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OK, so not really a BIG adventure....I just like the title!? I decided the Zed needed to get out and play, so we headed to northern Nv for a week...skipped my usual Rye Patch, and hunted 3 other areas instead. My 1st bit of gold was from Placerites, a sassy piece: Got a dink at Sawtooth, then moved on elsewhere. Had a couple skunked days but still enjoyed the scenery: Even found me a cool high desert hood ornament lol! Ended up with over a quarter oz, including a rough beauty of 3.9 grams about 12” deep: Wanted to meet Steve at the Nugget Shoot, but had to head home to meet up with some loggers up by my cabin. All in all, a great trip!

- - - over an hour from the Nineties. I haven't successfully transposed it to digital format yet but I'm still working on it. The sound is present but my capture device isn't yet picking it up. I'm a bit over the moon about it really, some welcome good news following a tough week shooting drought weakened sheep - - Starring are some memorable characters from the earlier years of gold detecting, as well as some nice gold. Here's some early screen grabs, hopefully the final MPEG's will be of higher quality. 5 oz from Guys Rush, Rheola VIC. found at depth with Jimmy Stewarts 36" "Bismarck": 30 oz from Guy's Rush, Rheola VIC, found at depth with Jimmy Stewarts 36" "Bismarck":

Here is another WA nugget! http://www.foxnews.com/world/2018/09/21/massive-80g-gold-nugget-discovered-in-australia-by-retired-man-whos-been-searching-area-for-years.html Mitchel

Hey everyone, I get out on Sundays. Some half days and some full days. Half days you don't get much except a lot of clad, and full days you will work your butt off literally, for a few worth mentioning finds. You really gotta work these parks. You have to find areas where there aren't crowds so driving around finding that right spot takes time from your day. Leaving the house at 6am or earlier is the norm for me. I'm still on a buffalo/V nickel quest and averaging 20 -30 nickels per hunt. Got a buffalo this past Sunday, 2 silver dimes and a few wheats. I come home dirty/sweaty due to the heat but I'm liking every minute of it. I hope everyone had a great weekend hunt.

I visited Chisana and Bonanza Creek specifically in the 1990's but my records are pretty thin for this time period. The White's Goldmaster II revolutionized metal detecting in Alaska with its hot 50 kHz circuit. Alaska is not the land of large gold nuggets like Australia. In fact, large nuggets are very rare in Alaska, with the bulk of the gold produced being very fine gold as found by the bucket line dredge fleets in the state. The generally small gold size, and relatively low ground mineralization means hot VLF detectors work well for Alaskan prospecting. The Goldmaster series were the first really successful nugget detectors in Alaska, followed by the Fisher Gold Bug 2. As you can see below, my small nugget finds really took off with the Goldmaster! Every few years I would take the latest, newest model of metal detector to Chisana and find some more gold. Here are a few photos from the 1990's.... Steve with early White's Goldmaster hunting the bench workings at Bonanza Creek Bonanza gold found... And more Bonanza bench gold.... Put it in a pile with the fines and better light.... Steve at Chisana with Minelab XT17000 metal detector To be continued....

As promised, here it is guys:http://noktadetectors.com/index.asp?g=naming-contest

Hi all, I had time for a half day hunt today, so I planned on going back to a couple spots we had found gold in the past, hoping to squeeze out another nugget or 2. Plan a was a bust so I made a beeline toward the truck. On the way walking over random ground perpendicular to all the washes I hit a nice smooth signal on a small ridge. Dug down about 6 inches and got it out of the hole. Turned out being a fist sized rock. Thought it was a hot rock at first, but the signal was too good, so I was hoping it was a possible meteorite. Washed it off and immediately saw quartz. So now I was hoping for a speci. (Which I have never seen from this area) I washed it off a little more and saw some gold!!! Not sure how much is in there, but when I got home and cleaned it better, I found more gold than I was expecting. I got back to the truck and was headed home when my girlfriend said they were running a couple of hours late, so I had a bit more time to detect. I decided to try a completely new area expanding a known gold district on my way home. I made my way into the hills to the place I wanted to check out. Looked promising, very similar geologic to the place I was just at. I only had time for about 20 minutes of detecting. So I headed up the nearest wash. Got a little way up and hit a nice mellow deep signal, dug down about a foot and half and found a 1961 nickel on bedrock, 3 feet away hit a similar signal let than a foot deep on bedrock again..another nickel 1984. Strange this was really out of the way and didn't find any trash. Only detected a small part of the wash when I had to head home. You can zoom in on the quartz and see a couple of spots of gold. Chris

Very nice gold Peg - love that fat porous piece! Sorry we missed you at the Nugget Shoot. We did kinda sorta meet but not really at the ICMJ 2014 Mining Summit. I think this is you I took a picture of but you were very intent chasing that gold nugget!

We Aussies weren't shirkers either, Wes. The giant water flume Lightning creek, Omeo, VIC

I did the the stub part next that goes into the Kevlar tube. I kept the stub short for this prototype, the final version will be about 3" long I guess and have some channels for the epoxy to flow into.

Flak, our California boys were no joke either! I dont know what these guys were eating to work that hard.

Thank you, I'm anxious to get back into that wash and check it out. Chris

When I got the 19" coil for my 7000 Guy's rush was one of the places I visited. It is on private property, and the owners are reluctant to let anyone on as it has been visited without permission many times. It takes contacts and some sweet talking to get on. Years ago I pulled a 14oz color there using a 'Candy' tricked up PI and a custom built 25" mono coil. John Hider-Smith who was with me at the time, returned some time later and dug a bit around the 30oz mark. JR Beatty, John, and Jim Stewart dug another about the same size, with Jim's big home built coil on a modified 2100, if memory serves me correctly. It is a granite bottom, very mild, so I was able to use the more sensitive settings as recommended by Jonathon Porter, but had no luck. I am of the opinion that the equipment used earlier on this patch, being modified for big gold at depth would have had equal or better performance than a standard 7000. A modified 7000 with even larger coil could be a different story.

Somebody watching me hunt iron would shake their head as I constantly ride the sensitivity and recovery speed as I hear I to like to give the ears a break when after high conductors only. I just can't force myself to use any disc, preferring to lower the volume and tone pitch on the foil and tab ranges instead. There are many ways to get the job done and we use what works for us

Went for a couple of under water sessions with the Equinox 800 this week, it’s become a lot easier with the new headphones as they are so much louder under water ?

Here is a quick video I did Just now. Equinox 800 old software vs Equinox 800 new software. .925 Silver coin on edge:

It just occurred to me that a while back, I and some other V3i users noted on this forum that there were items the Equinox was leaving behind that the V3i was picking up. I've spent quite a good share of time since spring comparing the two purposefully, carefully running them over the same small, manageable patches of ground, with overlapping swings and multiple passes. So I was able to satisfy myself that the Equinox was indeed missing items completely that seemed very obviously there to the V3i. One of note was a WW2 Airman Visor pin. Not easy to overlook. It had me scratching my head as target after desirable target was left behind by the Equinox, but picked up by the V3i. I began to wonder as late as a couple weeks ago whether I'd been suffering from wishful thinking and all the hype and hysteria around the Equinox.Then in other circumstances where a super fast recovery was required the Equinox would remind me of why I keep it around. Still those other items bothered me because they should've been spotted, not just by an Equinox but any good machine it would seem. Since this update though, and the problem of items on edge being brought to light, it got me thinking about the things it missed. To my memory they were often near roots or peeled out of the side of my plugs. The Airman pin particularly was pressed into the side of a root to where it had a bend impression. Since the update I haven't noticed any further instances of the Equinox leaving obvious items behind for the V3i. There's something about my preferred settings for that machine that really shined a light on that issue. I still don't understand it because it would pick up items as tiny as a bb, but not higher conductors on edge, even often tilted or slanted coins. Maybe this has been an issue for others and they haven't even realized it. How would they. I'd certainly be rechecking some of my spots though, particularly around roots and rocky areas.

So, after playing around with a few ideas, I figure it's time to go ahead and make a larger scale sluice. No tiny 95GPH flow, this is going to be 500GPH. That's just over 5 times as powerful as my previous "pocket sluice". This is basically a small Gold Cube. Half the width, and scaled down in some areas. This one is designed to take real gold sluice rubber matting. I bought two types, one is generic "High-Low" matting that's 2.3mm tall. The other is "Vortex" matting, and it's 7mm tall. The trays I have are designed to print with minimal supports and material, hence the honeycomb grid. There is a little angular lip at the top of the matting area that keeps the top of the mat in place, and places the water and material flow completely onto the mat. The little pegs at the bottom keep the mat from sliding down, and and small enough to not impede water flow in any meaningful capacity. The underflow section at the top is actually the exact same dimensionally as the Gold Cube, so that the water flow works correctly. Under the foot where the underflow is, is a cutout that fits into the raised pegs at the top of the bottom end, so they can stack neatly. There is only 0.3mm of play between the parts, so that it's a nice, tight fit. The top tray, or "slick plate" is the same general idea, and has a 9 degree angle, just like the matting tray. The red lid slides into the slot around the top, and creates a tight sealed box that directs the water flow. It has only 0.3mm of clearance. The back of it will end up having a threaded tube, 3/4" to allow a bilge pump to be hooked up to it. What's not pictured here is an additional piece that directs water flow down to prevent excess splashing and uneven output.

I found this great badge in an old barn

That is some serious gold on that Bonanza bench!?

I have so many of these blue scrub pants from working at the VA hospital, I’ll probably be wearing them when I croak! ?

I too am coming from the Deus, and I have tried the Miccus Sr-71 Stealth phones, and they are great, but the summer heat is unbearable with those phones. I bit on the BTS Pros, and out of the box they pair but NOT in Low Latency mode on the Equinox 600 (as expected). I tried to run the Windows update from their site (1.08), and it gives: Firmware Update Error Program was unable to connect to the headset Please check again that cable is connected and headset is powered off. Error -2 I did all the pressing of the 3 buttons, standing on my head, facing east, etc, nothing changes. I am going to let them charge overnight and try again. The updater posted by sdbirder also failed giving an error on that command prompt window it opened: HidDfuCmd.exe upgrade 0a12fffe00 aptx-ll-enable.dfu HidDfucmd.exe, version 2.6.2.632 Release Copyright Cambridge Silicon Radio Limited 2012 - 2015 Error running upgrade command: Invalid Sequence (HidDfuConnect must be called first) Press any key to continue... I assume a regular Windows 10 PC should work fine for either of these updates? Do I have to run in XP SP3 mode, administrator, some sort of special mode? I have tried 2 desktops and a laptop (all windows 10 fully updated) , and the result is the same. I am using the cable they sent with the device, is there a special port I need on my PC? The Android app shows the firmware is at 1.07. Thanks! UPDATE 3:45 p.m. Central Got word from BTS support via email, and they said to try another USB-C cable. I looked all over town, and just about gave up but when pumping gas, they had one at the checkout counter. Worked the first time. Of course I did the 1.08 update from BTS first (no Low Latency), then the secret one offered by sdbirder and voila.... + sign on Equinox 600 indicating APTX Low Latency Enabled!

Here are my finds from 1 hour detecting a local football field last night. Nothing special...but very fun and enjoyable hour in the pitch dark...lol

Your little trip exceeds all the gold I've found in Nevada! Good looking 'rig' for staying out there. Mitchel

Yes, it does look bigger, but it’s very porous “sponge” gold. If solid, would’ve been twice the weight I think.

Tom, ive kind of done the same thing but without running a threshold. I run AM..... with the volume down....... you will notice as the sensitive or IB is changed so do those iron tones. Some of the iron maybe minerals.

Nice work Alluminati!

Cool find! Interesting how the nickels found their way there too.

Nice haul with the Zed, Peg, way to go!

You are right Steve, the effort those old timers went to is nothing short of unbelievable. In Alaska's Interior where I lived I found a lot of evidence of mining in the old days. Not much for flumes like you pictured, but lots of old shafts, some as deep and 100 feet. Old wooden sluice boxes are common. And old boilers for thawing perma-frost and frozen winter ground. I found a lot of this kind of evidence because I was a trapper in winter and had access to ground that was inaccessible in summer. Some of those old boilers were huge. And just thinking about how they got them into those remote locations made me weak and tired. Of course some of that heavy stuff was hauled in by sled and mules/horses in winter along the frozen rivers. Many times old mining areas could be discovered by extensive old tree cutting, with only the stumps remaining. They had to cut a lot of trees for boilers and heating cabins in winter, not to mention building of cabins and sluice boxes. At the turn of the century miners started using huge riveted pipe to bring water from distant locations. This was in place of wooden flumes and a lot of it was done by bigger mining companies. Some of the large companies around Fairbanks brought water from miles away like this for running the bucket line dredges. Some of that riveted pipe was so large a man could stand up in it stooped over a bit. That reminds me, I think I have a picture of that pipe somewhere. Will post it if I can find it.

Should have gone up the sides some and a little further back in the scoop. Wasn't easy for my friend to weld the ends of the wires. Had to drop and drag the material.

Nice job on the headphones by the way!

Really? I didn’t try it, exhausted from bike riding with the kids and fell asleep!! Did you or Reg ever go back with the GPZ? I assume somebody has. I am always wondering about those big gold areas that have already been done over thoroughly, whether they might still give up a nice piece to the Z. It would only take 1 nice ‘color ’ to make it worthwhile. I also plan to not die wondering ?

This is a great tip I am going to try too. I'm a huge sifter fan, but I'll admit I' haven't been dropping the sensitivity as low, for as long of time as I should be with the Equinox, still getting a feel for the machine. This should give me an idea how low I need to go.

I suppose if it hits silver coins on edge better, its going to hit tabs on edge better too! ?

Correct...all Anfibio coils and Kruzer / Multi Kruzer coils are compatible ...just to make it all clear..there are 9 of them right now: KR13 / KR18C / KR19 / KR24 / KR28 / KR40 / AF23C / AF28 / AF35 - you can see all the Kruzer (KR) coils online... the new Anfibio coils will be added to the website tomorrow or on Monday. Gold Kruzer can only be used with the GK coils which are GK19 / GK24 / GK26C / GK40. You are also amazing that you can follow all these details Steve!

I know of a ghost ranch north of town if you're interested. A very eccentric man lived out there so there might be some good stuff buried on the grounds... It's either BLM or Forest Service land and very little graffiti.

This great resource was written by project engineer Dave Johnson and published by White's in 2002. It has become very hard to find, which is a shame because it provides insights not only on the MXT and GMT but on metal detector design in general. I took the liberty of scanning my copy this morning and converting it to html and posting here at White's MXT Engineering Guide Hopefully White's will not mind. As I noted, there is some information here you will not see anywhere else. How many of you experienced MXT owners know this following information regarding the ground balance setting on the MXT from the report? "Electronic ferrite material and most "negative hot rocks" (cold rocks) will usually read in the 75-88 range. Most soils will read somewhat lower. Readings will almost never go below 25 except in salt or moist alkali soils. When readings indicate smaller numbers than 50 you may notice some reduction in sensitivity. Below 35, some rusty iron may give unpredictable responses. Below 25, iron objects may give unpredictable responses and/or may disappear entirely and the sound on nonferrous objects may become slightly more abrupt."

Iron bias is a finds killer. I spent some time seeing if I could pick up a few more targets at an old pounded site that is loaded with iron and rotted tin etc. Running the 11" in Field 2 with sensitivity at 17 recovery 8 and IB 1 I got a repeatable soft warble buried in the iron noise. Before I dug dropped the recovery to 7 and the signal was not as obvious and probably would have walked over it. Increased the sensitivity to 18 reset recovery back to 8 dropped IB to 0 and there was a big improvement vs the original hit. Ended up being a small brass buckle only 5 to 6" deep. A lot of high conductive metal in that buckle but shows just what we are dealing with when it comes to iron masking. Wish now that I had played around even more with the recovery and IB settings.

You are probably just taking pity on all the pictures posted of small U.S. and New Zealand gold. Surely nobody in Oz bothers with anything that weighs under a pound! Very nice looking gold.

One thing I always found fascinating at Chisana was the effort expended to bring water to bench locations - gold bearing areas far above the current stream area. The terrain is steep, and the bedrock is fractured to great depth. This made ditches a poor solutions for much of the area, and wooden boxes or "flumes" had to be constructed to carry water to the desired mining areas. Just getting the lumber to the site was a major undertaking. The gold bearing creeks are well above treeline. That being the case the lumber was whipsawed in the valley below then pulled by horses to the valleys above. More impressive was the engineering feats involved. The flume would start far upstream at creek level and then follow a more gentle grade than the creek itself, eventually bringing water miles downstream and hundreds of feet above the current stream level. In the process gullies were bridged and the entire structure built across cliff faces. Most of the old flume system is gone or in serious disrepair, but sections remain to tell the tale. Click on images for larger views.... View down lower Little Eldorado Creek - flume high on hill in distance Closer look at flume above mouth of Little Eldorado Creek And closer yet... Upper Bonanza view of flume system - much of the wood has been scavenged over the years Flume crossing cliff areas Detail of flume construction Flume winding around the terrain The old flume system close up To be continued...

Hi All, My 2 cents, fwiw: Personally, I haven't found any noticable difference(s) between "before" and "after" the update. The PP still, now and then, goes a bit silent at first (have another detector that does that too: could be caused by not switching it on above a patch not free of metal or too close to the target, so: user-"fault", because it is not allowed to tune properly). I got in the habit of allways shutting the detector off in another mode as "user profile", so I do not really care if that was a "bug" or not or if it was "cured" by the update. I did/do not have 50+ hours before the update and 50+ hours after the update with the Equinox to give a real worthwile/"weighted" evaluation of this update. But I think it poses not so big a difference for most, that can't be "overcome" by getting more time/experience in swinging and digging in/on the parks/fields/beaches/goldfields. ? But I presume Minelab must have had a good reason for providing the update. I'm not an engineer, so I trust they made the right decisions for improving some neccessary details, even if I do not know what exactly. For me it is like trusting the factory preset modes. I suppose Minelab, like other manufacturers, put a lot of time and knowledge in their development trajectory to provide as near as optimal settings possible for 90-95% of the circumstances/detectorists. Maybe even 98-99%. ?. For those with more technical knowledge than me, there is enough room to adjust/adapt settings for finetuning. For me it's not imortant if the "old" or the "new" version is (actually?) slightly more sensitive to rusty nails... I do not look for those nails and if I should find them, they go in the pouch and I (sometimes) learn and move on to better finds. ? You can finetune as much as you like, ...and that is a hobby in itself..., but "If it isn't there, you can't find it". But if it's there, the Equinox can find it! (and no, I'm not affiliated to Minelab in any way, -other than owning an Equinox-...?). Just a thought: maybe bringing out the update was also just to show/prove it was "really" possible to easily pc-update the Equinox and to check if it would/might cause any technical problems now and in the future. Greetings, Bob'ke

Two of the things I was not overly "impressed" with as I've been using my EQ800 these last several months were the accuracy of the depth meter and a seeming lack of audio modulation for deeper targets. I've been spending some time the last month at a newer park that has plenty of deep coins to find. This park holds mostly older clad in the 5-8" range. I find 2 or 3 coins each visit at the 9" mark where a transition in dirt begins. This is some of the best lawn I've EVER hunted in 4 plus decades of turf hunting. The dirt is beautiful. Almost all the targets are deep clad; quarters, dimes, nickels and Cu Memorials. I haven't found a single wheatie. Only 2 pieces of silver, a 40's Rosey and Walking Half. The Rosey was in some dry hard packed dirt at about 5". The Half was beyond 9", measured. I have to admit it is a little weird digging deep plug after deep plug and then popping up a 70's or early 80's clad. Not normally my thing.. I'd normally be expecting a Merc Dime, Wheat pennies, Buff nickels. Early Washington Quarters from these depths. But it is excellent practice and I keep hoping to turn up another silver coin, a gold ring or other piece of jewelry. I updated my 800 last week and have made 2 visits to see what I think of this most recent version of software. What I've noticed, the depth meter appears more accurate and suddenly, I seem to have modulation to my deeper targets. Depth Meter: I pretty much quit looking at the little triangles depth gauge months ago as it was just soooo bad. Embarrassing. Everything seemed deep and with a lack of audio modulation for all but the deepest targets, it was challenging to get depths correct. That appears to have changed. Much better now, along the lines of my Etrac. Second, and more noticeable to me, is the audio modulation in the two search modes I am using at this spot; Park 1 and Park 2. With most of the coins in this spot running 5-8", it is now easier for me to tell there is some depth there. This was unexpected. I don't recall Minelab listing this as a change. The modulation isn't so much that it begins to be difficult to hear those deeper targets. I don't need to reach for the old Depth Master. They are still relatively easy targets to acquire. What I mean is that I'm not creeping along an inch or two at a time and finding a questionable signal and working it to see if I can turn it into something good. These signals are right there and reachable with most of the width of the coil. But the audio is more descriptive. I didn't see this in the update description. Am I imagining things? It was obvious, I noticed it immediately. Summary; Between the audio and the improved depth gauge, I find it easy to know what I am getting into with each prospective target. Unrelated. On a side note. Pinpointing. I used an Explorer XS beginning when they were introduced followed by an Etrac. I always considered them to be pretty good at pinpointing, the Etrac the better of the two for sure. I was not impressed with the pinpointing of the EQ800 at all. It seemed to pinpoint behind center, towards the heel of the coil, consistently. It became one of my peeves. A couple months ago, somebody posted about pinpointing problems on Findmall and over the weeks a few chimed in, but more voices said they loved how accurate the 800 was. This caused me to wonder if I was part of the problem. The next time I was out in the field, I took extra care to make sure I was 'centered' before digging. To ensure this with the DD coil, I first pinpointed a target to exact center and then I would slowly rotate the coil above the target as i circled about 60* to my right and sure enough, the volume of the tone increased. I wasn't centered. So, I've included this little step in my pinpointing and I've been spot on, even on deeper targets like in this park. I do get the occasional coin on angle that is off center, as expected, but I can say that I pinpoint much better now with the EQ800 and almost all of the time, the target is now dead center. Back to the update. I don't have a pair of EQ800's or I would do a little testing at my park, one with the update, the other without, and compare the two for differences first hand. Interested to hear other's take on the EQ and the new software. Impressions, real and imaginary. Rich (Utah)

This past weekend was so hot I couldn't get in the water anywhere. Well technically I could have used the kayak, it is perfect just for these situations to get away from people, but I was feeling lazy. I got done work at about 3:00 today, so I thought I would go get a haircut, then I thought why not bring the detector and head out after. Then I thought, why get a hair cut at all! What is exciting about these finds is that I found them all in reverse pinpoint AKA Gold 2. I tried the Gold 2 a bit on the weekend, but found myself going back to Park2 about 50% of the time as I was comfortable with it, the threshold on Gold 2 was quite bouncy unless I reduced the sens to about 17. Tonight was different, I had confidence, I knew I was going to find some gold. I hit the water with nobody in sight running Gold 2, recovery 6, sens 22. This is like a dream come true, hunting with the all metal/pin point audio of the Excalibur, but with numbers! I actually dug less iron then usual tonight. The reason why is the increased situational awareness with the all-metal audio. I could hover directly over top of targets to get a good number. This is harder to do in Park 2 with or without the horseshoe because it's hard to know where exactly co-located targets are with multitones and the pinpoint button can be tricky in the iron. This gold earring I absolutely attribute to the Gold 2 audio. I wouldn't have dug it/heard it with the Park 2 audio, I checked a few times as I dug, yes I could get a number in Park 2 because I knew where it was, but it was an underwhelming response. Gold 2 absolutely slammed all of the targets you see below, I could barely get a conventional pinpoint on any of them until I started digging. The Gold earring is a solid 1 TID. After that gold earring I settled right in with the bouncy threshold lol. I will run it a bit lower after some bench tests. The Victorian button was the shallowest, the little earring backs were hard to say, maybe 3"-6" max, the gold earring was easily well over a foot deep and this machine just friggen wailed on it. I'm pleased as punch with this machine.

We were talking about that for beach hunting and the difference we saw. My concern was the sensitivity and how smooth it ran on the wet sand now in both beach modes. I was hoping they didnt just change the sensitivity digit....... ie 24 was the old 18. Which could affect the response to gold. So i ran a simple test of 100 gold items..... couple of chains, bands, some rings with stones, crosses, and earrings. I was able to run 18 sensitivity pretty stable for testing and i tested in beach 2. what i found was the only items that differed seem to be the small earrings when they were open. There the old program did a tab better. BUT...... all things change once those coils hit the salt water. Things i should have done........ taken a look at the digit reading. What i did notice thou was i was getting the same depth...... but the volume/clarity of the target seemed better with the new program.... but oddly it didnt extend the depth. I agree Steve its great to have the option for either Program. Im hoping more people do some serious playing with both programs.

That is a great looking piece Chris. Congrats on a nice find. If you do specific gravity test on it, let us know how much gold is in it.... Hope those nickels bring you good luck, When some prospectors find a gold nugget they leave behind a nickel in the hole to show appreciation or respect to the earth or God for their good luck. Here is a webpage about nickels... Dave

I really like the equinox in the water, I’ve been struggling with the speaker type Hungarian phones under water but I’ve put together some piezo waterproof headphones that are actually pretty good in an out of the water. This is everything gold (and platinum) that I’ve found in th water with the equinox ?

This post brought back memories. It was probably around the same time frame, maybe a bit earlier in 1978. I bought my first dredge, a Keene 2 1/2" on an inner tube from Steve's store. Wanna hear something crazy? I still have that dredge and it is not because it was little used, I have used it to death and everything is still original, with the exception of the inner tube. I have used it as a dredge and also made temporary conversions to be used as a high banker. The old engine still runs strong.

I was out a couple of days ago, the temperature was in the low 90's and I was trying to stay in what little shade there was. Those conditions made me really slow down. I thought I heard a very faint squeak,it was repeatable at just the right approach and swing speed. It was one of those signals that says, "DIG ME". After moving several limbs I was about six inches closer to the target and it turned to a low warble. Then after scraping off about six inches of organic duff it turned into a screamer. After several inches I was rewarded with this nice little chunk Norm