Placer Gold Deposits of Arizona 1972

After a 6 year break I decided to start metal detecting for nuggets again.
Background:   I used to live in Temecula, CA and used to go to the Dale Mining District as well as the El Paso mountains.  Back then, I started by taking a metal detecting prospecting field trip taught by Michael Greyshock.  I used a Gold Bug Pro with the DP coil at that time and it was pretty tough with the iron stone in the Dale Mining District.  I later purchased a Garret ATX but only used it a few times and sold it for a variety of reasons.  It had great electronics but in a terrible package.  Also the falsing when bumping against anything would drive me nuts.  Anyway after 4 years of prospecting I got tired of digging trash and spending lonely nights in the dessert, so I gave it up.
I retired last year when I turned 60 and my wife and I moved from Scal to Mesquite, NV.  I recently purchased a SDC 2300 and thought I would give it a try again.  I still have the Gold Bug Pro with all 3 coils also.  Gold Basin is about a 3 hour drive and I plan to go there tuesday and return on thursday.  I use "Backcountry Navigator" on my tablet for maps and gps navigation.  I looked up the currently active claims on "thediggings.com" website and see they are pretty much clustered in the middle of the basin area.  It would be handy to have a gpx or kmz overlay map file of the active claims that I could load on my tablet but I don't know if something like that exists.  I prefer to detect on BLM land instead of claims and I don't mind getting remote and hiking.  This will be my first trip to GB and any pointers or advice would be appreciated.  I drive a brown 2010 Toyota Tundra double cab 4x4 long bed, with a color matched camper shell and NV plates,  in case any of you are in GB on the same days and would like to say Hi.
Regards,  Ceril      

The Florida Clan wanted to come for a visit and try some of that Arizona Sweet Tea.  Haven’t seen them all in a group for close to 30 years.  But, Robin’s and I trip started on Halloween Day from our home in Reno to Laughlin, NV.  That’s about as far as I can drive in a day!  We cut through Searchlight, NV and passed a couple washes I’d like to revisit.  Next morning we cut out to Wickenburg, AZ for a visit with Friends that just moved there a few months back.  Mike & Yvonne formally from Rural Oregon made the move to Wickenburg for the love of Team Roping and the Hunt for gold.  Didn’t take Mike long to find a Welcome to Arizona Patch which currently is close to a 2-oz patch! (Below in my hand are the fat ones).  Mike took me when we arrived to their home for a short swing!  It was a hill side small drainage wash that feed into the big wash.  I explored the patch and several nearby spots in the Reno Summer like temperature of 87 degrees.  I was roasting when I noticed a Cholla stuck to my Boot which I removed with 2 rocks with a dozen or more of its spears stuck deep into the leather!  Well 1/4 mile more and they worked their way thru the leather and now poking my foot!  We had to leave with no tools to remove needles.  Well off to my Folks and a week of fun with my Family traveling the sights from the Grand Canyon, Sedona and Tombstone.  Heading back we stopped at Mike & Yvonne’s again for a longer hunt and then hit the local Rodeo grounds for dinner and some cold beers.   Again, it was more than warm for this Northern Nevada guy.  We seen some likely hills with some colors we liked.  I was 3 gullies over (1/2 mile). I just worked up the side hill wash to the top of the hill and swung over to the next wash to work down it and repeat.  I heard Mike say, hey the old timers worked this one!  Sure enough old dry wash piles.  I was up at the head of the wash and he was midway swing up.  I pulled a dink nugget out and then Mike got on a string of nuggets.  Sure there was some trash, but there’s 9 little nuggets the old timers left us!  We know there is more to find at this spot, but water was getting real low and cold beer was at the Rodeo Grounds.  Off we went leaving the new patch to catch it’s breath after a 30 minute beating.  There’s still plenty of ground to explore in this old placer area(s) of Morristown!  What a great Vacation and yes, we are home to nice and cool Reno 😂. Until the Next Hunt
LuckyLundy

I bought a house in meadview about 4 years ago.  Every couple months when I go there I try to get over to gold basin to do some detecting or drywashing.  It took me a couple years to find my first nugget out there and its been a couple of years since then and I havent found another.  I swing an SDC and I've read people have done pretty good out there with that model.  I find plenty of lead and boot tacks a inch or two down but not much deeper than that.   What settings are people using out there?  How deep down are people finding the gold?  Would I be better off with a  different model that can go deeper?  I'm not very confident in my abilities since I learned this machine on my own and have only found 2 pieces in the 4 years and dozens of times I've used it.  Any advice would be appreciated. 

This is an interesting little story about Mineral Park, Arizona.  It tells about a geologist who was told to find ore or be fired.  There is a bit of history about fine gold recovery also.
https://kdminer.com/news/2021/feb/06/mohave-county-geology-concentrate/ 

Hello Everyone,
   First, wishing you all a Merry Christmas and Happy New year, it's less than a week away.  
I haven't been out much, nor doing any videos.  I figured I probably need to toss something on my YouTube Channel before I lost all my Subscribers.... LOL This spot a friend and I have been working on and off for over a year.  It's a dry wash bottom and we are placering it.  We are removing the large boulders and gravel and trying to work the bedrock for nuggets.  In some spots we have attempted to vacuum up the gravels on bedrock and dry wash them, but to be honest the results were not hot.  Sometimes when you're into large gold nuggets, you don't have a ton of fine gold.  I'm not honestly sure if it was to do with the particular mining district and geology, but over the years we never found a lot of fine gold or small flakes/pickers to make it worth all the effort of Dry washing.  
It's seems more productive for the time we have to work it, to just expose as much bedrock as possible and metal detect it very well.  We normally use the GPZ 7000 or GPX 5000 as the primary detectors to cover the bedrock, but will pass back over the same areas much slower with the Minelab Gold Monster 1000.  That being said, we normally don't miss much, as the small gold is just not there and the Gold Monster really don't clean up much.  
Well enough of the chit chat, here is the video.  Hope you enjoy, if so, Subscribe to our YouTube Channel after watching to follow us.  
P.S.  Nugget ended up being just shy of 1/4 ounce.  Very dense, sluggy nugget gold is this area.