of my customers (Scott from Idaho) with a GP-3500 right near the burn barrel. As for me and all the thousands of nuggets I've collected in my 30 yrs of detecting RP, I have only found 2 small nuggets in the 2 to 3 gram range that had a piece of quartz attached. Anyone else seen specimen gold come from Rye Patch? Do any of you geology experts know why we are not seeing it happen more often, especially with all the quartz rocks and crystal pockets that are exposed out there? On a side note - My 1st of 2024 Rye Patch Field Training is coming up next weekend. Anyone wanting to learn some real hands on Field Knowledge and up your chances of finding that beautiful and expensive rare gold, contact Gerry's Detectors at 208-345-8898 for details.

As I told last week, I was preparing the Manti for today's session on the seabed. In a few words, "damn it works"... Even if I abused the machine using underwater the beach LC program, I however managed to take with me three pieces. The second attempt will be with surf and seawater, which I think it is the proper way to use it when diving. Not bad for the day one💣

The pictures are of nuggets I’ve found in VA using the gpx 4800 and the gold monster 1000. The gpx finds were all on hill tops and hillsides at location in and around old gold mines. These locations were found by a good friend of mine back 10 years ago or so. I’m just picking up scraps compared to what they found. The gold monster finds were in creek finds at a property that I mainly dredge. Only a few areas of the creek have produced any gold to detecting. While dredging this creek it produced up to 12 gram nugget so far. I’ve detected all around the hillsides around the creek with the gpx and haven’t found any gold. It’s been frustrating lol. the vast majority of my nugget collection not shown in the pictures has come from dredging. Nugget shooting in VA is more of a winter activity when I get bored lol. I’d love to give a gpz a shot as it may be able to detect small gold deep enough to punch through all the leaf litter organics and topsoil But I can’t drop that kind of money on an unknown

Another great Winter for Northern Nevada and of course it’s still giving this Spring! This is my second trip between Weather Systems this Spring. I decided to keep it simple and hit some sweet spots of old patches with my 6000 with the aide of the little Coiltek Coil. The Hills was alive with fellow Prospectors, we all shot the breeze and caught up on each others life’s. My first 1/2 day, I scored 5 nuggets and was somewhat content. The next full day, I struggled for the next 5 nuggets before heading back to camp. What a workout! I left with many old spots yet to have my detector combo swing on them and one spot I can’t find 🙁. Well maybe next time on another Hunt! There’s plenty of space for everyone at the Rye Patch Gym. LuckyLundy

My detecting mate and I have been working a dry gully for quite a while using our 6000’s with 10x5 Coiltek coils attached. We had been finding a bit of small gold but lately our returns diminished and we had almost decided to move to a new location. In a bid to squeeze out a few more pieces, we decided to detect the ground with our 7000’s and try to uncover a few deeper nuggets. We weren’t expecting much as we had spent a considerable amount of time working this area on the short gully and thought that if we could come home with a piece or two we would have achieved our goal. The Six with the small coil really suited this area as there were many potential gold traps and hiding spots for the tiny pieces that inhabited this location. The Zed’s were fitted with Nuggetfinder 12” Z search coils and after a ground balance and tune were running exceptionally well. The hot rocks and noisy ground that played havoc at times with the 6, were ignored by the 7’s so we knew that we had a bit of potential to find that really subtle signal. We moved slowly and tried to get into difficult areas and hopefully jag something for our effort. After about 20 minutes we added a couple of small pieces to the rattle jar from steep banks on the sides of the gully. It was agreed that the shallow pieces would have been picked up easily with the 6000 but were now happy that we hadn’t been “skunked” for the day. Joe was working a stretch of ground that had produced well for us in the past so I decided to move upstream about 50m to give him some space. I started at a rock bar that had given up some treasure about a month or so ago. We had pulled about 6 very small pieces on and around the outcrop and made a concerted effort to cover all the ground in that area very well. Every subsequent trip resulted in a repeat of that process just in case we missed something. The same region was detected today with the Zed and to my surprise, a very faint signal was heard. It was in an ideal location next to the rock bar on the inside section of a bend. You can see the hole in the photo. We had hoped to find a piece of gold at a depth that the Six couldn’t see and it finally happened. It must have been on edge as the signal was initially very soft and only increased during the dig. What popped out was a pleasant surprise. The 6000 has dominated our detecting for a couple of years now and the Zed barely gets pulled out of the cupboard. It was good to get its coil scraping on the ground again and put through its paces. We had forgotten how quiet it could be when the ground suited. We had also forgotten about digging deep holes until we were quickly reminded of its power. Rusty nails and bits of steel with soft enticing signals generally resulted in ugly growls and swimming pools being dug half way to China. We moved upstream and continued to detect some old ground looking for that deeper target. I was lucky enough to get a really faint signal behind a large rock. After digging a deep hole, a small, shiny nugget surfaced. I could see why the Six would not see a piece of gold at that depth. When the hole was inspected with the coil, another break in the threshold told the story of a surprise awaiting inspection. When a piece of gold ended up in the scoop, I called Joe over and we started moving rocks and detecting a small area thoroughly. A bunch of small pieces resulted. We had a lot of fun working that area together. Joe finally moved 20 metres upstream and found another patch of deep, small pieces of gold. The river worn gold was often visible in the scoop or in the ground like the piece shown in the picture. Joe pulled a couple of pieces on the walk back including one that was in a pool of water. Boots and socks came off and a slow and frustrating recovery followed. It’s great to see a prize for all the effort put in. The final picture shows the result of our day out. Quite a few of the pieces were so small that they wouldn’t move the scales but they all added up. It is pleasing that the Zed can still earn its keep on the tiny gold. Most of the pieces found would still be in the ground if we had used the 6000’s on this trip. Having a combination of machines has proved to be a winner in this area.

I was actually wrong saying the camera turned off too soon the last time I had it on my head... So cleaning the card for a new attempt tomorrow, I suddenly found this raw footage. No editing, pure bubbles and fuc#%#g sh## visibility. So this is what I'm usually fighting against. Enjoy the challenge between me and the murky waters.

When I read this story I thought about a different thread where we came to the conclusion that we don't need new detectors to patch hunt. This little tale confirms that ... even tho it might not be a 'patch!' Talk about striking gold! Metal detectorist unearths the largest gold nugget EVER found in England - and it's set to fetch at least £30,000 at auction | Daily Mail Online https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-13218195/Metal-detectorist-largest-gold-nugget-England.html

I recently had some doubts in using the main detector and was pondering the possibility of eliminating some by selling. In detail, I complained of some high ID response that I accidentally dug up in the absence of decent signals. The last victorious session, brought me a 6.49-gram 18K wedding ring and by sheer luck, with an amazing 80, I deigned to dig it out. So this morning I decided to go out with a dear old detector, one that doesn't mess around, and the numbers are shocking considering the spot, the devastated condition of the clay and rocks, and lousy visibility. After 4 1/2 hours on the bottom, thanks to the use of hooka compressor, I flushed out 4 pieces totaling 20 "dirty" grams. The numbers speak for themselves, and I am beginning to have clearer ideas.... I will add no more...

Yesterday, JW and I went for a bit of a hike to a remote spot in the mountains, I hadn't been here at all since my GPX 4500 a few years ago, and JW had been a small few times since trying out his GPX 6000 and found a few bits. The hike in is what puts it on the backburner all the time 🙂 It's a close drive from JW's house, but a big steep uphill hike, and from my house it's about an hour's drive so by the time I get home I'm stuck to the car seat, man it's hard to stand up after a massive hike and an hour's drive home after a day's detecting with the hike back to the car, at least the hike back is downhill all the way. I ran the car's seat heater the whole drive home to help the muscles recover! JW has a few years of age over me, but he is certainly fitter. It's a really cool place to go though, with great views of the surrounding mountains, unfortunately I can't put up scenery photos for fear of revealing the location to prying eyes, as you can work out the basic location by using the bigger mountains to get an idea of where I was. There has been a bit of mining in the area, and reworked in the depression years, but the earlier mining was done with a lot of work and water monitors (canons) blasting water at the hillsides to recover the gold. The Chinese hit it pretty hard too, staying longer than the other miners going over it again. It's interesting how they get somewhere, then just stop. The soils an interesting colour, almost white. Quite the drop off here down to the ground below, but oddly at least I think you'd be crazy not not to detect these high areas, as gold often pops up in the most unusual of places. My first bit of gold for the day was a bit of a surprise to me, it was a fairly faint signal, yet it was very shallow, I thought it is more likely a pellet although this area barely has any pellets at all, in fact it barely has any targets, if you get a target the chances are high its gold, aside from the occasional old bit of miner's junk like cans and a few nails most targets are gold so it's certainly a dig it all location. I took a little video of the target, so weak of a signal for the size of the gold I thought, although I'm more used to using the 10x5" Coiltek which is more sensitive but still, I was pretty disappointed. This is the little scrape of a hole it came from. The piece of gold. And its weight, quite a reasonable size piece for me, anything over .1 is pretty decent size for me 😛 I was so taken back by how weak the signal on it was I tested it this morning with the Algoforce to see how well it would do, even though it has the larger 10" round coil on it, I thought the Algoforce gave a better signal response on this particular piece. It's a bit of rough looking piece. The other interesting thing is it was right next to someone's previous dig hole, probably JW or I, we were likely using older technology at the time, as I'd only been here with my 4500 which no doubt would miss this piece of gold. It's very unlikely this person didn't go over the nugget and they missed it. The joys of newer technology. Next piece was in the path you walk on to hike to this area, there are tracks all over the place, mostly from old miners I guess however now they're hiking trails and go all through the area, you can even walk from one of my favourite ski fields to this area on tracks. This is it's dig hole, another very shallow target, an OK signal. This is the little guy Smaller than the last bit, but a much better signal. Just ignore the shaft twist in this photo, it's a feature of the 6000 🙂 After that I was walking along detecting the path, but no other gold to be found in that particular area, I did find old boot tacks though which is pretty cool, one spot had a bunch of them in one hole so I gave up recovering them, that miners boots must have fallen apart at that spot 🙂 The gold spot is the dig hole just above the pick in this photo. Here is a little video of it, I haven't watched the videos back yet but it likely shows this one had a better target signal than the previous bigger bit I found. It was pretty easy to film gold finds here as there is so little junk about, so filming bits of digs is worthwhile knowing they're likely gold. Next piece was on top of a little ridge It was my biggest bit of the day, had trouble carrying it for the hike back to the car. Deepest of the holes too. A smooth bit. This is its spot. And a little video of it, the second target next to it was one of 2 pellets I found all day. That was my last bit for the day, the day felt like it went really quick though, we finished up detecting about 7pm, but both of us didn't realize the time and thought it was about 5pm I guess. A benefit or a negative depending on how you look at it coming from the GPZ and GPX 5000 is the 6000 can have the pick so close to the coil it's not funny, it always surprises me how close the pick can go, even when you lay it down recovering targets so while using it I have a belt attached pick holder and in this location I am glad I did, as sometimes its half an hour between targets so nice to holster your pick. The super strong magnet I've got in my pick handle makes life easy too, if I'm using it more regularly, I can just attach it to my pick holder using the magnet to save the effort. It stays there when walking around as long as the pick doesn't bottom out on the ground. So other notable things from the day, this piece of quartz was so weird, it doesn't show up as well in the photo but its flat smoothed off and much like a tile or bench top, and really glossy, so weird. You can see the shine on that one side, but the entire flat surface of it is like that, and its smooth and flat although the photo doesn't show that well. It's like someone's cut it smooth and painted it with polyurethane. And my junk for the day, there was also a nail which I left behind and you can see why I say it's a dig it all location. I'm used to digging hundreds of pellets on the farm land locations, this spot, 2 🙂 Both big pellets too. And last but not least, some old miners' tins I found, I left them where they were, a bit of history. I think this tin can was never opened. This one looked like a giant sardine tin. I think I'll get a bit fitter so the hike and day of swinging a detector around going up and over hills and mounds of soils doesn't wear me down so much and go back to this spot more often, I do really like going there, it just takes it out of me. It's very difficult to E-Bike there too as much of the path is on a cliff side with a big drop and very skinny path no more than 40cm wide in many spots, I've done it before but ended up walking the bike much of the way as I wasn't crazy enough to ride it through the steep drop off areas. Today I'm completely jelly legs and walking is a challenge 🙂 JW doubled my gold count, he came away with 6 pieces, pretty small ones too, he was using the GPX 6000 and 10x5" Coiltek coil, a better choice of coil for the day, I think. I only had the NF coil on as it was left on there from a previous time. It was good to take the 6000 out though, leave it much longer and the old motor may seize from lack of use.

A Kiwi boy in far north Queensland. D4G

Just curious of people's opinions of what size gold is too small to mess with detecting. What size piece takes longer to dig, than is worth your valuable time searching for larger pieces? Does it depend on the history of the size of gold in that area? Is every tiny bit as satisfying as the next, or do you feel some are a waste of time? Are you in it for the challenge, or trying to make a profit? I'm not trying to come to any conclusions from this post. Just curious how people look at this hobby, or profession (if your fortunate enough to call it that).

Crikey Dickin's! ....Steve is at it again at Palmerville

Thought I would share a pic of a 1/2 ounce slug I found one afternoon this week. We have a gold area here in my home town which is called McDonalds flats, some really nice decent sized nuggets and specimens have come off here with metal detectors over the past 20 years, my biggest being a 4 ounce piece which I found with the SD 2000 in 1995. We have had some extremely hot weather here the past few weeks but thanks to a rainy spell the temps have dropped dramatically, so I've been enjoying the cooler weather before the mercury starts to climb again!! I suppose you could say I went to McDonalds and got a McNugget!!

In the common imagination, beach hunting is based on the first few feet of shoreline, sometimes at the top, sometimes at the edge of an eroded step, sometimes in flooded pools after a decent tide. All of this in my area is out of the question and being forced to enter the water and totally submerge, today, after three sessions I summarize what I am observing. On the first day, in a spot I hadn't been to in over 10 years, I pulled out a triple ring and amazingly not far from where I found a twin 10 years earlier. Finally, the first piece of 2024🤔. On the second day, a really thin ring, different spot, and really unusual water depth. It all ends today, with the third session in the same spot as yesterday, but this time even deeper at about 5 meters and very far from the shore. A man's wedding ring, after a century of other much thinner and lighter finds. The outer sandbar may remain the final frontier. Rarely, pits can open at such depths, and if they do, it is generally because of a play of currents with which one should not mess around. I am considering a floating platform of the bodyboard kind, to be kept on the surface as a safety device for a return to shore or at least to have something to cling to effortlessly and return to shore with the help of the board and fins. By the way, finally some shines.

Today I took the Algoforce for a gold hunt, it wasn't the location I was wanting to go to as the one I wanted to go to I had more confidence of finding something, its temperature was going to be too hot, then I saw a closer spot right near JW's house was cooler when I checked its forecast, I couldn't resist and decided to go, although I had little hope of finding anything, being so close to home for JW and his uncanny ability to find all available gold he doesn't leave much behind. The first thing I did seeing this area has powerlines right through it was to test the Algoforce under them, results can be seen here, I must say though, very impressed! I had a hunch it would be good, it's one of the few detectors and only PI that I have that I can use inside my house for testing. I next found a 22 shell, pretty typical here and generally screamer targets, sometimes I'm lazy and reject them, risky move but I can get lazy in the heat. Seeing I was digging it all, the general rule for a new detector I dug it up, pretty neat video, a 22 shell comes up with a Target ID of 22 😛 I later tested the same 22 shell on the Sadie, and was pleased to see it came up 22 on an entirely different coil, a 10" Spiral vs a 8x6" bundle wound. You've probably heard me whinge about the green hot rocks in the past, so I wanted to see how it goes on them, the 6000 can't balance them out in normal but does to a degree in difficult, not completely gone but better than normal, The Algoforce on the other hand, bang.... gone! bye bye Green hot rock! To top it off once balanced out I put a little shotgun pellet I'd found on top of it, a giant big green hot rock and it still was able to detect the pellet as if the rock didn't exist. I notified JW I was there seeing he lives very close nearby and he popped down for a detect and to catch up, he had his 6000 and 10x5" Coiltek with him, a good combination for the area. He was also kind enough to bring along an assortment of GPX coils that I don't have to try including the Sadie (mine still hasn't arrived from the NZ Dealer) and a 6" Coiltek round mono. Unfortunately, I didn't get a chance to test out the mono which I'll explain later but quickly swapped over from my 10" X-coil to the Sadie to try it out, seeing it was the manufacturer tested coil on the detector I wanted to see how it goes. The Sadie is very light, quite nice to swing such a little coil in the rougher areas, knowing it has hot edges is a nice attribute too. In my first video up the top with the 22 shell I explain about the coil cable and how the Algoforce detects it when you pick up and put down the detector with the 10" fitted, I even accidentally left pinpoint mode on when sitting it down and the detector screamed, it was sitting there pinpointing the coil cable and had an ID for it 🙂 Seeing the pinpoint mode doesn't need motion it just screamed on the cable. I later discovered when switching to the Sadie the coil cable doesn't get detected near as much, those with a Sadie probably will barely notice when lifting up and putting down their detector, whereas with the 10" spiral it screams. Pinpoint mode will obviously behave the same with the non-motion. The 10" spiral is much more sensitive than the Sadie, but I already knew this, if someone's after maximum sensitivity to small targets size doesn't matter as much as windings do, the Coiltek 9", 10" X-coil or 12x8" EVO will likely be the most sensitive, never used the 12x8" EVO only owning the 14x9" Evo but I'd likely give it the tiny target sensitivity over the Sadie too. That's not saying the Sadies a bad coil, its edge sensitivity will give it great benefit over the far less sensitive edges of the spiral coils so if golds up against rocks it will win, it's also good for poking and prodding with the sensitive edges and it may handle some bad ground better too. I found a little bit of gold under a rock not long after putting the Sadie on, It wasn't detected from above the rock, I was just lucky enough to flip a rock that had a little nugget (flake) under it. JW had also recovered a little nugget, one he had detected some time ago in the schist bedrock with the GPZ and I think it was the 15" CC, he ended up not being able to find it, thought it was lost and moved on, the coil was probably just too big and awkward for his little dug hole in the bedrock or something to get close enough to it, but it was gone, today he managed to get it with the 10x5" Coiltek on the 6000 smashing out more rock. It was smaller than the one I'd just found, quite a bit smaller. Time went by and nothing for either of us, so I explored further and climbed down a bit of a ledge and found a target, I was trying to get it out and it sank down into a hole in the rock of the ledge to the next layer below, I was trying to get it out learning right over hoping I don't fall into the prickly briar rose bushes below, I'd be in big trouble then, and I kept poking the Sadie in under the layer and it kept sounding off so I thought I was hitting the target, so I'd slowly slide out some soil and it would keep sounding off the same, it turned out it wasn't sounding off on the nugget, it was sounding off as the coil cable was getting crushed down and touching the coil. It is vital with the Algoforce to have a nice secure coil cable that can't go near the coil, it just shows how sensitive it is, the GPZ with small coils like the 8" and 10" is the same especially lifting up and putting down the detector so I'm a bit used to it. I gave up that method and risked climbing down to the bottom of the little ditch in among the prickles, sadly 3 of them stabbed into my hand, I plucked them out one by one but by the 3rd one I had a problem, it had stuck straight into a vein, when I pulled out the rose thorn a big squirt of blood shot out like a jet, then it swelled up rapidly like a balloon under the skin, it got quite big, about half a golf ball, then in a seconds the swelling went down a fair bit to a blackish lump, and its stayed that way. I felt quite sick at this point, really dizzy, so I just used the Sadie from down there where I could get into the gap between the rocks better, retrieved the target and climbed back up the ledge leaving my detector and pick on the ledge to collect from half way down from the top, I climbed up with my scoop in hand with the target in it. Once at the top I was so dizzy I just sat down for about 10 minutes with the scoop sitting next to me hoping it wasn't some junk. Once I recovered enough, I climbed down and retrieved my detector and pick and climbed back up to recover the target from the scoop. I was so pleased it was a piece of gold after all of that. Here is the video of it all, I quite big bit for what's left in this area, that's for sure. I felt really weird sort of dizzy sort of drunk but it could be a combination of heat exhaustion along with the weird injury so I walked back to JW and told him what happened and showed my nugget, he suggested I had a sit down which I had planned to do, I sat another 20 or so minutes and just felt worse so I call over to him that I'm going to head home cutting my day short, I stopped for a snack on some wild black berries on my walk to my car as I hadn't yet had lunch. I felt horrible the entire drive home, almost vomited half way home going around the lake which is a very bendy road for about 30 minutes along the side of the lake. I'm coming right now, no longer dizzy that I've cooled down and had a long cold shower and plenty to drink, I had run out of drink very early in the day too so perhaps I was dehydrated. Next time more drink bottles coming than just the one little one. So here is my hand now A bit black and swollen still. I really like the Algoforce, it's an incredible detector for the price, a real game changer for people that don't need the absolute best of the best yet still want a very high-performance PI machine with cool features and at a very cheap price. The more I use it the more I like it. I really hope I'm the first paying customer that's found gold with the detector, that'd be pretty cool.

This one will put a smile on ya dial....biggest piece Lee has ever found Savage Prospecting Click to 7.30 to get the best bit 😉

I was called by a successful client old pupil of mine and he was telling me to start a new thread as I had posted this to a recent post. Only reason I even wrote the reply was one of the forum members had asked the questions. I realize there are many states, counties, areas and minerals in the USA and not all tailing piles are the same. But in all honestly, I've probably hiked of while swinging more than most of you and in many different areas. Heck I even wrote an article many years back in a magazine (when they existed) about how I hunt such piles. Not sure where it is, but many new machines I've tried since then and I still come up with the same conclusion. So here goes and I hope others will chime in with their experiences. Heck, I even know of a few of you who have found your biggest gold with a certain detector, even though you had a bigger one...and yes you also took our 3 Days Field Training. Hopefully some of you newer folks will learn from this and who knows, maybe an old salty member may as well. The majority of my bigger gold finds have come from tailing piles. I've detected dredge and hand placer digging piles in Alaska, Idaho, Oregon, Montana and Nevada with success. If I were to hunt California, Arizona and Wyoming tailing piles, I'd do what I've learned in the 30 years of chasing bigger gold and do what I usually do, I'd run Discriminating VLF's and find even more. Yes I have used PI's and even ZED with Success at such locations, but I run out of energy much sooner, as shovel heads at 3 1/2 feet are Ball Breakers, grease buckets over 4' are heart attaches. Here's the funny thing about the bigger machines. I've yet to actually find a bigger chunk of gold beyond the depths of my VLF's capabilities. I'm sure it has been done by someone, but my Success speaks for itself. I run into folks in the field on occasion and they swear up and down, those said sites can be PI'd. OK, then why is my VLF Success 10X of theirs???? Sometimes a little Success with a PI in tailing does not mean that's the best way to do it. Problem is, some folks are happy with a little bit of Success and too hard headed to learn and or teach themselves a new style. OK with me, as I'll keep doing what works for me and they can keep doing what works for them. Not all tailing piles are the same and many are not even in good size gold nugget/specimen country. Many folks forget this fact. In many of the tailing I detect, the highly mineralized soils have already been removed, so the VLF's capabilities are optimal which = a closer performance comparison of said VLF vs PI. Again, different parts of the country in the US, the piles vary. It's just that in the regions and states I've detected tailing piles, I've been able to get best results with the Discriminating VLFs. - A lighter and faster VLF detector can be used for longer periods of time - The Iron ID VLF's save time in identifying ferrous and non ferrous targets. - Today's newer discriminating VLF's with target Identification can be taken a step above and helps me separate the nonferrous targets and saves me more time not having to dig certain non ferrous targets. - In many tailing piles, the mineralized dirt has been removed and performance of VLF vs PI is not as big a difference. - Very important and not mentioned by most. Invisible gold - It's out there in way more places than most realize, but you don't know as your detector can't see it. Many older PI detectors and even a couple current models can not see or will respond to such gold. I have numerous multi ounces pieces a VLF responds to and bigger detectors can't or do it but not as well at a depth as the VLF. I love detecting tailing & hand work placer piles. I highly recommend to those who have not done so to try it and be open minded when doing so. There is no right or wrong way, but do what seems to work for you. If you have a bigger PI or ZED and don't own a VLF, I know you're missing gold and in some areas, you could be missing the best gold. No sales pitch, just what I have learned from being in the field for many years. Heck I couldn't believe my own eyes when I 1st witnessed this 25+ yrs ago. Now I take a big machine and VLF everywhere I go Here's some pics of finds with a variety of detectors that I have been successful with and all were from old workings.

Well, it was early, and we wanted to get out to the hills, but we had to wait. It was an election day, and you know we had to wait so that we could do our patriotic duty and vote for the lessor of two evils. Voting done were off, of course we forgot half the stuff that we normally take. We have talked about making a check list of things that we need every time we head for the hills. This particular day we are looking for a mine that we found on a map on the internet. Once in the hills we have no problem finding the site, as we are guided by a reference satellite photo and info from DEQ. After looking things over and making plans to come back we are off looking for other mine sites. We are following the road till we are at its highest point when we come around the corner and low and behold there is one snow drift (the only snow drift left on the mountain) about 40' in length, course back about 100 yards there is another road that goes around this spot. But no, we stop to size it up and I says to Ralph (my prospecting partner) (name changed to protect his identity), go for it Ralph, you can make it. He locks in the 4-wheel drive and off we go. Once we get a full pickup length into it, I realize, faster Ralph faster. We get to about the middle of the drift, and oh crap, there we stop, dead in the middle. Now this is the only sight of snow left on the mountain, and we had to find it and we only have one shovel (his). After digging for a while, we find out the wheels don't touch the ground, they just go round and round, we are high centered. After digging all the snow out from all 4 wheels we gather some wood and rocks and filling in the space between the tires and the ground and after a few tries we did make it out. To pooped to go far so it was time for lunch. A little later after touring around and looking at old mine sites we set our sights on a dig hole and drag out the detectors, lots of old square nails and positive hot rocks. I'm using the GB2 with 6" coil and Ralph is using the GM4 with regular coil. After a few nails and hot rocks there's this nice Zippp zipppp and flipping to iron ID it sounds good, (just like big nails) and after thinking it's another nail out pops this little golden picker, a 4.5 gm piece. Hey this is alright. I rake some more dirt down and tell my partner, you’ve got a bigger coil, check this hole now see if there anything left. He digs a few more nails and then he moves to another spot and continues detecting, so I go back to the hole and then ZZZZZIIIIPPPPPP ZZIIPP. dang another big square nail, right! Dig a little more, run the magnet through the dirt looking for the nail, still nothing ZZZZZIIIIPPPPPP ZZIIPP now this sounds good, and I grab a hand full of dirt, check the hole nothing, got it in my hand, Hey Ralph look at this, is this what I think it is, Yup, where'd you find it, In the hole you just checked. Anyway, out pops this little, bigger picker, a 30.6 gm. Nothing else found that day. But it was a good day. Allen C

Went back out to a spot where I dug a nice 1/2 oz nugget last year , had to go home a couple days after so never got to finish the dig anyway got back out today and dug up the rest of the rock and dirt a got another 6.25 grams out of the hole the small speci piece on the right came from a spot further down the wash. so all in all 7.87 grams today , a good day out in the desert today.

Yesterday was a sunny day here in Eastern Oregon, but cold. I drove to the hills anyway and despite the snow (about 3 inches on the hills), was able to pull out three pieces of gold in some hillsides that were melted by full sun. Got a .7 gram, a .2 gram & and a two-inch specimen, that I guess has about .25 of a gram. Total about a gram. I'm sure there are other members that are having withdrawal symptoms like me, so I guess there is hope. It is snowing here right now, though, so we'll be shut down hereabouts for a couple of months. Was using the 6000 and swinging very slow, due to the EMI. Lots of deep trash, mostly shotgun pellets, bullets, shoe tacks, etc. I'm really pleased with this detector and the Bluetooth headphones. (A Gerry recommendation.) Had to clean the Trailblazer today though. The sun melted the roads to a muddy mire on the way home.

Yesterday I went out to find a birthday nugget. I hunted all day and barely got a .11g nugget. The most significant thing was that I got it with the 15" CC Xcoil at 4-5 inches. It disappeared in the hole a couple of times before it came out. I didn't have hearing aids in as my new ones are on order.

Hey guys, been a while since I've posted. Work has finally slowed down enough for me to get out, and I got to detect some places me and my prospecting buddy Josh have been researching. I've been learning a LOT, and getting deep into research. The gold is still out there, just hard to find sometimes. Here is just under a half pennyweight in chunky Oregon gold I found on Jan 3rd, 2024. I figured it would weigh less than that but it's pretty fat and surprised me when I dropped it on my scale at home. We don't always find gold, and come home with more skunks than an Alabama bloodhound. But as a lot of you know prospecting is about a lot more than finding yellow rocks. I'll post the video if it's cool with Steve!

I haven’t had much luck on the gold so far this year, a few days of nothing but junk, so today I gave up exploring and went back to my best patch find for another try. I was there a few days ago with the 6000 and 10x5 and spent the day to find nothing and wanted to move away from the patch into the deeper ground but all the 10x5 will do there is find me pellets so today I tried the 12x7. The detector ran perfectly, such a contrast to prior to the EMI fix. I had spent half a day or so in this deeper ground area a year or two ago with my GPZ and 15” CC and found a few bits, one very deep one too so I had hope there was more if I spent some time there and after plenty of pellets my first 2024 gold, only shallow and small but a notch on the belt. In the hole with it a tiny pellet, not sure if I first found the pellet or the gold 😁 What I like about the 7000 and DOD coils I really miss on the 6000, the double blip it does on close to the coil pellets, saves so much time. With the 6000 I have to scrape the ground clear of grass then check it, faint target ok then scrape more soil away in this rock hard ground even though only less than an inch the faint target is now loud, and of course being so shallow a pellet, all of that avoided with the GPZ double blip. It’s truly odd how faint targets improve so much on the 6000 with so little soil removed. I gave up on the deep ground as I was only finding pellets and even larger bits of metal were quite shallow yet started off rather faint and brighten up quickly with some soil removed. I was in normal max manual sensitivity and well ground balanced. I decided to go back over my patch that I tried the 10x5 on the other day with no success, hoping the 12x7 may find something but an entire afternoon of nothing, I guess the 15cc and 8” got it all that I can find, you may remember the videos of the patch with those coils a year or so ago, ended up about 16 grams over 40 or so nuggets I think it was. I think I’m done with the 6000, I’ve given it a good chance but just prefer the 7000 especially with the 8” and 15” concentric coil so next time that’s what I’m using, hopefully my luck returns for a good 2024 on the gold.

Just got back today from a trip to Nothern Nevada with my son We got several nuggets on this trip but the most interesting was the one pictured!! After my son got a very weak signal he dug out both the nugget and the scorpion at about 10 inches 1.2 grams and the biggest scorpion I have ever seen in Nevada--He was in hybernation and very much alive --but the cold slowed him down to almost a stop. We put him back in his hole unharmed --hope we dont run into him in the summer.

I think my last days detecting for 2023 is now done. Gotta head off to catch up with Family for the next 2 weeks and take stock of what I'm doing next year. Single again, homeless and unsure of what direction to take. 2024 is gonna be interesting! But, my gold take has been an eye opener....almost exactly the same weight as last year, around 5.25oz but the number of pieces of gold has skyrocketed! Last year I managed to find 774 pieces...this year its 1604! Over double.....no doubt attributed to the GPX6000. Next year, I'm gonna dabble with getting a Legacy Minelab PI modded up and using CC coils or anything else that gets me depth on the big stuff. By this time next year, I'll see how that has panned out. Think I'm gonna need the money somehow lol. Just putting up a few pics of just some of the gold I've found this year. How has everyone else done? December is 'pic time' 😉 Merry Xmas everyone, and here's wishing you all a golden 2024!