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I just made my flight arrangements to Australia and I am off the wall happy---- !!! Leaving the end of next month and couldn't be happier to get back and hear the Taskmaster screaming at me......lololol Luckily i didn't lose my airline points from 2017-18-and 19 and that gave me free passage from here to Sydney and back-- the rest i pay for in Aussie dollars !! Yes! Total airfare as best as I can figure is about 1200 AUD from Sydney to Perth to Meeka and back I may even try to get up north this year to where Mad Tuna is on station ...if i get a proper set of body armor first😆 From what I've seen i left some gold there in Meeka and that's ok-- i walked over it at least a hundred times-- i always swing high and fast,,😉 Seriously, Y'all don't know how happy I am to finally get the chance to go back---- I often think of Fred, and how he would have loved to go back,,,, so with Gods help I am going to do it again and this ones for you Fred!!!! Much love to you all and good luck this year finding your dream! No longer VA Nurse Paul------ Outback Yank now...

With the 1st big weekend of the year coming, many new eager Nugget Hunters are wanting to get out in the field. Some of you don’t have a seasoned Nugget Hunting friend to help you learn the ropes. Since my Field Staff and I offer detector training, we see the many mistakes some folks make. I’ll try to give some Field Knowledge and info to possibly help make your adventures more golden. Anyone who has good advice, please chime in. These are some of the items I recommend. I’ll mention detector technology type afterwards as my staff/I use different tools for the varying machines. Knee Pads - If running VLF detector, Knee pads and preferably ones with no metal. I’m at the point now that I personally don’t use them because I have pants that were designed to hold knee pads. I have Duluth brand but now there are many and including Military BDU pants with knee pad sleeves built into the knees. Footwear - Non Metal Boots or Hiking Shoes. This is especially needed if you swing a bigger powerful type detector (GPZ-7000, GPX-5000 or below). The new GPX-6000 is not as bad and some regular boots/shoes are OK, but you’ll learn how to walk without getting the feet to close. As for my preference of footwear, I have Danner Slip on non metal boots and Merrell Hikers. Magnet - Strong Rare Earth Super Magnet. This little tool is so important in fast recovery and or identification of targets. Many folks have no clue why we want a good strong magnet. I myself keep the magnet on my metal pick at all times. Non Metal Recovery Tool - Non metal Nugget Cup or Trowel/Scoop. If you swing VLF and trying to get the tiny dinks, I prefer the nugget cup. If looking for bigger gold or using bigger machines, the scoop/trowel is fine. Caution – You can’t use your bare hand on a VLF as the detector will respond to the minerals in your hand. Jewelry/Metal - Remove your rings and leave them home. If you wear a watch, get one with a non metal band or don’t wear one on the arm you use to swing the scoop across the coil. Pick - I like APEX brand as I get the rare earth super magnet on it and they come in different sizes/models. I’m a bit over 6’ tall so I prefer a little longer of a pick. 24”/30” are ideal for taller folks and especially if you run a deeper big machine. 18” handle is ideal for most folks swinging a VLF type detector and or if you prefer to carry the pick on your hip. Realize 24” handle length is hard to have on your hip as it gets caught up in your legs when walking. I wear the 24/30” picks on my back. Harness - I like the Doc’s Ultra Swingy Thingy and use it with all my Prospecting detectors. Not only does it allow me to carry my pick on back, but it has a bungee to help with the weight of your detector. As a bonus, it holds up my pants so I don’t get burnt on the plumber crack. Seems older guys pants don’t hold up as well as when we were younger. Trash Pouch - You’ll dig more trash than treasure so do your part and pack it out. No use in finding all those bullets and foil over/over and over each trip. Nugget Holder - Yes you should keep one on you at all times. I prefer plastic pill bottle, film container or scrotum pouch. Not a fan of glass vial as they can easily break. Also the glass will dull the gold. Swing Arm - There are a variety out there and the one off my GPZ-7000 goes with me at all times for many different detectors. The swing arm allows much better coil control and longer detecting hours with less fatigue. The SDC-2300 is a prime example of a detector that should have a swing arm. Same with GPZ-7000. Heck, even my Equinox with a larger coil is much easier and better to use when using a swing arm. Test Target - I like to use the size of test target for the expected size of gold I plan on finding at a particular site. Get a small #8 lead bird shot and tap it with a hammer to give a little flatness. Glue it to a plastic poker chip. If you are hunting in areas with bigger gold, then have said like size test pieces to bury and listen/tune the detector. Coils- If running VLF detectors I recommend you get the smallest coil possible for that detector for most areas. The smaller coil actually goes deeper and gives a cleaner signal response to small gold than the stock coil. There’s more smaller nuggets out there than bigger gold so keep the odds in your favor. If hunting for larger gold with VLF, the stock coil or even a larger coil is preferred. Don’t think you’ll get the depth of a PI with a bigger coil on your VLF in most gold type soils. PI’s rule the depth on larger gold. In tailing piles I actually prefer a VLF with good discrimination while running stock coil or even bigger coil. Todays newer PI and DVT detectors don’t have Iron ID, but hopefully things will soon change (come on Minelab – you can do it). If using PI or DVT, use the coil size for the terrain you are in. Yes there’s always exceptions. Spare Battery - Always have a Back Up Battery, always. Headphones - I highly recommend them for most areas I detect. Wind is a killer on deeper weaker and or smaller nugget sounds. Good headphones allows you to hear the detector much better. Location - For a beginner, don’t expect to find gold in unknown areas. Go where nuggets have been found with a detector. Never leave gold to find gold. As your nugget hunting skill progresses, then you can Prospect for new areas and ground. Spare Tire - Always keep one that holds air. Know where the jack is and how to use it. A few newer type trucks have a key that drops the spare. Know where the key is, know how to use the jack/change a spare. Phone - If swinging a bigger machine, your cell phone will give EMI to your detector. Try to keep it in the OFF position if possible. 1st Nugget - Take as many pictures as possible and soak in the moment. There is only 1 first and you want to remember forever. DP - Share your hunt experience with the rest of us here on Detector Prospector. As mentioned in a previous post, some of us Old Guard are fading away and we need some new young guns to keep the powder burning. Again, These tips/knowledge is just from my standpoint and always have exceptions. If something mentioned in this post gives you a better chance to find some gold and share a smile, then we are all winners. I look forward to reading from others who have tips for the newbies so chime in.

Disc is a target signal processing filter. Too much can adversely affect performance including depth and separation. XP sets the defaults for disc between 6 and 10 to provide optimum iron filtering and stability with respect to the ferrous/non-ferrous horseshoe display. I never recommend pushing disc higher than the top ferrous range (typically 10 but non-falsing ferrous can show up between 10 and 15). I also recommend utilizing some disc filtering for Horseshoe display reliability and to mitigate ferrous down averaging (disc set at 7 or 8 works well). With the Deus 2 iron volume feature you can still hear ferrous targets if desired so you can locate iron patches or to have total target awareness while still reaping the beneficial effects of the disc filter. This is one of the downsides to full tones...no iron volume so you can't apply "normal" disc (e.g.10) AND listen to the iron. So in full tones, I set disc between -2 to +2 to quiet things down but to still let me hear some iron. Anyway. I digress. Notch is an audio only filter. It does not affect signal processing or performance. It merely mutes audio associated with targets that have a TID that falls in the range of the notch filter settings. You can set up to 3 separate notch filter ranges (or just single TID ranges) of your choosing. So if you don't want to dig anything below 30 then just don't dig anything below 30. If you don't want to hear any targets at 30 and below, simply set a notch that encompasses the range from the highest disc TID setting (e.g. 10) to 30 and be sure to set iron volume to 0 so you don't hear the discriminated iron that will otherwise sound off below 10. I recommend leaving disc intact because disc helps to mitigate ferrous down averaging of non-ferrous targets in the vicinity of iron targets as I mentioned above. HTH GL HH

I think of Fred often too. He shared his maps with me when I went on my trip. I'm sure he'll give you a few pointy fingers on your trip Paul. Have fun and stay longer than they want you to stay. Can't you retire there?

I have advised Australian Border Force that a gold smuggler is trying to get into Australia wearing thongs (flipflops), shorts, singlet and the real giver away he has a Yank Accent. I think that will slow you down Paul. 😊

Was able to get out yesterday and hunt a couple of different rivers. I had to pay my dues today though. I dug a lot of trash for several keepers. First place I dug up a lot of lead and a silver toe ring. On the way home from the first stop, I hit a crossing and was able to come across a 14k wedding band and a pet crematory tag which is a first for me.

I remembered one thing about the Deus 2 I would suggest 9 inch coil users to try. I mentioned it somewhere in another post on this site, but it bears repeating. Remove your velcro arm strap and try swinging it without. I don't remember in which video I first saw somebody using their Deus 2 without the strap, but once I got mine I didn't put the strap on it and haven't missed it. In fact, I find it much more convenient and quick to use without the strap. No more need to slide my arm out of the cuff and no more bunching up of my long sleeved shirts. Time saved equals more targets dug in the long run. A very underrated way to use the Deus 2 and I highly recommend at least trying it. Your experience may vary with a bigger and heavier 11 inch coil.

Steve H...I agree! I personally posted what club claim I found several nuggets on in the El Paso mountains. I had gone over and over the claims and did share the info. I even took a several friends in the club there. If they can be successful then I'm happy for them and would like to bring a big smile to their faces. One person had a GPX6000 and I knew he could get deeper than I could with my EQ800...so unless and until I pull the trigger on a 6000..best of luck to him. I have to say though that most times in life..not always, that I find how you treat people is reciprocated. The 6000 owner offered to split everything he found. he was not successful but he offered to go out together and let me get some hands-on-time with his 6000 and I am going to take him up on it.

Gold found in in Pima County, Arizona. There's still BIG GOLD NUGGETS in Arizona!

Coffee just blew out my nose……….I just read Gerry’s post and under the PICK section…….on this is priceless. Should do a screenshot before it gets edited. Can you crack a rib from laughing 🤣🤣🤣

I have been taking my Nissan Versa detecting lately 🤣. 35 mpg vs 12 mpg, handles the backroads fine, just go slow 😂😂 It can be a poormans RZR 😂 Hell oneof my old geology professors used to do all his field work in a VW beatle, mine just has AC 🤣.

The test of the sensitivity of the detectors ... for the N.9 shot is definitely a challenging topic, for the PI detectors, but it can definitely take a different look at the various Vlf detectors for this purpose ... ... since I use to test the sensitivity and reach of very small gold targets ... several different tests .... I decided to supplement my testing with this test on shot N.9 Since this "test shot N.9" is really challenging ... in the first place I am interested in the extent to which this test will correspond to my previous tests on gold targets .. During testing, I noticed that the bullet had a N.9 ..is definitely a more challenging target ... especially for my detector PI Garrett ATX ... on a standard 12x10" DD coil .. as a very small flatter gold targets / 0.027 gram / which this detector can detect..on 2-2.5 cm .!!! ...enlarge this picture ..!!! ------------------------------------------ ... Therefore, I decided to adjust 3 spherical shots of N.9 to different surface shapes and then test it ... ... the result has not changed ... all 3 ar of the shots N.9 remained invisible to the 12x10" DD standard ATX coil ... but small gold 0.027 grams of gold target was detected at a distance of 2 to 2.5 cm .... what I consider to be such a big coil.. really great result ..!!! ................................................................... In the end I decided to test the PI Garrett ATX still on a small 3x7" power DD coil from Infinium LS ...This little coil... is completely new, because it came to me from the seller yesterday... ....The test result of the small 3x7"DD infinium coil pleasantly surprised me ... because the ATX reach of small 0.027 gram gold targets increased from 2-2.5 cm up to 4-4.5 cm ... !!!👍 enlarge this picture .. and you will see better...!!! .....and this small coil began to see two pieces of the flattest shots N.9 ... if it's only when the target almost touches the coil at the intersection of the TX and RX windings of the coil ..!!! Now I can say .... that PI Garrett ATX ... these flat shots N.9 can really "technically" detect ... even if it's completely at the reel .. -I'm satisfied with the result .. even though I still failed to detect the round and also the least flattened shot N.9 .. In fact, I am more pleased with the fact that on this small 3x 7 "DD coil..l, the reach has increased to my very small 0.027 gram gold to 2 times .. at 4.5cm compared to the standard ATX 12x10" DD coil ...!!! So the "Magic" of using a Smaller coil "on this PI detector also works successfully ... and the smaller coil has been able to improve the sensitivity and reach of ATX for very small targets. I'm glad that ATX on a small 3x7 "coil started to detect my 0.01 gram gold target -... even if only at a distance of 2-3mm from the coil.. ..👍 ------------------------------------------------------ In the final picture.. you can see that the really flat form of lead shot N.9 is already detectable .., but only right next to the coil.. ... but also note the good range of 4cm .. small 3x7 "Power DD coil for target "35 pieces fine gold" of very small gold with a total weight of 0.4 grams gold .. It is also a complicated target .. and standard 12x10"DD ATX coil... can only be seen at 1.5-2 cm ..!!! I will also be happy ..to reach my favorite test target 0.1 gram of gold .. where the reach of a small coil is really nice 10 cm .!!! ---------------------------------------------------- PS....At the end of this test, I asked myself one question .... do we really need a detector that will detect such small lead micro targets? From a "Technical point of view", detecting a target like leadshot N.9 is a really cool thing .., But.... Isn't it better to use a detector that eliminates a substantial amount of such junk targets ... but still detects very small and sometimes much smaller gold ???... And this applies not only to PI detectors but also to VLFs... I think it's a good question for further discussion ....👍

Perth is a great city well laid out and the Perth Mint is worth seeing. Meekatharra had more iron bars and house anti-break in equipment than we had when I lived in Bougainville (Croc Gold Island) Papua New Guinea. I had a quick look around Meeka got a one bit of gold but moved on the next day.

Head for the beach. We had some high winds last week and I got to thinking that I should do something different. The boss said it was ok to take off work early on Friday so instead of a pick I loaded the beach scoop into the back of the truck...when I got to the spot it looked like there had been 6 feet of sand removed from the area. Nice steep slope...targets everywhere and I had it all to myself. It was a good hunt. 4 silver rings, one junk tungsten, and the find of the day was the 18 k engagement A JAFFE ring...Its a real beauty in person...but mother grundy has a way of playing cruel tricks on us sometimes...the center stone does not test positive.. Who in the bleep buys a beautiful 18k engagement ring covered in real diamonds and then puts a fake in the middle? I even brought it to the jeweler today just to make sure...his reply "No Luck" lol. So that the way it goes... but I'll take it anyways...it's way too big to fit the wife but she has already laid claim to the silver ring with the red colored stone. Equinox 800/ field 2/coiltek 10x5 Happy hunting... strick

125,000 Views. Thank you readers.

They have no problems throwing away the real ones either all you have to do is piss them off just right... strick

What happens in the goldfields stays in the goldfields 😎

I assumed 5 out of 5 would equal 100% satisfaction rating, so 4 out of 5 would be 80%, 3 out of 5 would be 60 % , etc. At least that how I remembered it working.

4.8 out of 5. Yeah, that would be a 96% approval rating I'm thinking. That's not real good considering how many customers they service.

So it’s waterproof. I assume the 5’ is from box to surface? Did Kelleyco not read the manual or did Dimitar make a change? I hope he did. kelleyco … wow stiff price I’d likely buy from Phil Meyers in Tampa first or Tom Dankowski. I’ve never really liked the EXTRAs they throw in to make ya feel like you got a deal. I’m not sure you can even get into their store right now. What I am glad of …..more dealer interest. I hope Dimitar keeps selling so he can continue improvements that we all would like to see.

thank You Gerry for your post. Is the 6" coil for the EQ 800 better for gold than the 5x10 coiltek? H.H. 😁

Hey Outback Yank, Be sure to take a spare detector or at least have someone there who can provide. Nice to hear you get the opportunity to go back and do it right. Wishing you the best of luck and looking forward to reading your posts.

Makes sense to me, NZ has become so expensive in this day and age that you have to be able to afford to live here especially around the Queenstown region where all my gold is found which is why its become known as a billionaires bolthole but its similar the entire country. Australia is the easier cheaper option with higher wages for low paying jobs which these people are seeking. It's quite sad actually, unless you're able to pay over a million for a basic house for a person that's job is sales person with low wages which is impossible then you're better off moving to Australia for a cheaper life and many younger people do who have no hope of living here other than a life of struggle. These normal jobs are filled by people on working holidays from overseas as the income isn't enough for a local to survive on and they're happy to live 10 to a house sharing beds one on the day shift one on the night shift. When I first moved to the area I struggled to meet Kiwi's, everyone was from somewhere else in the world 🙂 It seemed like there were more Aussies, English and Americans than Kiwi's around here and it still does. The good thing is you guys have the most gold, and I'm very envious of that. Fortunately for me skiing is more important to me than metal detecting and the value of my finds means nothing to me, it's more about the difficulty of the hunt so finding small nuggets that are very hard to find means more to me than finding bigger easier ones would as the finds have no value either way, it's the fun of the hunt. 🙂

Hello Paul, Well I might see you out that way…..I’m kind of retiring soon so hopefully will be out and about a bit more. I live in Perth so that’s about 700 kms from Meekatharra. Let me know if there is anyway I can help you out at any time……unfortunately I don’t know where the nuggets are 🤔 Tony

The BEST discrimination is your SHOVEL Aaron

I have never installed the strap on any of my detectors. I have never needed them. Great post. 👍

That sounds like a win-win for both of you guys. I was thinking of doing something similar as I have pretty much exhausted a small patch in the Bradshaws using my 5000. Having someone else go over the same ground with either a 6000 or a 7000 could be interesting and might convince me to upgrade at least to the 6000. Incidently I've had some success here with a drywasher and another operator has recovered a fair amount of fine gold using a GB2. I have never done any prospecting in the El Paso mountains although I've passed through Randsburg a time or two. Sure seems like a hot (good) area to prospect so maybe one of these days.

The wife probably found out it was fake and is why she tossed it at the beach!!

I use a couple different cad programs. One of my favorites is fairly inexpensive called Moments of Inspiration. It can be run off most laptops and has a very short learning curve. It is also very stable. What I do love about it is I can see the tesselation prior to export and refreshes as I change curvature values so I know I am getting a nice optimized stl for 3d printing. Software can be found here: https://moi3d.com/ The Anycubic machines uses free slicing software called Cura but you can use others. So far Cura has some descent presets for different materials to get the projects jump started. Amazing how expensive all this was not that long ago and how accessable it all has become.

Correct Steve, perhaps I should have been more clear on that point so thanks for pointing that out.

There's good stuff there for sure. I live in a part of Virginia that was incorporated in the 1640s. The "development" where I live (we bought the "spec" house) has seen multiple farms and activity dating back to then. Here the ground is a mixture of sand almost like that found on a beach, loam created by vegetation, and clay, both red and gray. Thankfully the housing market crashed and a farmer bought the ~100 odd acres in front of my house. I have found from almost two years of searching here and other farms in a 25 mile radius that nothing but large iron has sunk to more than 8" here despite the sandy ground. I doubt even the earliest plows dug much deeper than that. Someone might disprove this with a pulse induction detector but would be hard pressed. I'm sure you'll find what is there with your Legend. I wouldn't worry as much about "deep" targets as clearing the more modern trash that is in the top 2-4", and going back over that area again from a 45 or 90 degree angle. I was lucky enough to get a permission recently that had never been hunted. It is another 100 acres or so, very large. In 3 hunts I got this much, excluding the copper bracelet: That's not much from such a large place, but sometimes people are just not losing or tossing stuff all over. 😀 It's also possible that the early occupants didn't have much money. Conversely I could show you about 5 such cases of finds from a smaller field in front of my house, but nearly no coins, just a few cut pieces of Spanish silver and half Reales. Another example is a 2-acre field where I found the following in about a 30-foot square: And next to nothing else. You'll have to find the "sweet spot" in any area by random scouting, I could make a really long post. 😀 I hope you'll find one there.

Just as a general idea, there is detectable gold in the wider Bagdad area, if that helps keep the spirits up for a little more exploration closer to home. I've had absolutely horrible and entirely regretable experience sharing specific areas with some people in Arizona, leaving a lot of areas I loved completely and utterly decimated. It's happened to others too, and there are a lot of people highly guarded about discussing areas in Arizona as a result of it. It's a shame because there are some amazing finds in the state that just never get seen at all now because of it all.

Not all gold districts have detectable gold. You can have a boatload of fine gold under your feet and nary a peep from your detector with many gold deposits. There is free information that will help answer you question but most folks aren't going to give you a pointy finger to a personal patch. Below is a link to download Placer Gold Deposits of Arizona. It is the best quick reference guide for Arizona placer deposits. Everyone who intends to placer in Arizona should have a copy. http://www.mylandmatters.org/Library/Item=8193 The book is free as are all the other resources in the Land Matters library. Just poke around in there and you are bound to find something useful.

I just go to the spots that have the big shallow gold and avoid the the deep little gold spots 🤣🤣🤣

Please don't tell anyone (we're trying to keep it under wraps) but that spiffy new coil is available on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Fisher-inch-Coil-Triangulated-Bi-Axial/dp/B09SNVRXHC Apparently only at Amazon, as far as I can tell. Limit 2 per person. If anyone can purchase, on the open market, the new Fisher MF detector in 2022 I will send them one of my paychecks. Offer good for the first person who can show proof-of-purchase. I'm not sure why we keep aiming for the foot and pulling the trigger but it sure makes for sore feet and a red face.

Yesterday JW suggested we take our GPX 6000's out and compare them to ensure mine is now working properly as I've had no confidence in it after my woes. Unfortunately we were unable to compare our 11" coils like for like as his coil is still away for warranty replacement, it must be 3 weeks now and no sign of a replacement, they just have no stock to swap it for which is pretty poor, but with the number of faulty ones I've seen on Facebook I'm not at all surprised they have no stock as it's not a coil they'd make a lot of as extras seeing everyone gets one with the detector. JW suggested we go to an area he's used his 6000 a lot with the 11" before it died so he would know how mine should behave to see if anything is out of the ordinary. I just wanted to use his detector for a bit to see if EMI was as troubling with it as it was with mine, so I took it for a spin with the Minelab 17" coil on it, I found it was no different with it's EMI behaviour to mine, in fact I thought it was worse but I guess that's to be expected, a bigger coil. We were quite close to a standard normal power line, not the high voltage transmission ones like at the other area that I wanted to wrap the GPX around a tree and say goodbye to it for good. JW had a fair while on mine checking it out and doing factory resets and just experimenting with it, he thought it ran similar to his with it's EMI behaviour so I guess it is how it is, he had my threshold running reasonable, much better than it was at the other location that's for sure. The other spot with the transmission lines is my favourite area but it just suits the GPZ better as it doesn't care at all about the transmission lines, even right near them its as if they barely exist and you can run it with the normal coil you'd use and your normal settings. The GPX requires the DD and adjusted settings so it makes no sense to use the GPX there, the same reason I didn't like using my 4500 there. Once JW had approved my GPX I felt a little more confident in it, knowing that more ratty threshold is normal, I'm just not good on ratty detectors and feel I'll always miss the faint targets with them by comparison to more stable detectors where as JW doesn't mind a more ratty detector, experience level differences I would guess. I had another confidence booster, the Avantree Torus speakers, I've never been much of a headphone person and the ML-100's that come with the GPX have a high pitched hiss all the time once connected to the 6000 which would give me a headache listening to that all day but the Torus speakers are perfect sound, no hiss and very clear audio and easy to hear even in a noisy environment, where we were has a rushing river nearby with quite noisy water sound in the background but the Torus was fine, perfect in fact. Quick and easy to pair with good sound quality and volume level, I was able to turn the GPX volume right down to minimum to stabilize the machine even more and run the Torus on the volume level that suited me. One thing I will point out is with the Torus on you'll like finding 22 shells, sure the noise is booming but the Torus gives you a shoulder massage every time you sweep over one so you'll find yourself swinging over them multiple times enjoying the vibrating massage 🙂 I like the Torus so much I'm going to use my Bluetooth transmitter on the GPZ and use them on it too, so I can finally retire my harness that was only there as a way to hold my SP01 and speakers. The neck gap on them is huge, designed for someone with a neck like Shrek I think and my Pelican neck is a bit skinny for them but they held on perfectly fine and I had no concerns of them coming off. I'd highly recommend anyone considering these things to give them a try, I doubt you'll be disappointed. They even talk to you 🙂 It started to rain a bit while using them and they're not water resistant but I just put my jumper over top of them and the sound came through it perfectly fine (not sure what Americans call it) and Kiwi's never even know what I mean when I say jumper as it's a Queensland/Australia term as far as I can tell. Once we'd done tinkering comparing detectors we started detecting, I wandered off 20 or so meters away from JW so I didn't interfere with his detector and started detecting some bedrock. I was running my GPX in Auto as if I tried manual 10 or Auto+ it became a bit too unstable for my liking I guess due to the nearby power lines. It wasn't long and I had a good target noise, super faint but very repeatable and after scraping away all the soil off the bedrock I was pretty sure it wasn't a pellet, I started breaking away the schist to try get down to it, I was attacking for for about 20 minutes and I guess JW noticed as he came over, I told him what's going on and showed him my target response at that time, it had improved to a point it was very obvious after smashing some bedrock away. He said lets check my 17" coil over it and see how it responds, so he waived the coil over it, nothing at all, he pushed the edges right into the cracks in the bedrock and nothing, he spent a bit of time trying to get a response from the target and he couldn't get one. We fired up my GPX again and waived it over it and straight away a reasonably good response. After seeing that I'm glad I didn't buy the 17" coil seeing we mostly hunt smaller gold it's not near got the sensitivity of the 11" on this stuff. to be completely blind to this piece when the 11" was getting it pretty easily. JW had also lost a couple of targets he was recovering with the 17" coil so we went over to them with the 11" and tried to find them, the 11" found one of the two lost targets straight away. JW then hung around to help recover the target, he's a lot better at getting gold out of bedrock than I am, I'm not aggressive and hack away at it slowly as I'm so scared I'll lose the nugget, it's happened before 🙂 He just smashes the hell out of it and gets it out quickly. It didn't take him too long and he had it out, as per usual with the GPX once the target is near the coil it ROARS on it, a few inches away and it's a quiet response so once out we had it in no time. The dug out bit of bedrock is below the coil in the photo above. The nugget circled. That's where it was, I was so surprised the 17" coil had no response on this nugget when in there, it was probably on its side in a layer of the schist but still, the 11" performed so much better. This is the nugget. I'm confident the GPZ with my favourite little 8" would have hit this far easier than the GPX did, it wasn't what I'd call deep but it was faint on the GPX and missed entirely by the 17" even with some of the bedrock broken away. Next up I kept detecting around this same bedrock and it falls off a bit of a cliff down to the river below, it's pretty wild on the way down but I went off the edge a bit as I could see an area I could start to get down and detected one of the many ledges on the way down, I found a few pellets down there but also a nugget. It was very shallow and a louder signal than a pellet. It was really only a couple of pick scrapes to remove the grass and I had it, it's lucky I wasn't being lazy ignoring the first pick scrapes assuming they're pellets. The reason I didn't ignore it and I ignore many pellets is the pellets the GPX finds harder to detect, sure it booms on them when you first go over them as they're close to the coil, you do a couple of pick scrapes and move the pellet into a pile of soil and the target signal drops off dramatically to a point they can entirely disappear or be very hard to locate compared to the screaming signal when they're near the coil so you find yourself flattening out the pile. It's a bit of a giveaway with lead pellets I think as gold tends to remain a decent signal as it's not as difficult of a target as a small sphere like a lead pellet. Here is a video of the spot the nugget was, not usual for me to go off edges like this I usually leave the mountain goat stuff for JW 🙂 My threshold was pretty savage in this video, I did a factory reset not long after this as it was starting to go wild. Good ol' Geosense. It's amazing doing a factory reset fixes it up when no amount of noise cancels will. I hope its a bug they can fix and a firmware update comes out some day. I decided I'd go back up to where I found the first one and give it another go, a couple of meters along the same run of bedrock I found another faint target signal that lived beyond clearing the dirt off the schist bedrock. Because I'd just only done the same thing I knew this was going to be gold so I did some filming. I didn't film the entire process as I'm very slow getting gold out of bedrock 🙂 This is the better video of the two to watch as it gives a better idea of the recovery I switch to manual 10 in the video from Auto and you'll see the target response improve, I just preferred hunting in Auto while I'm still getting used to the more ratty threshold of the GPX over the GPZ even though I know I'm taking a performance hit doing so. And the happy snaps. This one was a bit deeper than the last one, took me a long time to smash it out. A bit more of a ball nugget, again the GPZ would have hit it easily. It was now starting to rain a little bit and likely snowing on the mountains above us so our day we nearing the end, we only started around Lunch time so I was pretty happy with my results. JW at this stage had given up on the 17", I guess seeing it entirely miss the first target I got wasn't really encouraging. He'd put on the 14" DD now, I'm sure he wished his 11" wasn't away on warranty at this stage as he'd not found anything yet. I went back towards where we stored our bags and started detecting around there and found my last nugget of the day, another very simple target, it was in someone elses dig hole spoils, they'd dug up the nugget and rejected it, I guess they thought because it was in soil and not on or in the bedrock it wasn't gold, so I recovered it and it was my biggest of the day 🙂 It was right near where the cliff drops off to the river below. I checked with JW, it wasn't his dig hole so someone else had been there, he did point out when we arrived it looked like someone else had been there recently as there was dig holes that were not his so someone donated me a nugget. So overall my GPX was working much better at this spot, it still had its Geosense quirks and is nowhere near as stable as the GPZ, and the GPZ I know is just as sensitive if not more so than the GPX when its using small coils on the GPZ, it'll be interesting to see the improvements with the smaller coils on the GPX. Where the GPX appears to be more sensitive is small pellets near the coil with the way it really roars on them, but any depth on those little pellets and reality sets in, it's just hyper sensitive to targets close to the coil, it'd be good for bedrock hunting with that behaviour. My total for the afternoon. We bailed out because it started raining and only started at lunch time so a good result for me. JW found one little guy at .19 of a gram and that was once he changed over to the 14" DD, he was certainly digging away all day though, I could hear a lot of smashing on the bedrock! Damn pellets! My junk level was really low, I was rejecting known pellets by the strong pellet signal dropping off to next to nothing in the dig out pile quirk the GPX has. Those 22 shells give a nice massage with the Torus 🙂

I agree with everything Gerry said about the Nox coil differences but there is one more thing to add, the only major advantage I can see to the 10x5" Coiltek over the stock 6" when looking for nuggets is the stock gets the best depth on tiny nuggets at the center of the coil, in rocky areas or bedrock cracks and so on you may not be able to get the center of the coil over the target as well, with the 10x5" the most sensitive piece on the coil to very small gold is the nose and tail meaning you can push the nose up into places and retain the maximum sensitivity giving it an advantage over the 6". Aside from that benefit I prefer the 6" as overall it's more sensitive.

Meekatharra is not where you would go for a holiday 😳

Is that a mini cannon? Holy carp those finds are awesome. Funny you mentioned tilting over targets. I have been doing that and I believe the Buckle was a product of just such a thing. Those signals that are 40 or so, iffy, no ferro or non ferro indicator. I tilt and see if I can get a squeak. Thanks for sharing your finds, very cool.

And there certainly are lot of helpful people here, that’s what is so good about it! I’d also try local clubs who may have claims in that area- the members may have better local knowledge.

I have a scoop made by this company and it is the same as I bought it 5 years later. https://www.borderlineengineering.com/

Right now I prefer the Equinox 800 as it has one of the best identification systems out there and can run in Auto GB or you can Manually GB the unit. Now that the new Deus II is out, my Field Staff and I will be comparing it (will take time at different sites/kinds of gold/soils) to see what the results are. Another VLF detector that has great features is the Garrett 24K. Fisher needs to get something going soon or get off the pot. They been pumping us a bunch of gas the last 10+ yrs. When purchasing an EQ-800 from me, you get loads of knowledge/settings & I match the internet price. As always the US Military past/present get an additional 15% off. Out of state residents don't pay tax either.

N.E. I totally agree. A 6x10 DD would be the $hit in many places.....

Sweet jewelry finds at the beach! That gold ring is nice, but too bad about that big stone. I definitely need to go detect some spots where people swim. Turf hunting for jewelry is a pain. I had a nice, pointed SS sand scoop arrive the other day. I just need a handle...and then spots to use it. Unfortunately I live quite a ways from the ocean. Hit that spot again. There have to be more goodies.

jasong- yea its like going to a spa compared to gold nugget hunting....imagine digging in buttery soft sand most of the time...It's kinda nice to mix things up once in a while.... only problem then is you need more detectors lol. I don't know what the rings worth...wife says I need to sell some of this stuff.... https://www.cirellijewelers.com/products/a-jaffe-artistic-diamond-braided-engagement-ring-mes283-38 strick

It wasn’t so much a quote about the size of the coils that were coming, more about the performance when larger coils do appear. This is from JP in the ‘Africa’ thread: “Other than coil choice the 6000 punches just as deep as the 5000 on large gold, when more coils come online (thanks to Coiltek) then coil choice will no longer be an issue.” I have put in bold the bit I find interesting 😉

It keeps raining here. Started back to work and then more rain. And snow. And rain. It let up this afternoon so I continued to dig up the yard. It's one big target. Here are a few finds from the last week. I'm digging up just about everything just to eliminate target sounds. And that's why I found the silver button. Corroded iron on the back so it was a goofy signal. I'm surprised that we haven't found any older coins. A penny from 1918 but everything else is 50's up. House was built in 29.

Thank you. What I had when I started this was the government report where several pages were devoted to the miner and his gold strike. I had no idea where I would take it and there was no outline. I put myself in the place of the miner and how things might have happened. I would just wait for the next journal entry idea to pop into my head. It was a day to day thing. I'm glad you enjoyed it. I left a lot of room for speculation about who killed Jed and what season two will be like.

I wanted to buy that headphone adapter from that link. Unfortunately the flat rate shipping charge on what could be put in an envelope was outrageous. 😵 It was much more than the item.