Covering Ground Vs Going For Depth

[Steve Herschbach]

Jason made a comment on another thread about the virtues of not getting bogged down hunting small gold. I wanted to comment without getting off topic so here goes.

In my opinion big nuggets generally go to the first coil over them. They are big and so kind of hard for any good detector to miss.

Let's say there is a nugget that a detector can hit at 20". That means as long as any of those nuggets or larger exist in the top 20" you get them.

Now you go back and hunt with a machine that can hit those same nuggets to 24". The problem is for all intents and purposes you are now detecting only 4" of additional depth, and the odds of one of those targets being in 4" of ground is far less than the odds of one being in 20" of ground. And in fact due to the way many desert placers form, your odds are even worse because many desert placers get leaner the deeper you go. Those big deep nuggets of your imagination may just not be there, as has been proved by many (not all) failed bulldozer pushes.

There is therefore a lot to be said for Jason's method of covering lots of hopefully virgin ground fast with larger coils to go for the larger gold even if you give up some depth doing it. I spent much of my detecting career hunting like that. The problem is pretty simple. It is getting very hard to find virgin ground that has good enough gold for this method. Days if not weeks can pass between decent finds, making this only for people with lots of time and extreme patience.

My method now generally has shifted to cleanup mode. Hunting slowly and methodically chasing smaller gold with the GPZ with the idea that any deeper nuggets I get over will take care of themselves. Oftentimes for most well hunted areas that means only getting small gold but at least I am finding gold, and the GPZ hits about as small as anyone could wish. And if a larger one comes along I have high confidence I will nail it easily enough. As anyone can attest however, those big ones are getting very rare.

Novices in particular I have to recommend slow and careful, going for the small stuff. Finding gold, any gold at all, is an extremely important confidence builder and essential if the novice is not going to quit the game after only a few outings. If money is no object, there in my opinion is no surer way to get some gold than to get an SDC 2300 and go as slow and as methodically as possible with it. If you can't find gold with a 2300 you are in entirely the wrong locations, or electronic prospecting simply is not for you.

[fredmason]

So true, Steve;

I had visions of big, deep nuggets waiting for me and the gpz; they are still visions! Yes, for the amount of time I put into detecting I have found decent gold. Some of those nuggets were very deep but not the multi ounce giants I dreamed of. So, until I pass over that thumper (I know it is coming) I remain happy with one great detector that finds them small and finds them all...I hope.

fred

[Norvic]

Most of the time for me covering ground is the go over depth, because I mainly hunt virgin ridges, plus I cannot recall the indicator piece on a patch being over say an ounce, most times it is a sub grammer, it is when cleaning up patches I go for depth, where downhill below the smaller stuff on the ridges there is depth.

Going for one or the other depends on the country you are searching also, as the country I do has very few alluvials, ridges are the go but not always, I guess being flexible is the real go.

[DolanDave]

Hi Steve,

  I have had the same train of thought, going low and slow over pounded out areas, but a while back while I was hunting Gold Basin, (a real hard pounded out area), a young man I ran into was using a minelab, showed me the amount of gold found , and his method was go fast !!!  He found more gold in 1 weekend, than I found in the last 3-6 months going slow.  So I decided to put this to the test...and hunt fast. I found 3 times more gold hunting fast, so now I have stuck to this way of hunting. I still do the low and slow on washes I have already visited.

Dave

[Steve Herschbach]

I don't think any method is better than another per se - it is determined by the ground and therefore the opportunities you have available.

My motto - "Whatever Works"

[PeterInSa]

Re ( There is a lot to be said for Jason's method of covering lots of ground fast with larger coils to go for the larger gold.) Agree but I cannot do it with the Z14, Am Ok with the 45 and a large coil. 

[LipCa]

I don't know that much about PI coils but I was always under the belief that the further you got from the coil, the smaller the response area?

If that were true, when you are going fast and not overlapping (and overlapping again), wouldn't you have a good chance of not even hearing a big, deep target? 

[PeterInSa]

I think if I was going fast with the Z14 I would probably miss this "Zed Warble" signal.

 

http://www.detectingwestaustraliangold.com/t6055-7000-warble

[Steve Herschbach]

Going fast and getting maximum depth/full coverage to depth are mutually exclusive. You can do one or the other. I do agree that if I wanted to do the go fast, cover ground thing I would rather use a GPX.

I think some of it is a personal thing. Some people like zooming around. By nature I am more the methodical type so the GPZ and going slow suits my personal hunting style better.

[jasong]

That is one part of a philosophy I'm covering in a video series on my channel, what I feel is the way forward for new guys looking to get serious about successful prospecting in the US. The second part is that it doesn't just produce more gold but it also produces more "knowledge". With each nugget dug, that is one less indicator left in the ground for the next guy to find. 

Consider for a moment a virgin field and in that field are a number of patches. Each of those patches has exactly 1 nugget that is the "lead", or the first indicator for the original discoverer of that patch. That person takes some percentage of the nuggets, and he takes the knowledge of the location, along with the relevant geologic indicators that went along with the gold in that field. A prudent prospector then uses that knowledge to concentrate his efforts in more specific areas within that field or the next to find more patches rather than wasting time wandering around randomly.

Then the next guy comes along, finds his first nugget in the now not-virgin patch, and then takes more percentage of the nuggets out. And again, takes the knowledge. And uses that find more patches. And this continues until the patch is dead and both the gold and the knowledge that gold was there is gone.

The unlucky people that follow afterwards may never realize it was a patch, (no leads are left to even indicate he should spend more time there), may never make the connections between the local geology and the nugget size gold, may never realize where the gold is located due to the specific weathering/erosion in that location - unless someone else tells him. But a new guy can't expect help from anyone, he has to operate under the assumption that he will build this knowledge for himself, and I think the way to do it is to cover a lot of ground, dig a lot of gold, and figure out himself the before those chances are gone forever.

All that said, I don't completely ignore the small stuff, often they are the first indicators for a new area. But I don't sweat it either because IMO, that stuff is better left in the ground as "trimmings" for the lean days so that I don't lose confidence or lower my morale. When exploration leads to the skunk then I try to find an old patch to hit up for a few hours on the way home to grab a couple dinks and pay for gas.

Eventually of course, this approach won't be possible anymore and we are getting close to that day. But right now it is. So that's why I recommend to anyone just starting - take advantage of it while you can. I'm speaking as a guy who started with no prospecting friends or family, and in my detecting life only had 1 other person share a patch with me (he posted here). Almost every succesful US nuggethunter I've met (a few notable exceptions) have had friends, family, or company involvement which gave them advantages that the majority of greenhorns do not have nor will they ever have. So the approach for people like me when I start from nothing has to be more extreme to make up for that lack of knowledge.

Most the detactable gold (excluding Alaska) is within 4 hours of a city of a million people. The chance to do this won't last forever. I think it's a good idea to be ready to give something back when we are done because those that follow after us will have even less than we did when we started.