Feel Like Selling My Machine....

[nighthunter]

I've had a detector since I was about 9 years old. I got my first "bigger one" from Radio Shack as a gift when I was 14 (big nerd). That was all relic type hunting at the beach. parks, etc.. I was then out of it for most of my adult life until I got a Garrett 1150 in 2010 and did more beach combing around the LA area. I stopped over time with the trash on those beaches being overwhelming after a while.

I got the bug to start looking into gold a few years ago, and I do a lot of 4x4 exploring with some serious equipent so it seems like a great combo. I researched all forums, reviews, videos etc for a year straight. I went to gold shows, in Vegas and SoCal. Sat in on lectures and asked guru's lots of questions. and 6 months of thinking and studying more, I finally got a deal on a GPX5000 with a great coil package.

I'm just now getting back from another trip to gold claims run by AMRA and another small prospecting group Im a member of and I'm starting to get that feeling... The one where you want to give up after digging countless holes and getting nothing back but bullets and junk. I think I got my technique down as Im finding even tiny bullet fragments and pellets. Never a nugget of any kind.

What do you guys do if/when you feel tired from trash? Do you ever team up with someone that has had luck? lol maybe that's a stupid question because who would share good location ideas!? I do all the suggested things Ive read here. I went to a few old gold mines as well but the bullets, WOW... one had 1000's of shells everywhere so i just left. in fact two guys pulled up when i was leaving with rifles and targets. ENDLESS lead in the ground there. Same with the others I ran into.

I dont know anymore. I've spent countless hours out there since, from NoCal around Placerville to Nevada to Mojave. The claims I hit are all full of junk to the point where some would take a year of digging to find anything, to others that never hit on a thing other than a rare nail or washer, with one wire being about like a human hair! (the 5000 with a nugget finder is sensitive !)

I need to rethink what Im doing I guess. I can't afford the fuel to keep randomly driving down miles of rough roads and hours of highway. Either it's all dug out and I wasted a lot of my savings and need to sell it, or I need to figure out a whole different way of finding places and/or team up with someone more experienced on the gold side of things to share ideas with. And yes I study maps of old mines, join gold clubs and even try to figure out what western US region people are in that post youtube clips of finds... but so far, nothing, and I'm all out of gas money for the month.

Pic samples of my "success" so far!

 

 

 

 

 

[IDdesertman]

That isn't an excessive amount of trash. I assure you, even the best detectorists out there are digging loads of trash. For some areas, the pics above would be an "easy day". You have to dig that stuff to get to the gold. With that said, I probably wouldn't hunt an area that people are using as a shooting range. Putting on the hiking boots and getting a good distance from roads is a good way to cut down on modern trash. 

I would recommend you stop ranging hundreds of miles to find gold. Find a gold district near where you live, hunt there and learn it. You don't have to go all over CA and NV, driving hundreds of miles in search of the "happy hunting grounds." I would guess that there are plenty of nuggets much closer to you and you can save your gas money.

Good luck, I know it can be frustrating not finding gold. It is out there though. 

[Desert Dawg]

You need to be on known placers, areas where gold has been found before of detectible size. Even if its old beat up patches that is better than out hunting just anywhere. Takes much research sometimes to find a decent area to nugget hunt. Not many places have nuggets next to the surface in the ground. Old timer workings with tailing piles from drywashers is also a good area to search out.  If it was easy everybody would be very successful at it. Its not easy. Also I would concentrate on more remote areas with less access to cut down on trash.

Lode mines are not the best areas to be detecting as there is much metal scrap scattered around, and most if not all the gold will be deep in the ground in such spots unless there are some tailing piles with ore dug from the mine. Stick with known placer surface gold locations and the more remote the better to help with the trash situation. Placer areas will sometimes have large dozer scrapes where soil has been hauled off to process if it was mined. These type areas can contain gold.

[Alluminati]

Go to the beach.

[nighthunter]

I'm well aware it takes time, which is what I've given and keep giving. I found a lot more than that, the pics are just a sample... The AMRA claim toward the NV boarder had 50x that amount in nothing but bullets, for example.

I have learned to stay away from the crazy big targets too but bullets can't be ignored, especially pellets and bb's which seems to be really close to gold in behavior.

Finding that closer producing area with known history is the issue I guess. Not sure where else to confirm that kind of thing since people are sometimes overly protective of a known area... as in, not even mentioning the region they found something in. I think that's taking it a little far. Im far from the famous Rye Patch area and am not aware of other rich spots near SoCal region, other than vague reports of finding a hot spot "in SoCal"....

[LuckyLundy]

NightHunter,

Very sound info in the posts above!  Find your closest placer to home and spend all your time there learning it!  Don’t be afraid, to ask other Prospectors in that area questions.  Clubs you join, maybe just clubs and they sit around camp most the day...find the most knowledgeable person in one of your club and take a few notes or a pointy finger to help you out in your quest for your 1st nugget!  Even though you have a GPX 5000, your setting maybe wrong for the soil conditions of that placer.  If you’ve read a few of my last posts there isn’t many easy duck shallow nuggets in old beat up placers.  And if your in a shooting range, move no need digging more bullets.  Like Phrunt, mentioned only dig small sounding targets, hit under brush, bushes and trees. Swing your coil like your shoe laces are tied together, very slow if you think your in a good spot.  You aren’t the first detectorist in the old placers and your looking for the leftovers which will be the smallest of signals that a slow coil will give you the best chance of hearing it...good set of headphones too... become one with your detector!  If that doesn’t work by the end of Winter, get a hold of me in Spring and I’ll tap my foot on some lucky dirt to bust your skunk!

LuckyLundy

[Lunk]

One method that works in trashy areas is to only dig the mellow, deeper sounding targets, as most of the trash is relatively shallow. 

[Hard Prospector]

Mix things up a bit by getting a drywasher and start shoveling. A puffer will damn near catch everything. Use your detector to go over your tailings   most of my nuggets have come from the header piles. Much more fine gold in the desert placers then coarse or nuggets. A few grams a day , in the tray at the end of the day can sure re-set enthusiasm.

[Norvic]

LL hit it check out close to home, I`m in OZ but in an area that was not known for detectable size gold, for many years back up to 40 years ago I travelled lots of distance and did OK but then as close to home is an old gold field that was reef or lode gold but had no alluvials (placers). So on weekends just a 1/2 hour drive away I started detecting away from all those rubbish infested old reef mining sites and followed the faults direction where no mining was carried out anyway long story shortened many years later I`m still wandering over that "fringe" country and whilst there is very little rubbish occasionally I`ll  find a broken down shed or some nuggets in the creeks and very little rubbish. Lots of frustrating days spent getting nothing not even rubbish but it works, instead of following where everyone goes, rarely seeing another detector operator I`ve found the backyard the go and learnt to prospect rather then fossick. Maybe this doesn`t apply to your area or to the US, but my area had ten times plus its present population back in 1800, all mining.

[beatup]

Trash is part of the game some days it is all that you find when in those areas i do like Lunk said keep your ears tuned to those good mellow sounding targets,that to will take practice but if you keep with it you will be rewarded with the good stuff .