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In The Area You Hunt How Many Nuggets Does It Take To Find One At 10 Grams Or More In The Area You Hunt ?


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20 hours ago, Steve Herschbach said:

Some places have nothing but small gold, and you could hunt for ten years and never find a 10 gram nugget.

Yes…I am intimately acquainted with many places like that :ph34r: :laugh:

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If the area is known to produce larger nuggets, then pick spots that are full of trash, like many streams here in the Motherlode. Where there is trash, there is also likely gold still remaining, since trashy area's are usually avoided by detectorists (hence still tons of trash around). However, you need to have the stomach to detect in these areas, it can literally drive you insane. However, in case you indeed dare, the average for me is probably 100 pieces of trash for one nugget, including potentially bigger ones, but only very rarely > 10g size. On the other extreme, if you wander through a gold bearing desert, like a club claim, and you absolutely get no signal, then it has already been cleaned by other detectorists and you are too late to the party. Of course, you can try to be better and catch what they haven't, with better techniques and better equipment. Just don't go where JP has gone before 😉

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 "Where there is trash, there is also likely gold still remaining, since trashy area's are usually avoided by detectorists (hence still tons of trash around). "

Had a good run right up to the cans but had to stop here. 

p1011870.thumb.JPG.62c9b2ea3de421814994266b21274b6a.JPG

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17 minutes ago, geof_junk said:

Had a good run right up to the cans but had to stop here.

A very familiar picture! That definitely exceeds what I can tolerate. What I mean by "trashy" is more the invisible trash that you dig up. But yeah, if I have a hard time anywhere putting my detector down without my ears being blown away then it's truly hopeless. Unless you have a dozer to clean up first.

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We tried the rake but no good as there was to many small flakes as the ground was less than 6" deep the grader would of been no use. By the way the location was remote that the fuel for a bull dozer transport was out of the question an there were two large rewarding patches that I found within an hour of walking distance that needed our attention. These did not have many bits in the 1/4 to 1/2 oz range but some larger specimen more than made up for that as most were around the plus or minus gram size.  

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I live on the Far South NSW Coast AU and we mainly get the smaller nuggets in the 0.5 - 2.5 gram variety in the state forest around home.  Last year after the fires went trough here the bush just opened up and revealed gullies that I didnt know existed, even though I had worked that area many times but were hidden by the thick undergrowth.  In that window some really nice pieces came out in the 10 - 25 gram range with some lucky prospectors picking up pieces up to and including an ounce. 

Most of the gold here is through secondary alluvial deposits and reef gold.

speccie.jpg

My 10 gram nugget.jpg

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This is how I would answer your question in fishing terms.  If you want to fish for sunfish (Bluegill and Crappie), go to well known areas they are being caught and fish...then that is usually what you'll catch.  If you prefer to fish for 2 pound rainbow trout, do research and fish that area.  Chances are you'll catch some nice trout.  If you want to catch 5 pound brown trout, you need to go there.

In gold hunting areas.  All well known sites (such as Rye Patch, NV) the majority of detectable gold has already been found, but the tiny pickers are still there.  Even in 2021 I can find 20+ a day, but their sub grainers.  If I want to hit a 10 grammer, I'll pass up at Rye Patch and go to areas that have not been hunted as hard.  If I want 1+ oz'er, I prefer tailing piles in gold areas that had good size placer nuggets.  Research is the key to success of bigger gold.

At my stage of gold detecting career, I'll pass on 20/30 dinks = 1.5 to 2 grams just to find a couple bigger solid nuggets in the same day.  Now I have customers that are tickled pink with any gold no matter the size...and I am just as happy for them.

Hope this helps.

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