Friday 13th Nugget At Rye Patch

[mn90403]

Let me catch up on a couple of nugget pictures.

That is the bigger one weighed.  It is a nice little chunk and that is the other side of it.

The second nugget I found was after traveling a few hundred miles, a couple of nights away and going back to the same general area where I found the first one.  I got out of the car and walked about 40 feet and heard a target.  It was this little nugget.  I gridded this area for the next three hours before the wind got me and didn't find any more.

That's it for the nuggets.  

I'll include more about this trip and I have a couple of other threads I want to start or add to.

This is a little nugget of something I found.  I'm going to get someone to shoot it with a XRF and see for sure.  It was found at a site that had both gold and silver.  I didn't find any gold.

[Gerry in Idaho]

I can't believe I missed those two nuggies.  Well you certainly had your travel time in so realistically you earned them.

Thanks for sharing the story and photos. 

Hopefully we'll score a couple on the last training class I'll be doing for 2019 (coming up soon).

BTW.  What settings did you use this time out there?

[mn90403]

Gerry,

I hope you will have a good training session.  The very interesting part was that on the Friday when I got up the 2.37g nugget was my first target.  After my travels later on Friday, Saturday and Sunday (I needed to see what I was researching) I spent the night in the Eugenes.  I didn't find anything there from sun up until 9 AM so I took off for the burn barrel again.

My first target when I got there (near where I found the other nugget but on the other side of the road) was that little nugget.

I started Thursday with Lunk's settings with some adjustment to the sensitivity.  I didn't detect on the training hill but places near and also not on 20.  I kept those settings for most of Friday also.

The Monday nugget was found with low smoothing.  I was beginning to experiment with Locate Patch on and normal/difficult because there were a couple of places with ground groan.  I was willing to let a little more noise get into my headphones as time went on.  Maybe I should have done that in Australia as well.

Mitchel

[cobill]

On 9/14/2019 at 10:52 PM, mn90403 said:

Lucky Friday the 13th full moon nugget.  I gridded that area for half the day and only found trash.  I don't think I would have that nugget now if it had been in the reverse order.  I found the clue early and gridded.  If I would have found trash, trash, trash without a clue I probably would have moved on.  I discovered a couple of things while looking for more in that area but they will be put into another post.

It is my only nugget of the 3 days so far but I'm seeing some new to me patches.  More travel tomorrow while the temperature is up.

Mitchel

Mitchel, 

Great story and beautiful nugget! I'm heading out next month to Rye Patch and was wondering what clues and other things you discovered in the burn barrel area. Been there many times and only found nuggets on other patches. Need some new tips from successful nugget hunters.

Bill

[mn90403]

I have been to the burn barrel many times and hunted it without success many times also.  There is an adage that says 'no one gets it all' and that is true.  I also believe that some areas are effectively hunted out.  This means you can't go out and still find something in a reasonable amount of time.

My advice is mix up your locations as you seem to be doing.  Look at your Google Maps and Earth, pick out some open ground and put some pins on it and when you get to Rye Patch ... hunt it.  When you leave you can say 'I hunted that section or area' and don't do it again the next trip!

If quantity is important or necessary in your gold pursuit then I would say Rye Patch is a place you don't want to hunt.  If you want a 'trophy' Rye Patch nugget or look for a chevron then continue the hunt.

I started going there in 2011 and I thought there was not much gold there then but a lot has been found.  Gerry continues to give lessons around the burn barrel and some gold is still found.  I've done outings there and seen the 2300 come along, the 7000 and some other innovations and people gridded in all directions from the burn barrel and found missed gold and some unseen gold.

People that live closer than I do have been pushing and pulling at that dirt for a long time and when you hear their stories and you see the placers you know there were hundreds of ounces taken off of those flats.  I'm still at less than an ounce total for all my trips but I'm getting close.

There are better people than me to ask about where to go.  They sometimes say something but most times don't.  At least they don't say anything to me!

Mitchel

[GB_Amateur]

2 hours ago, mn90403 said:

There are better people than me to ask about where to go.  They sometimes say something but most times don't.  At least they don't say anything to me!

Thanks for reminding me of my younger days when I was getting dumped:  "it's not you, but..." 😢

 

[Trent King]

On 9/20/2019 at 10:51 AM, mn90403 said:

Gerry,

I hope you will have a good training session.  The very interesting part was that on the Friday when I got up the 2.37g nugget was my first target.  After my travels later on Friday, Saturday and Sunday (I needed to see what I was researching) I spent the night in the Eugenes.  I didn't find anything there from sun up until 9 AM so I took off for the burn barrel again.

My first target when I got there (near where I found the other nugget but on the other side of the road) was that little nugget.

I started Thursday with Lunk's settings with some adjustment to the sensitivity.  I didn't detect on the training hill but places near and also not on 20.  I kept those settings for most of Friday also.

The Monday nugget was found with low smoothing.  I was beginning to experiment with Locate Patch on and normal/difficult because there were a couple of places with ground groan.  I was willing to let a little more noise get into my headphones as time went on.  Maybe I should have done that in Australia as well.

Mitchel

Good to see your on the gold Mitchel, bad to see you still doing the same thing as in Aus, stick to a spot mate and get all the gold instead of wasting time driving around the country!  👍🍻😂

[cobill]

On 9/14/2019 at 10:52 PM, mn90403 said:

I found the clue early and gridded.  If I would have found trash, trash, trash without a clue I probably would have moved on.  I discovered a couple of things while looking for more in that area but they will be put into another post.

Mitchel, 

Guess I should have been clearer. What were the clues and discoveries of things while you were looking?

I have attended 3 of Gerry's training classes (2 at Rye Patch (one with the 7000 was a total rain/snow event) and 1 in OR.). I know you were at one of those classes, but took off detecting in Sec 17. Beyond the obvious exposed bedrock, iron stained quartz, pyrite cubes and salty areas...not much else on what to look for was passed along to the attendees. I've found a few grams at RP, gridded some ground on my claims this year and got skunked...it's getting harder to locate a good signal.

Bill

[mn90403]

One of the things I 'discovered' after I found the nugget was the nearby push.  (Gerry's instructors know about them over the last 20 years!)  It was a more recent push (which there have been many) but I didn't find it until I was further gridding the area.  I know some people go out there and look for the 'push areas' first.  I've done that too but not all pushes produced gold.

Some pushes just pushed trash off the top.  (But they still pushed there for a reason)  It made it detectable.  You would have to be a pushee/pusher in order to know the results.  Some people like to hunt push piles.  I often times skip them but maybe I shouldn't?

Another 'discovery' that I made while in that area of the nugget was my scooping technique may be faulty.  If I scoop a target into my scoop and wave it over the coil I hear it.  I reduce it by half and still hear a target so I keep going until I am left with just one target.  What occurred to me was ... 'what if I started with 3 nuggets in the scoop?'  If I still have a signal in the scoop, could there also be one or two in my hand?  Or if there are no nuggets in the scoop and I toss that portion away could there still be more than one nugget/target.  Of course there was because in this case I was dealing with can slaw.

I haven't lost much sleep over tossing out nuggets but it could happen.  Someone who gets on multiple nuggets in a hole more often than I do will have to be careful with the discard technique.

I'll try to remember if there was something else ... haha

[flakmagnet]

That's why before filling in their hole, most people run their detector over the dig hole and the throw-outs after extracting their find. It's a good habit to develop.