Question About Tailings Piles

[Jesse]

Wow, thanks everyone for the solid info! I researched the area and nuggets were found but the area was worked multiple times, definitely worth a shot though.

[Gold Catcher]

Steve, do you usually use a PI for tailing piles? I completely agree that tiling piles are worth while looking for, just not  with a PI or ZVT in my experience given how trashy most of the piles are (at least where I hunt)

[Gold Catcher]

Yes, I use the gold monster. Equinox is a good idea, unfortunately I don't have one. What I find mostly here is tons of iron trash, mostly  tiny bits of screen wires (hair thin), drywasher nails, etc. Without meter and chasing down every bit of trash with the Zed is a complete nightmare. However, the GM has brought me look although not anywhere close to the pounds of gold that Steve found.

[alaskaseeker]

A nice RAKE is your friend, arrange, the tailings to suit your detecting.....Another thing, when you start seeing sharp blocky chunks in dredge tailings, you know that is bedrock that has been dug, this is what excites me......Remember low and slow, move stuff around...

[Steve Herschbach]

10 hours ago, Gold Catcher said:

Steve, do you usually use a PI for tailing piles? I completely agree that tiling piles are worth while looking for, just not  with a PI or ZVT in my experience given how trashy most of the piles are (at least where I hunt)

I have used both VLF detectors and PI detectors extensively to hunt tailings. Yeah, I dig junk like you would not believe. A GPX 5000 with an 18” mono is a nail finding monster.

Click Steve’s Journal below in my signature line and look for Ganes Creek, Moore Creek, and Jack Wade Creek stories. The bottom line is simple. VLF is great until the gold plays out, then you have to go to PI or go somewhere else.

[Gold Catcher]

Thanks, Steve. Perhaps I just got unlucky the first dozens of times or so when digging tailings piles. Amazing how much trash I found. But I just got my GM recently and was using only PI before, so starting with VLF with iron meter and then switching to PI is the smarter choice for tailings piles, as you suggest.

[WesD]

I dont find tailing piles necessarily any more trashy than bedrock, in Californias Motherload country from Mariposa to Downieville. 

If in a super trashy site, I move on looking for something more detector friendly. Old diggings have trashy areas and less trashy areas. Find those with less trash and party on.. 

 

[Jim McCulloch]

But then again.... Highly trashy sites at KNOWN productive sites are relatively unworked sites, as least as far as M.D."s are concerned. "If you don't dig trash, ya' ain't gonna dig gold neither" Woody Woodworth used to say. "Gotta pay yer dues."

[Jim McCulloch]

Case in point: Woody drywashed in the El Paso Mountains during the Depression. In 1977, when the first VLF's came out, he returned to his old workings. Detecting a wash, the first banging signal was a 30's era can. "Probably one I discarded" he mused. So were the next 5. Target signal number 7 was like the previous, and he was tempted to ignore it. But he dug it anyway. A nice 3 oz slug of the Most Happy Yellow Metal. Lesson learned: dig it all. Even at trashy sites. Especially at known productive sites. During his auriferous career, "Friend Woody" likely filled several dumpster loads with trash, but he also filled several gallon buckets with nuggets. 

[flakmagnet]

To be honest, I don't dig everything…and I sometimes have incredible second thoughts about it. But I do dig most targets, especially the unusual sounding ones as well as the 'good sounding' ones and the ear-busters.

As I mentioned in another thread, the almost two ounce piece I found at 14" could have been found with a Radio Shack detector and it almost blew my headphones off.