Headed For The Land Down Under

[mn90403]

Fred,

I'm following the game plan.  We are going to be out there early and avoid a few showers.  Adam and Elusive want gold too.  They have spots they've thought about for weeks that we are going to detect today.  I'm Adam's wingman.  I can't be with better blokes now!

I went through the day of 'panic' on Friday to make sure I had done all of my shopping.  I think I have enough of that stuff done so I don't have to stop detecting.  It is just logistics now of being at our meeting spot in a couple of hours.

I know it's not over until it's over.  Thanks for keeping me focused.

Mitchel

 

[mn90403]

Well, Elusive got us again.  He showed us that there is gold there with a 2300 finding one little specie and one tiny grain.  

Good work I'd say.  Adam and I were rewarded with a nice long day of detecting!

More tomorrow and the next day and then homeward bound.

[Rivers rat]

2 minutes ago, mn90403 said:

Well, Elusive got us again.  He showed us that there is gold there with a 2300 finding one little specie and one tiny grain.  

Good work I'd say.  Adam and I were rewarded with a nice long day of detecting!

More tomorrow and the next day and then homeward bound.

Hi Just my 2 cents I never used a 2300 before my trip yes I used 5904765430280865085 metal detectors and I do have 1 PI a Goldscan 5c modded for beaches (originally bought for OZ) after 10 minutes in the gold fields I managed to find targets I had 10 non ferrous on the 1st day (more like afternoon)  of course I was surprised of how easy it was to use , but the coil position the lousy arm cup and the headphones were,  annoying and after 11min of use I was already thinking of how to improve it .

This machine is I think the best starter PI .Will I buy one if I was to detect more in OZ YES

 

RR

[mn90403]

The 2300 is a champ here on the mullock piles.  The plan is easy when detecting with one.

You see a pile and you work it.  You go on to the next hole/pile and you work that too.  It finds teeny, tiny gold.  That is what is left on the heaps.  They've been hit so many times with big guns that it is not much of a play for size or quantity in my learned opinion.

I wonder what the percentage of undetected mullock piles there would be!  Some not on the maps and a distance from a road or a few on private land.

[Rivers rat]

1 minute ago, mn90403 said:

The 2300 is a champ here on the mullock piles.  The plan is easy when detecting with one.

You see a pile and you work it.  You go on to the next hole/pile and you work that too.  It finds teeny, tiny gold.  That is what is left on the heaps.  They've been hit so many times with big guns that it is not much of a play for size or quantity in my learned opinion.

I wonder what the percentage of undetected mullock piles there would be!  Some not on the maps and a distance from a road or a few on private land.

I agree I came to the same conclusion,we drove we try and found only tiny bits.If I was to move there I will get and electric bike and off we go ,but as you mentioned a lot of spots have been detect,sieved ,dug,mined etc.....I have to admit our Ozzie friend did a good job there!

Never detected(prospected)  in the US so not too sure :) one day maybe

 

RR

[mn90403]

I'll tell a story from today.

We are working a 'patch' that has had recent finds.  Much of the ground has been scrapped but it is good looking ground.  There is a layer of leaves and branches on it and a bit of top soil but very thin.  When you dig a target you end of scrapping down about 2 inches and you are on gravel.  There are some areas of red clay.

There have been scrapes and dig holes from others and marks left indicating the area has been worked and we know someone who has found a multi-grammer there in the last few weeks.  In short it is 'good ground' that is shallow and detectable.  With all of these good conditions the only thing the three of find during the day is bbs.  There are dozens and dozens of them.  Whoever detected the place with their 5000 had to have ignored the bb sounds to get their gold.

I'm detecting an area with my pocket full of bbs and then I get a deeper sound.  I scrape and it is still there.  I work the hole and it really is sounding good.

 

The ground is hard and the target is getting louder.  I think finally, I'm going to get a deep one.  What could it be but I have to remain skeptical even tho I'm not on worked ground.  No one is around so I keep digging.

I've got a pretty good hole going here now and I'm getting down into the roots!  It reminds me of some of those videos digging into the hard ground and clay.

I have to take a break and maybe go get some help.

Then as I start to walk to get help I see an awful thing in front of me.  It is a pile of old cans.  Oh, no ... trash ... I can't waste their time with my dig I have to finish digging and let them detect their own nuggets.

I return to my 'marked' hole.

The target is near.  I have to finish it and see what it is.  I'm afraid I'm going to hit it with the pick so I pry up towards the center where it is now booming.  The clay flipps up and I scoop out the hole and the target is out.

Then I see the sad truth.  The best sound I had all day and in several days to be truthful is not gold.

I

It is a bullet!  I'm sad.  How could a bullet be that deep in the ground?  Why is it there?  There was a chance it could have been a nice nugget at that depth but everything changed.  I was not going to have a multigram nugget to show and tell.

Later when describing it to Elusive I said as bad as I felt it did give me a good feeling that if any time during my trip I had been over a piece of gold that size (5g or so) I would have heard it.  That is a terrible consolation for finding a bullet where a nugget should have been but that's detecting.

This happened about 10 in the morning so I was helped by this knowledge all day.

[Northeast]

1 hour ago, mn90403 said:

good feeling that if any time during my trip I had been over a piece of gold that size (5g or so) I would have heard it.

Spot on ?

Tuesday is ounce day!!!!!!!  Bring it on  ?

[geof_junk]

2 hours ago, mn90403 said:

It is a bullet!  I'm sad.  How could a bullet be that deep in the ground?  Why is it there?  There was a chance it could have been a nice nugget at that depth

In the early 1980's during our training period some of us used a peg to put a hole in the ground and hammer a 22 cal bullet  into the hole till we got a very soft signal. Then we got our mate to mark out a 10 foot square that contained the 22  and hide the hole. When we taught others we used up to 3 bullet in the square and get them to test square. A lot of newbies would take several goes to get even one of them. After this training most found gold but there was more gold to find.   

[flakmagnet]

I am betting your best gold is waiting for you on these last days. 

[mn90403]

Waiting is a BIG word!  Most directors don't have any real suspense about the ending.  Oftentimes the final scenes are shot in a film before the end but this play doesn't yet have its final scenes written but it must end.

I hope the bullet ending is replaced with a better one.  That would 'allow' for a retelling of the entire story.  It would be like our current fad of revisionist history.  You don't tell it the way it happens you project on what was or could have been better and then the facts are colored to set up the conclusion.  History becomes fictional but not in this case.

Many of my thoughts and faults are preserved in real time but even my entire experience hinges on the final couple of days.