Hello From So Cal

[GotAU?]

Hello feom Southern California!  I’m a returnee to metal detecting after a 45-year hiatus when I used to play with an old Heathkit MD I bought at a garage sale when I was a kid,. Wow, has the technology changed!  My background has been doing fieldwork for environmental consulting work (construction monitoring), and I have a degree in biology and minor in geology.  My wife and I are rock hounds, so we go camping a lot to collect rocks and minerals for fun on desert BLM lands.  As a biologist, I’ve also worked with bats and have done a lot of mine surveys in the Mojave and Great Basin.  Working underground has been a really interesting part of the job as I am a western US history buff as well.  So it was only natural for me to be into looking for gold too.  Ok, so back to MD’ing.... my interest is in finding pretty minerals that are shiny, as well as meteorites in the Mojave.  I recently bought a detector, and am really enjoying learning to use it. I’d really like to thank you guys for helping out with all that as I’ve learned a lot by reading all the materials on this site about it.

Cheers,

Anthony

[BeachHunter]

Welcome to the forum Anthony. This post got by us. Your work and background with a special interest in collecting minerals is a very cool thing. My interest was in turquoise. Good luck!

[GotAU?]

5 hours ago, BeachHunter said:

Welcome to the forum Anthony. This post got by us. Your work and background with a special interest in collecting minerals is a very cool thing. My interest was in turquoise. Good luck!

Thank you for the welcome. This forum is really interesting, and I’ve been enjoying reading some of the old posts.  I have to admit, I really regret not doing this earlier because I’ve been to a lot of sites where I could have, would have, and should have done some detecting on my free time while I was out there. Well, at least I know they’re still out there - I just have to get going!

 

By the way, turquoise is just gorgeous. Do you do anything with it or keep it in its natural state?

[BeachHunter]

I have some in its natural untreated/stabilized state where one is about 350 carats as well as some cabs for setting in silver. I made a lot of silver jewelry in the 70’s/80’s and set the polished cabs into those creations.

[jim tn]

Hi Anthony...and welcome. I'm pretty new to this forum, too. Love anything shinny myself. HH jim tn

[Joe D.]

Hey Anthony, 

Welcome!! I too took a much to long 30 + year break from detecting! Got back to it in 2015! Mostly beach and parks (Florida), but when I'm out of state, I'm always picking up some kind of rocks, and minerals!

I visited Carlsbad Caverns (loved the evening bat flight), the Petrified Forest Park, Painted Desert, Grand Canyon, and many more spots when i was younger, and loved the camping, and hunting around! 

Let us know what detector(s) you all have! Good hunting!!👍👍

 

[GotAU?]

2 hours ago, Joe D. said:

Hey Anthony, 

Welcome!! I too took a much to long 30 + year break from detecting! Got back to it in 2015! Mostly beach and parks (Florida), but when I'm out of state, I'm always picking up some kind of rocks, and minerals!

I visited Carlsbad Caverns (loved the evening bat flight), the Petrified Forest Park, Painted Desert, Grand Canyon, and many more spots when i was younger, and loved the camping, and hunting around! 

Let us know what detector(s) you all have! Good hunting!!👍👍

 

Thanks for the welcome!  I picked up a ML GM1000 as I am just starting out, and am most interested in gold and meteorites out here in the desert where I live.  Haven’t had much time yet to use it properly enough though, as always!
 

I did manage a few hours to visit a couple gold prospects in my area, and found mostly bird shot and iron flakes - probably from the picks and other tools being used to break up some quartz veins I found nearby. No gold though...  as the prospects were shallow, I guess they played out quickly (they were listed on the BLM mine register).  My next real trip I plan to go on is to check out the Rand Mountains near Randsburg in the NW Mojave- getting out to this popular gold hunting site will be a successful day, and a better one if I even get some tiny flakes of color!

[Gold Catcher]

Welcome to the forum, Anthony. This is great place for discussing everything related to detecting and for sharing experiences and ask questions. You will find all skill sets and backgrounds here from around the world, from beginners, coin hunters, adventurers, all the way up to professional detectorists who can tell you everything about  techniques and machine that are out there. Many of us have found good gold over the years and decades and we all share the passion of prospecting and being out in nature. The Mojave desert is a fantastic place to hunt and it has many known and less known gold areas where you can still find decent nuggets. However, you need to be patient. It took me close to a year to find my first tiny little gold nugget after I bought my very first detector (GB2) many years back. So, be prepared to deal with a lot of frustration at the beginning. Most of the times, we all dig trash in every form and shape imaginable including nails, bullets, casings, wires, tin pieces and thousands of other things that are metal. However, sometimes you also find pieces of value or of historical interest, like coins or spear tips, just to name a few. My single most important advice (other than being extremely patient) is to really learn the inside out of your machine and familiarize yourself with all the settings. Every small piece of trash that you find is a sign that you can find small metal items and this should encourage you. When you have a target, play with the settings before digging it up and learn all the different noises your machine is making. The "golden" rule is to dig every single target (which I highly recommend!), but sometimes the way the detector sounds can give you some clues, especially regarding hotrocks. Also, the GM has an iron meter that can be helpful. But don't rely on it too much as it often can fool you. There is a great youtube video that my good friend Bill Southern put up where he explains everything there is to know about the gold monster: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_OJW9HMvQ48&t=658s

He also has a great channel that I can highly recommend.

Making research is a key component, I use Minecache and USGS geological maps (both in Google Earth) as my main research tools, but there are many other research tools available include books that describe placer gold districts in your area. It is a mistake to just go out in the desert and start detecting (although sometimes you can be lucky). Rather, find out where gold has been found, what deposits there are, when it was found and why, was it lode or placer, what are the associated rocks and minerals that come with it, are there tertiary channels, etc. Alot of these research techniques are described in good prospecting books, I can recommend you some if you like.

Good luck and enjoy your machine and your new hobby. I warn you though: once you find your first nugget you will forever be hooked on finding gold . You will start spending ridiculous amounts of money on fancy gold detectors and equipment, you will sit over maps day and night to plan your new trips, you will likely alienate yourself from your family who will fear for your mental sanity, and you will be obsessed for the rest of your life by the magic that gold has. Be warned, you can still go back now! :)

 

 

[GotAU?]

On 2/11/2020 at 5:32 AM, Gold Catcher said:

Welcome to the forum, Anthony. This is great place for discussing everything related to detecting and for sharing experiences and ask questions. You will find all skill sets and backgrounds here from around the world, from beginners, coin hunters, adventurers, all the way up to professional detectorists who can tell you everything about  techniques and machine that are out there. Many of us have found good gold over the years and decades and we all share the passion of prospecting and being out in nature. The Mojave desert is a fantastic place to hunt and it has many known and less known gold areas where you can still find decent nuggets. However, you need to be patient. It took me close to a year to find my first tiny little gold nugget after I bought my very first detector (GB2) many years back. So, be prepared to deal with a lot of frustration at the beginning. Most of the times, we all dig trash in every form and shape imaginable including nails, bullets, casings, wires, tin pieces and thousands of other things that are metal. However, sometimes you also find pieces of value or of historical interest, like coins or spear tips, just to name a few. My single most important advice (other than being extremely patient) is to really learn the inside out of your machine and familiarize yourself with all the settings. Every small piece of trash that you find is a sign that you can find small metal items and this should encourage you. When you have a target, play with the settings before digging it up and learn all the different noises your machine is making. The "golden" rule is to dig every single target (which I highly recommend!), but sometimes the way the detector sounds can give you some clues, especially regarding hotrocks. Also, the GM has an iron meter that can be helpful. But don't rely on it too much as it often can fool you. There is a great youtube video that my good friend Bill Southern put up where he explains everything there is to know about the gold monster: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_OJW9HMvQ48&t=658s

He also has a great channel that I can highly recommend.

Making research is a key component, I use Minecache and USGS geological maps (both in Google Earth) as my main research tools, but there are many other research tools available include books that describe placer gold districts in your area. It is a mistake to just go out in the desert and start detecting (although sometimes you can be lucky). Rather, find out where gold has been found, what deposits there are, when it was found and why, was it lode or placer, what are the associated rocks and minerals that come with it, are there tertiary channels, etc. Alot of these research techniques are described in good prospecting books, I can recommend you some if you like.

Good luck and enjoy your machine and your new hobby. I warn you though: once you find your first nugget you will forever be hooked on finding gold . You will start spending ridiculous amounts of money on fancy gold detectors and equipment, you will sit over maps day and night to plan your new trips, you will likely alienate yourself from your family who will fear for your mental sanity, and you will be obsessed for the rest of your life by the magic that gold has. Be warned, you can still go back now! 🙂

 

 

Hello,

Thanks for the welcome and this very helpful post!  I have been reading up on this for a while here on this site and others, watching Bill Southern on YT (he’s the reason I finally went with a GM), reading Jim Straight’s books, and  browsing the Prospecting and Mining Journal for awhile, but never really started anything for it until recently.  We have been doing a lot of camping trips in the past where Detecting may have been successful, and now I want to go back to some of those places again.

I originally thought that Modern detectors were better at discriminating but boy was I wrong. I certainly will use everyone’s suggestions to dig everything, there’s a lot of examples online where people did just that and were successful.

modern detectors were better at discriminating but boy was I wrong. I certainly will use everyone’s suggestions to dig everything, there’s a lot of examples online where people did just that and were successful.

I would love to get more references for books, particularly if you know of any good ones that might help out in my region of Southern California. My immediate area is rather scarce, however there are some old prospects with abandoned claims that I can poke around in, plus a lot of old farm houses and other interesting historic places that I can also check out. I guess you’re right, I may end up looking for a second lower frequency detector to be able to look for artifacts as well. 
 

Also, I appreciate the warning! I’ve always loved looking at maps and this is another good reason to do it even more, they are just so interesting!  I am interested, what do you use for those online USGS minerals maps? I played around with the LR 2000 system and the free mylandmatters.org mapping platform online, but I haven’t seen the commercial one you mentioned. I think for now I should keep the annual subscription rate for it based on the amount of time I actually get out, but will  definitely check it out when and if I get to go prospecting a lot more!

Thanks again for your reply, that was really informative and please send me references if you have some good ones for books or other materials.

Cheers,

Anthony

[Gold Catcher]

Hi Anthony,

If you read Jim Straight's book you practically already know all bout metal detecting. He was a legend and one of his kind, I had the luck to meet him some years back before he sadly passed away. Check out the James Klein's book " Where to find gold in Southern California". It is a short but pretty comprehensive summary. I personally like the Randsburg area and the greater Big Bear area the best in the South, while the Pinto Mountains are mostly lode but have some placers as well. Don't trust discrimination, it is really only meant to help in areas that are so trashy that otherwise no detecting would be possible. My SDC and GPZ don't have any discrimination features, neither would I trust them. 

Good luck!

Andreas