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By no means am I a top level detectorist at every different kind of hunting. Deep old coins, Gold Rings Beach Hunting, CW, Ancient Coins/Artifacts, Gold Nugget chasing...and more. Heck I have Field Staff members who do certain hunts better than I. But I do consider myself one of the more versified hunters who actually does quite well with a variety of machines in many styles of hunts. Here is one kind of hunt I have to give adulation... my video guy Ryan and his son. This father/son team has taken on a style of detecting most of us dare. He has done a few videos now of some stunner saves, but I feel this one takes the cake. If doing this please be sure to wear the proper protective gear and always have permission. Would you go Down Under for a fistful? Watch and enjoy as they recover find after find after find.

I took a group of eager dreamer diggers (swinging wide fast and wild) the last year they ran commercial groups and one of the memories came on the last day. Most of us had broke our detectors down and packed them away for flights out of camp. One of my Field Staff Experts (we'll call him Spencer) was not about to give in so easily. Anyway, Spencer is in front of camp and we sees he's been at one hole for quite some time and picked down a foot+ in a hole. Eventually, he's walking back to get a long handled, deep gold digger shovel... with a sly grin and hope. Well it gets my interest, so I walk out there expecting to see him sweat out another piece of tailing trash...as many of us had done. He commence digging another foot+ and finally has the thing out of the hole. Trying to locate an almost 1 pound mini boulder in a pile of rocks with a GPX and monster sized coil at close distance is certainly an ear cleaner...most certain. Ended up being...you know how it usually goes, but not so fast my friend.... it's time to break out the gin.

I had actually commented/pics some photos of finds on anothers post that was similar, but realized I did not want to steal his thunder. In my part of the country our lakes draw down each Winter/Spring to make room for the up and coming Spring/Summer runoff. This allows for some detectable areas though maybe not as perfect as beaches. Well when you live 500+ miles from the Coast you learn to adapt and find opportunities some others don't think of. Here is a quick story of a trip to a well known high country lake thousands visit each year. I was heading to NV to do our 1st of the year 3 days Field Training Trip on Gold Detectors. Sometimes I like heading down 3 days to a week early to get some time alone. Not that I do not enjoy detecting with others, as those who know me, will fess.. I actually prefer enjoying a swing with other like minded seekers. (hints the 3 days training we offer) This allows me a variety of accomplishments if desired. Sometimes testing a new model of detector, or coil. Other occasions I could be actually Prospecting for new areas and greener pastures for future hunts. Or I usually end up seeking an early coin/trinket from the trashy rustic RR stops along my course there, even though I have hunted them many times over. Getting down to Rye Patch and not feeling it (got to have the gut feeling it is the right site), I drove on past and kept the truck/trailer heading West on I-80. Lake Tahoe was on my mind as was a nice gold ring or two and always a silver coin as consolation. Pulling my camp trailer all the way up (Boise 2730' - Lake Tahoe 6225') found me in snow and not just a dusting. Not thinking all the way through my last minute change (I should have called 1st) left a lump in my throat as I drove around trying to find an open area for my 50' combo to settle for the night. Now is not a good time to find out most of the camp sites on the CA side were still snowed in and closed. I spoke with a Forest Service lady the 2nd day as I ended up sleeping over night at a school parking lot in Kings Beach and she told me of 2 camping sites they just plowed. She was certainly a trip saver for me. Finding my way that afternoon to said site and paying the daily fees to camp (nothing is free in CA), I was eager to get out in the water. Mistake #2 (no wet suite as I had not planned a dip in the snow banks of the chilling Tahoe waters. Heck, I'm USMC...just do it!! was my thought and desire. Shorts and tennis shoes is all I needed, lasted about 45 minutes and 15 targets, which none were gold or silver of choice and the day was shot. Certainly was one of my cold/numbest & dumbest water/beach hunts I have dipped. 2nd day I came back with a new plan and hunted gravels/rocks along the banks (out of the water) and after many scratches, digs and picking...YES.. scored a nice heavy yellow metal ring. Interesting how they stack the rocks on the shoreline, so I took a few picks of my stacked 3030 next someones artwork, heck why not? On a side note: If ever around there and you enjoy smooth dark ale beer, a World Beer Cup Gold Medal Winner is by far my favorite. Double Nut Brown Ale made by Mammoth Brewing Company is serious winner. A couple days later as I was picking more signals in the rocks along the shoreline, this nice black disc appears. Did not even realize it was a coin at 1st, but when I turned it over I could read "ONE DIME". Ended up being my oldest coin to date from Lake Tahoe, an 1856 US Seated Liberty Dime. So if you know of an old high country lake or swimming hole...or just want to try something different, maybe this short story will inspire? At least the dark ale lovers get a tip of beer greatness. And be sure to plan appropriately...and let others know where you'll be.

Impressive posts, and it’s obvious you know your stuff Jeff. Do to the unique nature of the Equinox and how different it is than any other machines used for nugget detecting.... let’s just say I have not been anxious to have lots of people piling on thinking it’s an easy nugget detector. However, if you are the sort of person who is at your level I think you will find out why I use the Equinox now as my go to VLF nugget hunter. It’s something I think users need to grow into organically and not get forced onto them. That’s about all I want to say about that though... probably should have kept my mouth shut. You did just what I do. Dig everything for awhile, observe, adjust. That in effect is my entire gig in one line. Anyway, love the posts. It’s nice to see the Equinox from other perspectives without me polluting the atmosphere in advance with my own opinions on this particular subject. The Equinox is deceptively simple but after a couple years use I am still growing into it. The machine has a lot a depth from a learning point of view that people will never capture just giving the machine a spin. It’s another reason along with lack of time that explains why I have ditched everything else to concentrate on Equinox. I don’t need anything else because I still have not really discovered the true limits and possibilities of this technology. And just a reminder... this is first gen. All the effort I pour into learning the machine and it’s unique operating properties (there really is nothing just like it) will be rewarded in spades whenever we see the next gen. Historically Minelabs v2 versions are very refined versions of v1. Equinox has not hit the limits yet of where we can go with Multi-IQ. Great posts, again, thanks! Edit for a tip... when the going gets rough don’t forget the other modes. I have been able to get Equinox to do anything I want by ignoring mode names. Park is not just for parks, Beach is not just for beaches, etc. As you can tell I am still pretty infatuated with the Equinox. Thanks Minelab! ?

Golden Grams of Goodness: Part 1 November is not usually a time of year that I get to chase the gold, as by the time November rolls around the ground usually requires some dynamite or some equally powerful force to break through the frost to get to the gold. However, this year has been a year of exceptions. In September, we had early snow and frost with well below seasonal temperatures that carried into October, and that doesn't happen very often as usually the weather is rather mild. However, after the early blast of Arctic bad temper, the weather shook itself out until the first week of November with temperatures soaring above average, so this allowed the chance to engage in some gold sleuthing when normally I'd be reduced to only dreaming of chasing the gold. I have two sons, and the eldest loves to chase the gold, while the other will chase the gold given the opportunity, but he doesn't have the same level of passion. Me eldest was with me on this trip, and he was with me on our epic gold adventure when we truly slew an army of nuggets early in the summer (I have yet to post that story), so he was eager to have a chance to hone his detecting and sniping skills. The area we dropped into to work was full of bedrock pinnacles. These pinnacles were formed of an iron-hard bedrock, so hard that the big equipment had negligible effect. In fact, smoke was pouring off the bucket teeth and blades of the excavators as they tried to outmuscle the mother rock. As a result, there was a section of ground about the size of two school buses parked side-by-side, but slightly longer. Looking down into the excavation, there were three pools of standing water as well as a small stream of clear seepage water running diagonally across the northern, more elevated end of the bedrock. The southern end was where the largest pool of water was, and the eastern side of the excavation had a culvert that was collecting the water from the stream to then divert it through a long series of interconnected culverts to a sump where a six-inch diesel-powered pump was working night and day to keep that sump cleared. Over the entire area of exposed bedrock, there were many buried, small gutters with high, then lower humps, and throughout the area, there were those dark pinnacles of super-hard bedrock, some of them rising up almost four feet, resulting in an area that could not be cleaned out properly by the modern miners with their big equipment. The area was perfect for detector and sniping work, making it a perfect area for us to tackle. To be continued . . . All the best, Lanny

OK...I'm bored as the snow keeps piling up!!! I remember reading a thread on one of these forums, which I can't remember which one, but somebody posted some very small bits he'd gotten with I believe a Gold Monster(?). Anyways....one of the replies posted was from a person who couldn't and wouldn't believe a detector could find gold that tiny. Soooo.... just for fun lets see some pics of your smallest bits and what detector you got them with??? Mine below were got with the Monster.....

A couple of days ago I pulled the trigger on a solo trip to Australia, Melbourne and Victoria to be exact. I have the Visa. I have a Miner's Right. I'll be there from Thursday morning 8:30AM the 9th of May thru Thursday morning the 30th of May which will make for 20 days of detecting. It says the highs will be in the high 60s and lows in the 50s. The sun will rise about 7:30 and set about 5. There seems to be a fair amount of rain for the month. I've been reading Fred's books. He has one of Doug Stone's which is the Gold Atlas of Victoria. There are also many online resources and several of you here have some great suggestions for me. My itinerary is open for some nugget prospecting days and a couple of beach days. My tentative plan would be to get off the plane, rent a vehicle and head to Bendigo area for a motel and then be ready for a hunt the next day. I might even be up for a hunt the day I arrive ... possibly at a beach. I'm sure I'll be meeting up with some of the forum members when I'm there so let's just see what happens. Mitchel

When i bought the house i didnt realize that there was an old gold prospect in the backyard. An old history report from around 1860 says that an 18 inch wide quartz vein prospected by open trenches and that pan washing the crushed ore yielded good results. A pan of the soil pretty much always give 5 to 20 colors and abundant magnetite crystals. I have metal detected the area a good bit and have found plenty of hot rocks and hot ground but no detectable gold yet. I will be doing a loaming program and trenching to located the specific gold bearing vein. Then maybe decide to dig a root cellar. lol In the video i run a highbanker in the little feeder close to the old prospect and about 100 yards from my back door.

Haven't hunted much this year. I think this was my second or third outing. This is a weird site. I started hunting it back in 2004. Back then I was just starting out and was happy to get lots of clad and this site gave me a lot of clad back then. It has been stingy on jewelry but I found foreign coins there ( I like finding foreign coins) and so I'd hunt it three or four times a year. I'm not a clad snob. It pays for my battery money and I enjoy the extra hundred bucks every year. Anyway... My first gold ring from this site came out of there back in 2017. In 2018 I found another, and Sunday morning I found two more and a little silver locket. So the gold finds have been recent. Guess I should have taken a picture of the Canadian dime and 50 cent Euro coin I found too but I didn't. The first ring is small. 10K JTS hallmark. Don't know if its a diamond or a topaz. I suspect its Topaz as its white in the light. Its child size or could be tiny woman. The second ring is 14K, and looks to be part of a set. Its woman sized. The locket is .925 These were found with the Tesoro Compadre running the Cleansweep coil (I modified my Compadre so I could swap coils). Both rings were one way signals and at least half flattened. I worked them back into roundness. Anyway....I love coming home with gold in my pouch. Even better with two gold and some silver. HH Mike

Hi, I couldn't wait to get the Equinox 800 to Arizona for some gold prospecting especially since the area in Colorado where I live is frozen pretty solid. The first site I hunted was in the Little San Domingo Wash area which has been pounded by lots of people for over a hundred years. I used the Nox 800 exclusively in Gold 2 with the 6" coil due to an abundance of human metallic trash, with sensitivity at 15 to 16 (falsed over those settings) with -9 to -4 discriminated out, iron bias 3 or 4, recovery speed 4. Hot rocks were hitting in the -9 to -6 range and also sometimes in the 12 to 14 range with the classic boing sound just at the edges of the coil and almost nulling in the center. I dug every detected metallic target in roughly a 30'x40' area. Iron targets were consistently in the -9 to +16 range depending on depth, size and amount of oxidation. Many of them jumped that whole range depending on direction of swing. When I was not using the horseshoe (all targets accepted mode) the iron targets would have very brittle, broken, clipped sounding audio and would be easy to identify just by sound alone. 100% of the time I checked those targets by pressing the horseshoe button and iron was suggested with -4 to -9 numbers included in the very jumpy target IDs. After digging each of these targets, (60 or so) iron was confirmed. I detected 19 non ferrous targets which all turned out to be lead, brass, aluminum or steel bird shot. Small lead, aluminum and shot gave beautiful evenly rounded tones and target IDs in the -1 to 4 range which were very steady and repeatable even after checking the target from a different direction. Larger lead and shell casings came in between 8 and 20 consistently with even, repeatable tones and solid numbers. The two nuggets pictured were both found near other targets, which is probably why they were missed. The .5 gram nugget was 4" deep with an iron target about 2" away and above the nugget. I never heard the iron initially. I only heard the classic zip-zip with a solid 3 target ID. When the horseshoe button was engaged I could hear and see target ID evidence of the iron target too. The two targets were clearly and separately defined and easy to identify as ferrous and non-ferrous. I was really exited to find that small nugget attached to caliche in that situation! The 4.5 gram nugget was 5" down, up against a large piece of hot volcanic tuft/basalt bedrock. The Nox 800 gave soft boings on the bedrock in several places near the nugget but the nugget screamed out a fantastic round signal at a rock solid 14. I thought it was going to be a 38 cal. or bigger slug. I was really surprised when I saw that first bit of gold peaking through the dirt!!!!! I lucked out on one other tiny picker at this location too during final clean up with the XP Deus. I also got to detect near Stanton on some placer/pegmatite deposits with tons of hot and cold rocks, huge prickly pear cactus and my least favorite----cat's claw bushes=OUCH. I completely shredded a virtually new pair of gloves on those things along with my hands too. I didn't find any gold with either my GPX 4800, XP Deus or the Nox 800. The GPX 4800 is one deep machine and hunted beautifully in this rugged area. I dug several up to 1 foot deep, less than coin sized lead, iron and tin targets that could have easily been gold with a NF Sadie and stock 11" mono coils. Any thing bigger was just not very practical since this was a boulder strewn, thorny area with very little open ground. The Deus with 9" HF coil at 54kHz handled the hot and cold rocks fairly well and was reasonably quiet in Gold Field. It always gave excellent audio responses to detectable targets and gave a predictable horizontal XY graph line for buried iron targets and very angular zig zags on near surface iron. Lead targets had more of a rounded, almost cursive writing indication on the XY graph which looks a lot like gold responses. The Nox 800 with 6" coil in Gold 2 again gave very clear indications of what to expect from the targets under the coil and after digging, those indications were confirmed every time with no surprises. There was some nasty hot magnetic schist, cold ironstone and unbelievable amounts of magnetite which sometimes confused the Deus and especially the GPX 4800. The Nox dealt with them very consistently with the magnetite giving iron signals, the magnetic schist reading in the 12 to 14 range and the cold ironstone high pitched VCO screaming at 39. Special thanks to Bill Southern and Tammy and also Rob Allison for their guidance during my fruitful trip. The Equinox 800 proved to be an outstanding and very trustworthy prospecting detector! Jeff

Why go look when we can watch here! YouTube links pasted into the forum appear....

I can’t complain about not having freedom, technically I retired at 26 when I went out prospecting full time. So its only been the last 3 years that I’ve been tied down to a regular job and even then I try to keep it as fluid as possible, much to my wife’s disgust sometimes. My issue is when I make more money finding gold than I do with all the stupidly long hours in the shop during the winter months, that’s when its hard to come to terms with being locked down. I suppose at the end of the day the shop provides a consistent income stream whereas gold can be a bit sporadic. 4 3/4 ounce slug from last year Speci with over 100 grams found at 3 feet Nice handful of rough gold found at the start of my annual trip away last year

I have had my Equinox 800 1 year this week and yesterday Sunday 10th February I celebrated with an extremely rare Celtic find from the period 100 BC (Over 2,000 years old) it is a 1st Century B.C. Celtic bronze "Eye type" toggle cloak fastener. Main body shaped like a human eye with a large bulbous pupil, the loop on the back would have once been stitched to the garment, It would function much in the same way that toggle fasteners on duffle jackets do.

XP just put up a page answering all sorts of miscellaneous questions about the new XP Orx - enjoy! http://www.xpmetaldetectors.com/blog-detection/en/technical/orx-help/

Mitch: Highly recommend a campervan for prospecting in Vic. I use a diesel VW T5 poptop 4wd and basically camp anywhere I damn well please. I do my laundry at laundromats in towns (or coin washers at caravan parks, although I never stay at these) Even at Reg Wilson's spacious and comfortable mansion I still prefer sleeping in my van! The amount of money saved touring in this way is immense and more than justifies campervan rental. You don't need a large van, indeed the smaller the better for following bush tracks. I'm getting softer as I age (disgracefully) and have now fitted up myself with a hot water system (with a shower out the back door) Most towns in Vic are RV friendly so water is usually available free somewhere.

It's a lot more than just California. ? You won't find new boundaries because Congress no longer bothers to approve specific land withdrawal boundaries. If this bill passes the agencies involved will eventually agree on the boundaries and, if we are lucky, will eventually allow the public to know the final area. We deal with this nonsense all the time. Clearly there are boundary maps passed around to the Congresscritters but they are not considered definite or final. Kinda just squiggly lines on a very simple one page map. Not something you could rely on to know where the final boundary will be on the ground. As long as Congress continues to abdicate their power to the executive agencies the people and their representatives won't be able to really know where any of these proposed land status changes are happening. In my opinion it seems a silly way to manage public property and it's certainly not fair to the locals who have these changes imposed on them willy nilly. If you want a general idea about the proposed changes you can read the Washington Post.

Yeah, Mn my part of AU is not ideal, recently most of the private land I`ve been very fortunate to have access to for 40 + years is no longer available. Property owners have had a gut full of the disrespectful way their land has been used by prospectors/hunters/campers etc. There is some properties that allow access for a fee and provide camping grounds as Paul has found, but it is a big remote area, not ideal for a couple of weeks prospecting. IMO Victoria offers much more to you folks, who are limited by time, a much smaller concentrated gold "triangle" with excellent access by ordinary vehicles and close by 5 star amenities, that if you wish allows you to travel to each day efficiently, plus but check this is current with NE, has State Forests that allow camping right on the gold. I loved my time in Victoria back in the 90s but as NE advises it gets bloody cold in winter, tis why Victorians travel up here to tropical NQ each winter in the droves. I do not travel distances anymore and am very content with my "backyard" which is a couple of thousand miles from Victoria. Also as per Freds advice, Doug Stones guides/maps are worth their weight in gold, especially in his and NEs "backyard" Victoria. But as per norm I enjoy taking like minded visitors to some of my old NQ haunts, Paul accompanied me to a few and can give you his perspective which I suspect is far less "biased" then mine. I say biased coz I`m proudly NQ AU born & bred, nothing compares to NQ, NQ people, NQ gold, NQ barra etc etc...……...?

Dan, Your certainly sniffed a butt-load and then some of targets others have missed. The recovery speed (even on the 600) is better than most detectors out there, but I do hope this is indicators for all manufactures to consider in the future. When stacking that with the small 6" sniffer coil, it is hard to beat. Especially the price range and then being able to totally dunk it in water and runs fine in salt water too...win win. Even though the recoveries are not CW period and a few folks might guf, I still feel the variety of finds is quite interesting. Love the cross cannon, bracelet...and the dog tag takes the cake. As for DEEP silver...for my style, soils and flavor... my 3030 was just sold, but I still have the E-Trac with X1 probe and 15" WOT. Even though the NOX is certainly a game changer for most, there are select machines for certain tasks in such soils that my ear just falls in love with. Fantastic finds and post.

Just wanted to take a moment to introduce myself to those that have no idea who I am or what I'm up to. I mainly metal detect for nuggets now (chased the gold in Alaska, Nevada, Utah, Arizona, Idaho, Montana, north-central British Columbia, south-eastern British Columbia, Alberta, but now I spend almost all of my time chasing the gold in British Columbia, Canada), used to dredge, sluice, high-bank, snipe, etc., (still do a bit for fun) but for more than a few years now, I've been associated with a large-scale placer operation, one that has slapped on me the title of their mining consultant. Sounds grandiose, however in no way is it, but they like to have me do testing for them with my detectors after they've finished cleaning a section of bedrock with their massive, heavy equipment. Why have me on site? To see what they're missing. Furthermore, after I've finished poking around, they've gone back and taken more bedrock (sometimes several feet) at times when I get a lot of gold in a hurry (or they've headed in another direction if there's a good line of pay shooting off under the overburden away from where they were trending), and other times when there's hardly any gold found with the detectors, they bury that bedrock right quick. It's a win, win situation for both of us as they value what I can do with my machines, and I value the privilege of the incredible opportunity. Their only caveat is that I can't tell the total weight of the gold I find to anyone outside of their crew (and I always must report it to them), but hey, who can't live with that, right? Oh, and they let me keep what I find, won't take a percentage (I've tried many times). In addition, I know a lot of other claim and lease owners that have properties they're not currently working, ones with abandoned excavations and sites, or ones they haven't got to yet, and they love to have me snoop around with my detectors as well, and if I find anything promising, they set up and get after the gold. I've been doing that for quite a few years, but I still like to check out unfamiliar, un-staked ground too. In addition, I like to write stories about my gold hunting outings, and oftentimes, I'll include information for any rookies out there that are trying to figure things out as they get started. Why? That's how I got started; a few good people (my original mentor is now 88) took me under their wing and taught me the ropes (a few clichés too many in that sentence, I know). My one son is now a dedicated nugget shooter (the other one lives thousands of kms away), and I love training him, plus my wife is now onboard with chasing the gold (she used to love panning my dredge concentrates, always heavy with goodies and always a good time for her and my mother-in-law [yeah, I know, sometimes the word fun and mother-in-law don't get used together in the same sentence]), and I'm ordering my wife a shiny new detector this winter because she's seen what we're getting (she loves to pan down our scoops of quick finds from the detectors which we slap in the pans when they're target rich for her to have some fun with; we call that speed-panning as it saves us the downtime of isolating the positive signals out of the scoop each and every time, giving us bonus time swinging the coils). Looking forward to get to know many of you, and some of you I already consider friends from associations on other forums . . . All the best, Lanny

The GM 1000 and EQX 800 weigh about the same, and yet, one is markedly more comfortable to swing than the other, IMHO. It's mostly about shaft length - the longer "the lever", more support is needed. I had a piece of 25mm * 500mm carbon fiber shaft from a previous project, so I acquired a 1" * 7/8" telescoping collar lock from "rods by plugger" and got to work. I removed the original upper piece and swapped the components to the CF shaft. I had to spread the nylon clamps a bit, but that's about it - adjustable, telescoping, and comfortable. The lower shaft fits like a champ, and every thing so far looks good. Just thought I would share, thanks for reading.

Just go commando. Your wedding vegetables will thank you.

Lake Tahoe is a COLD lake. ? Thanks for the post. Rich -

Yes, busted Steve. I have been telling gold tales for a while, it's true, and every year, I gather a few more as I keep chasing that sassy gold (thanks for the credit for coining the term). Steve has always made me feel welcome and appreciated no matter what forum I was posting information on, plus he's one of the most knowledgable and helpful people I've ever had the pleasure to know, an outstanding person, truly! Many thanks, and all the best, Lanny

And there is more! Lanny has one of the longest active threads created on the related forums due to his amazing story telling skills. And I do believe he coined the term "sassy gold"! Bedrock and Gold: The mysteries . . . Always great to hear from you Lanny!!

I find a lot of specks that just barely weigh 1dwt. they're kind of a pain because it takes about 20 of them before they add up to anything. What can I say. It's winter, It's storming and I'm grumpy. Many times while cleaning out a crevasse with numerous small nuggets I will find a speck that is unweighable - but I keep them anyway.

He does some great videos. The ones he used to do for you were works of art....Too bad Minelab quit paying people like Ryan who made youtube videos as I believe it gets a lot of folks excited about the hobby... strick

Post away with the pics kiwi !

Almost all Celtic and Bronze-age bronze artifacts found in the UK are found in excellent condition especially the Bronze-age axe and spearhead hoards. A few months back I posted an artifact of mine from the Celtic / Romano British period which is a Celtic Horse Harness Attachment. Here below is another of my Bronze-age finds it is a Socketed Spearhead which has not been finished or sharpened I found this along with the bronze ingot which had been previously attached to the spearhead, both found together.

Ocean Grove/Barwon Heads is a huge tourist destination. 1/2 of Melbourne turns up during summer, Easter and long weekends. (Holiday times are when I prefer to be up bush. No parking to be found anywhere at the shops, too much traffic etc). We have Torquay and Bells Beach just down the road with some of the best surf in the world. The home of Rip Curl and Quicksilver.There are 4 caravan parks, hundreds of holiday rental homes and loads of camp grounds. The camp grounds have been operating since the early 1950's. Also we have the Bellarine Peninsula (Clifton Springs, Drysdale etc) 10 mins away which was the site of early 1900's resorts, old military camps etc. There are miles of beaches so if you wanted to hit the beach I can join you with my Nox. There is also the Barwon River which is a very fast tidal system so the sand is moving all the time. Only takes a day or so of southerly winds and a section of beach will be re-moved and dumped in another location.

We have a price gap between states. I can get gas now (87) at around $3.00 in California and $3.60- $5.00 for 91. The diesel is a bit more like $4.00. I was recently in Arizona and gas there runs about $.50- $.75 less per gallon. This gas map shows how much extra we pay because of taxes in the west. https://www.gasbuddy.com/GasPriceMap?z=4

Wow....what an awesome opportunity!!! Thanks for sharing

I post these Facebook embeds from time to time. If you are not a Facebook user you may or may not see the photos.

Check out " detect man " on UTube he is a French man testing out the Equinox Nox 800 and the Gold Monster for nugget hunting in the African jungle, and see how many gold nuggets he finds with the NOx and 11 inch coil! Detect man has many vids on his UTube channel, look for the one of his African gold expedition.

Sweet saves, my friend! You do realize that snow is a 4-letter “s” word, right?!

I know what you were up to! You want to know how crazy it is? If JP was working on something he would never give me a hint. And I am the same way. These things are hermetic lock boxes and there is no cross talk allowed or even desired really. I do invite you to try your best but don't be disappointed if it just gets ignored.

Mitchel -- try to buy the little things here before you jet.. Even something as common these days as a memory chip will cost you close to double there.. An Oz made pick I understand tho.. Swamp

That was a fun post to read Jeff, thanks for taking the time. You also had some of the best SW detector pro's giving you advice. Looks like you listened. Continued good luck.

Wow!!! crazy looking permission and nice silver haul. Thanx for sharing this.

I hate when that happens.. Try Googling something like: 2019 death valley details.. Many times Google can get to an article a site's direct link paywall prevents.... And by now there should be other site links as well.. Swamp

This is a picture of the back side of my favorite nugget from Moore Creek. Not as pretty or as big as yours George which is really beautiful.... Steve, can't wait to see your pictures of MC nuggets...

Very interesting. Thank you sir and as always welcome aboard!

Nice to hear more about you Lanny. British Columbia once again sounds like one of the (few?) places where unsearched/undersearched ground is still yielding. Glad you've taken the opportunity to savor it. Your experience helping the big boys (and getting to keep what you find) reminded me of what the Las Vegas sports books used to do (and maybe one or two still do). When the US football lines (odds) were first determined (typically on Sunday, a week before play) they'd invite a couple sharpies to make wagers, but for a limited price. They would then adjust the lines (in the direction of the bets) until there was no more interest. The experienced bettors got some good bets and the bookies got a cheap 'lesson' on where to open for the public.

I feel it is an easy winner in Tot Lots, V-Ball Courts and dry beach hunts. The finds I made in the photos were from 2 Volley Ball Courts I hunted with the 24K. Notice the tiny #9 skeet shot and many smaller ear ring backs. Be sure to pair it with w TRX pointer too for faster recovery.

Cabin fever setting in, was needing to get out. It warmed up to 38 degrees and that's just warm enough to melt a little snow off beach and the warm air blowing through gravels allowed me to dig targets. Nothing special 5 coins and trash, but I've been hitting this beach since I got the NOX last March, cleaning out trash, thinking there should be a ring sometime, just Not Today. I know there has to be one some time. ( Right ??? ) I have to think not everyone thought to take jewelry off before a summer swim. Sure felt good to get out. Kenai Lake / Quarts Creek Camp Ground Beach. Watch out Nevada / Arizona / Florida Treasure Coast next winter, I'm a coming !!!!! Haha !!!!!!

Andy my bother just uses muriatic acid and water and soak the gold for a couple hours.

Hi Idaho Peg and strick, first, I left out a couple of important details. I like a threshold tone. For my ears there is a big jump in threshold volume level between 12 and 13 on the Nox 800 in Gold 2. So I kept it around there. It really helps with the faint targets, hot rock evaluation and determination of ground balance stability. I did not use tracking ground balance. I manually ground balanced (just a habit I guess) and the levels at both sites stayed between 1 and 5. Also, I hunted exclusively in Multi. Idaho Peg, I owned a Gold Monster 1000 for awhile (during the same time I was getting acquainted with the Nox). I found it to be an excellent gold prospecting detector. The two things I was missing on it were a threshold tone and the ability to manually ground balance. For me it was limited by being too automated. The Nox has outstanding numerical and audio ferrous/non ferrous indication with the press of the horseshoe button in any mode. It also has a much more accurate depth indicator (which I used) and an excellent pinpointer (which I constantly used). It also has so many ways to adjust and use its audio features that can really help in audio target identification support. I am in my mid 60s. Even though I'm fit, I definitely do not enjoy digging dozens of deep holes looking for tiny targets with my GPX 4800 or my former Gold Monster and just relying on the intensity level of low-high, high-low tones, gold probability indicator left/right meter, my pick magnet and maybe a hand held pinpointer to speed things up. With those two detectors, cherry picking is very perilous. With the Nox 800 and even the 600 (it probably would have detected both of those nuggets easily in Park 2 or Field 2 multi) there is a whole lot of information gathering at my fingertips and ear drums that makes cherry picking a much safer activity if I am tired, have a long hunt ahead of me, want to mark very unlikely gold targets for later inspection or just want to dig obvious non-ferrous targets first. The Nox 800 gave me tons of easy to evaluate information, a 6" coil and -3 lbs weight, all options which I happily used.

Bryan I get it now. You have eliminated the ferrous/non-ferrous breakpoint altogether and are running just notches so you have ferrous notched in which you can customize using added notches to knock out the low ferrous as desired. I basically notch nothing, use the default ferrous/non-ferrous breakpoints and cut in or out the ferrous region using the horseshoe. I like being able to cut ferrous out quickly with one button (horseshoe) if necessary in machine gun, bed o nails situations so your pattern wouldn't becessarily work for me. But your setup illustrates the awesone flexibility of of the Equinox to set up very sophisticated disc/notch patterns. Thanks for laying it out for me.

My customer on MX trip with me 2 weeks ago. 1st day 1st ring & it's this mans 14K gold with a gold Krugerrand coin. I told him to quit & just hang out at the bar as I felt he would not find a better. Should have listened as it actually did become his best find of the trip. It is his 1st gold coin find ever. So if entering it at the local club, does it go into the Jewelry Category or the Coin? Or he could pop the coin out and enter both individually? His Equinox 600 is almost paid for.

Just got my first ring of 2019 - so it’s my favorite one for this year as well, of course! I seem to be Queen of Copper. Though this may have been gold plated once - hard to tell!

Sorry for the late reply Gerry. You can sell the name brand rings on eBay, Craigslist , etsy, etc... Some places are better then others. I still have the Cartier ring but I will probably sell it to get some more accessories for my Equinox. HH