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So what sells metal detectors these days? A lot of the market now is driven by “influencers” on YouTube and other social media. There is no requirement that the person involved have any genuine knowledge about what they are talking about. All that matters, and I mean all that matters, is how big their viewership is. That’s the way the media works these days. Truth, accuracy, etc. are completely secondary to how many eyeballs you can draw. In fact you can have a show or channel about complete BS and as long as you can draw viewers in large numbers, you are golden. Metal detector video by nature tends to rely on contrived tests. The most widely seen is perhaps the Monte Nail Board test. But there are endless variations of tests using wood blocks and styrofoam blocks, you name it. These all remove the most important thing about a detector - how well does it separate the target from the ground? Ground conditions (wet, dry, salty, 3D trash density) and magnetic mineralization rule everything from depth to target id accuracy. But that does not matter. What is important is it is popular and people believe it. So the manufacturers do now pay attention to producing detectors that perform well in these videos, and if performing well in the videos means maybe not so well in the ground at the end of the day you do what you need to do to sell metal detectors. Thats job one - sell metal detectors. This reliance on these types of tests and the people who do them go a long way to explaining why recent detectors do well with the YouTubers but not so well with the people that really use them. This forum tends to downplay contrived tests in favor of actual in field use on actual found targets, by expert users. The answers often are nuanced and lack the clear quick black and white the marketers need to sell the product. Finding the truth on the Manticore means reading 100 posts or more on the subject by a wide number of different real world users in different locations. The truth emerges over time, not in a five minute video shot by a guy who has had the detector for three days, if that. To sum up though it all comes back to how important it has become to do well in air tests and the Monte test, with actual stable performance in the ground being a secondary factor. And unfortunately a detector jacked up to do well in the air does not often do all that well in the ground. I relayed this story before. I was at my Moore Creek Mine in Alaska, and a visitor arrived with a Fisher 71 kHz Gold Bug 2. I was swinging a Fisher 13 kHz F75 at the time. He thought I was an idiot as he knew for a fact his Gold Bug 2 did better on gold than the F75. Now mind you, the goal at Moore Creek was 1/4 ounce and larger nuggets. Those were daily finds with 1-3 ounce nuggets common. He was pretty adamant so I said “here, let me show you something.” We took a 1/4 ounce nugget and air tested both machines. The Gold Bug 2 easily trounced the F75 and I could see the smirk on his face from the result. Then we buried the nugget in the ground. The F75 easily hit the nugget beyond the point where the Gold Bug 2 would even signal at all, and not by a thin margin. The guy was astounded. But he simply did not know that high frequencies air test well but fall on their face for penetration in bad ground on larger targets compared to lower frequency detectors. The same error is made repeatedly with PI detectors, either testing them against VLF detectors in the air or in low mineral ground. PI basically exists as a solution for extreme conditions, and testing them outside those extreme conditions is not only inaccurate but highly misleading. The same can be said of any this versus that VLF tests that remove the ground from the equation. It’s just not as dramatic as with PI versus VLF, but it is real all the same. When you are spitting hairs like so many people do these days taking ground out of the equation is ridiculous.

My last trip of 2023 to Northern NV was everything I expected and then some. On the last day, I was able to break the 1 ounce bar I had set. I actually had 2 goals for myself, at least a 1/2 oz and if the gold gods were on my side, then hopefully an ounce. After soaking my Nevada gold to remove caliche, my weight was 31.4 grams. Soaking results shows some totally unique and different variations of Au. Some nuggets with crystallized characters, a few weathered and smooth pieces, 5 leaf gold types a few bigger chunks and many smaller picker types. Even have a triangle formed prize. My biggest nugget of the trip was 6.6 grams and has a bit of chevron pattern. Majority of gold recovered was with a GPZ-7000, but I did find gold with 3 other models of machines (EQ-800 with 6" coil, Manticore with stock 11" coil and GPX-6000 with stock 11" coil). I took in trade while on the trip the 7 from a DP member, as I didn't own one (too heavy). One good thing about winters is early morning temps are too cold to hunt and the amount of light in a day is cut by 5 hrs. So with my thinking of starting to swing around 10AM and finish around 3PM with a lunch break, is about all my body can take of swinging a GPZ-7000. Plus I needed to test the detector before I sold it. Pics show just how interesting a small area of the region can have different gold patterns. Below is the gold right out of the ground and showing 32.9 grams. Has not been cleaned. Next pic is after CLR soaking to remove the Caliche (Calcite) that seems to form on many of my NV gold nuggets. Final weight was 31.5 grams so I only lost about a gram. Not as many chunky nuggets this trip (getting smaller each time) This next 2 pics are front and back of the biggest find and also my deepest dig a 6.6 gram at 15". Leaf gold is more rare than typical nuggets, but I still think Chevron is even more rare. Solid dense nuggets are always a treat as they are usually heavier than they 1st appear. The biggest of these is only (half a corn kernel) but weights .9 of a gram. The Triagon type nugget (in center) is really cool and collectible (only if it was a gram or more). Notice it also has a darker gold color to it. When I see those black cubes, I really start paying attention to my detector. They are Limonite cubes and come in many sizes. Last pic is all the gold again and showing a token I recovered in Nevada. It says NATIONAL, NEV. Wonder when the abbreviation for Nevada changed from NEV to NV? Well, I hit my goal for the trip and am proud of my efforts considering how hoard these places have been hunted. Actually, one of my good friends had asked if I found new locations that had not been detected and the answer is no. All gold was recovered from the same places I have known about and hunted. Sure I walked a couple washes I personally have not swing, but my staff have. If you are going to hunt Northern NV for gold, a great resource is "Placer Deposits of Nevada" by Maureen G. Johnson. Yes, each of the sites I hunted is mentioned in the above book. There's your "Nugget" of knowledge folks. Happy Thanksgiving to everyone across the globe this week. Gerry

During a recent detecting trip to the Rye Patch region of northern Nevada, I was intent on searching for the ever elusive large nugget at depth, wielding the Minelab GPZ 7000 equipped with the GPZ-19 coil, set to Extra Deep Gold Mode in Normal Ground Type. This combination of Gold Mode and Ground Type handles the local alkali ground very well, allowing the faintest signal responses to be heard; and good thing, too, as I would have certainly missed a couple of nice bits had the threshold been variable due to ground noise or EMI masking. They were buried at a depth of 18 inches and recovered from cracks within the weathered shale bedrock. A friend who was detecting with me swung over the undisturbed target zone with the Minelab GPX 6000 and 17-inch mono coil and there was no discernible response, so that added to the anticipation of deep, chunky gold…not exactly the large gold I was looking for, but at 3.3 grams and 2.2 grams, I'll happily put them in the poke any day!

This is what I am finding with my 5000 in the Gold Basin/ Meadview area with my Gpx5000, three different days out detecting, recently.

when you are on crack in Montana

Today I wanted to get out for a whole day hunt at my oldest permission, it dates to ~1640. They cleared the half that hasn't been hunted since I got it. Unfortunately they planted winter wheat on the other half 😀 It wasn't a bad day at all, started out about 43 and went up to around 50. I invited Chase down to hunt it with me, he got there later and did well himself. Today I walked nearly 8 miles, it was pretty rough on me, and in the afternoon the wind came up. It got colder pretty fast. Here are my relic funds for the day: Got a nice newer brass buckle, a couple of horse tack decorations, some other interesting bits, and 10 buttons or pieces. The most interesting relic was the odd shaped brass object next to last on the top row, it had decoration on it. Not sure what it's from but it is curved. Got a pretty big pile of trash today, lots of lead, a few pieces of iron, and some other junk. But the day was made by the coins! We hunted a road that went about a mile or so back behind the farm and I got this: A beautiful 1916 Mercury dime. Haven't got much silver lately so it was a relief! Sadly it's not a D 🤔 This is how it came out of the ground, I didn't need to clean it at all! But the real thrill of the day was getting a 96 and digging this coin, it's my first one of these. I had to sidelight it to get the date to stand out, it's a 1798 Draped Bust Large cent. The reverse is pretty good too, enough details to show. I dare not clean it any more than I have. I also got what I think was a wheat penny but it's horribly toasted. I hope Chase had as much fun as I did today. 🙂

Well this year’s hunting is about done, and I had a great time searching for all kinds of good stuff from the past. Picked out some photos of my favorites to share. First is that thing we couldn’t figure out if it were piece of a pipe, or gas lamp fixture…likely the latter, but still cool. Here’s some coins and an old gold scale weight, as well as an arrowhead found up near my cabin. Look how nice the dime cleaned up. A trip to Lemhi Valley a few hours from me had amazing pictographs and gave up some wonderful artifacts from the past inhabitants. My oldest coin find was 1861…a British penny. Found it near some old porcelain from England that dated late 1800s . Ended the season with some really beautiful points! I always thank the Spirits for sharing their gifts with me. My hunting partner made these really awesome pendants for us….we found the arrowheads and gold while hunting together, and he found the blue Native Americans trade beads years ago. Pretty cool. I’ll be heading to Arizona next week for 2-3 months…looking forward to nugget detecting, rock hounding, relic&artifact hunting and exploring new areas…maybe meet up with some Arizona forum members.😊

We did our annual Baja trip a little early this year. We had all but written it off after last year, but Pacific hurricane Hilary this summer, gave us some hope that enough flooding occurred to open up some bedrock and loosen some trapped gold. We cleared the border at Algodones, just outside of Yuma with no problems. Our only other concern was the annual Baja 1000 offroad race and its associated racers, spectators and chase trucks. We made San Felipe and topped off our tanks. Many racers and their scout vehicles were already there warming up for the race, but we were still ahead of the pack. Our only misadventure was day 3 with me taking a bad step coming off a steep hill and spraining my knee. We made the placer zone by early afternoon, set up our camp and started scouting our old routes up the canyon. Hilary hit the Baja peninsula on the Pacific side within miles of this area, although the placers are technically on the gulf side. Still, plenty of water had come down the canyon as evidenced by the debris line of tree trunks up 8 to 10 ft above the bedrock. My Polaris RZR 900 was definitely going to get a workout. Our first obstacle was one we tackled every year, but things had changed from our last path. Up a couple ledges, straddle a bedrock spine and try not to fall into the abyss on either side. Fortunately, I had all new tires with some superior grip tread. Getting down off the spine was the most difficult obstacle we encountered. There just weren't enough flat rocks within carrying distance to build a proper ramp, so we used some of the Elephant tree trunks and put the best rocks in the most crucial tipping points. White knuckles the first couple runs, then learned to trust the RZR as a surefooted machine. One other ledge upstream required some ramp building then smooth sailing for a couple miles, but then full stop. The old route left the main wash up and over sandhills to bypass impassable canyon ledges, but the flood had wiped out the route. Where once had been a small sand dune was now a 12ft deep pit where floodwaters had blasted through and formed a whirlpool clearing out any hope of getting upstream in a motorized fashion. Back to old fashioned travel, and we didn't have any burros. Our friend Kevin the hiker, from past misadventures, met us later that afternoon for 5 days of detecting. Day 1 of detecting was remarkable for my friend Dennis. Since we were going to need to shuttle 3 of us in a 2 seater RZR, Dennis opted to get out at the first obstacle to avoid too many trips past the white knuckle zone. He decided to run the 7000 over bedrock that we had detected dozens of times in the past and wait for me to return. I ran Kevin up the canyon then returned for Dennis once he cleared the obstacle. He had already found 2 nuggets, one over 6 grams and another near 2 grams. He always celebrates his birthday, a week away, at these placers. A happy early birthday, and a great start to the trip. More later.

If you’re not swinging a Coil in the Goldfields of Northern Nevada in the Month of October you’re missing the best ground conditions of the Year. My Wife Robin, broke her Ankle on Friday the 13th last Month. She finally got her leg into one of them Boots and has more mobility and told me to hit the Dusty Trails for a couple days. That’s all I needed as one of my hunting Buddies was heading out for a hunt as well. Driving on them gravel roads I could tell it rained since the last time I was out, but my truck was kicking up a cloud of dust you could see for miles. I met up with my Pard and loaded my RZR up and headed out to stretch my legs. We wanted to Patch hunt and looked for some dirt with some Colors we liked. We soon found a spot off the beaten path and spread out for the afternoon hunt. We both picked up a few before we headed back to camp. It was just enough sign of nuggets to hit it again in the morning. There was no signs of old dig holes which we wanted and the next morning we hit it again. We both hit a couple of spots that could bring more joy on a future hunt. But, we both had to head back home mid Afternoon. I worked on my disappearing Calluses on my hands from a couple weeks worth of washing dishes and look forward to more time on this new area to find its hidden bounty that we only got a sniff of. Until the next Hunt! LuckyLundy

I've noticed my gold finds are changing as the detectors evolve. Back in 1996 I think, the year the SD 2000 was released I started detecting for gold. It was all solid chunky pieces then. It took me years to find my first specimen piece, only thumbnail size but I was over the moon. As the detectors progressed my finds started getting smaller but more of them. For years I couldn't better the 39 gram solid nugget found very deep with a SD 2200. After an extreme, then a GP3000, I bought a GPX 5000 and it was game on. Probably found more gold with it than all others combined. I finally got a deep 78 gram solid piece with the 5000 and 18" nuggetfinder advantage coil , and it's still my best nugget to date. Here in central west NSW larger pieces are rather scarce, for me anyway. I get to the golden triangle in Victoria and tibooburra now and again but haven't been to QLD or WA yet. Now that I'm swinging a GPX 6000 and recently a GPZ 7000 the golds getting smaller, and lighter. Mainly porous spongy gold and lots of species. My mate hates me whinging about the species because of the work getting the gold out. He reckons he would take them any day. I only do it to annoy him LOL. I'm sure there's a decent nugget with my name on it, I just haven't found it yet. Some of the GPX 5000 gold and some GPX 6000 finds and the GPZ 7000 5 OZ of the processed species And another 3.5 OZ ready to sell.

MY GOLDEN STORY; PART TWO! MY GOLDEN STORY(PART TWO) IF YOU HAVE ALREADY READ PART ONE SCROLL TO PART TWO!!! Hello my name is Allen, I grew up in Mariposa and I’m still here(I don’t think il ever leave) I’m 29 years old and I have been prospecting since I was 13, it all started when my dad took me to the gem and mineral show at the county fair grounds. There was a roaring camp Recirculating sluice box display and a man was giving tutorials on how it works. When he saw I was curious in the item he gave me a quick demonstration. He then proceeded to try and sell me one(I was broke like most 13 year olds) I went to my dad and asked him to buy me a gold pan, I already knew he wouldn’t buy me a 100$ sluice box. he quickly said no, my dad was never into gold prospecting. Upon hearing that the man who was giving the demonstration of the sluice box came up to me with a brand new gold pan. He handed it to me and said go find some gold. I thanked him and when I got home that afternoon I immediately went down to the creek below my dads property. I dug out a pan full of material from the inside bend of the creek like I heard the old man explain earlier in his demonstration. That pan yielded me nearly 2 GRAMS!!! ADDICTED TO SHINY YELLOW ROCKS I was hooked immediately and in the first 6 months panning after school and weekends when I had free time I was able to pull 2 &1/4 ounces of placer gold from just that inside bend! All of the gold I had panned was sharp which at the time I never paid any attention to; but we’ll get to that shortly. When I was 15-16 years old in 9th grade I was really into prospecting, by that time I had been able to buy my own sluice box, 5 gallon buckets, and classifiers. I had gotten a few more ounces out of the creek and the alluvial placer deposit seemed like it would never end! BUILDING A GOLD TROMMEL One day I was told by a family friend that a nearby mine owner (it’s now a gravel plant) was told about my passion for gold prospecting and he offered to sell me a cinnamon grinder which I could turn into a trommel for scrap price. I paid 2,000$ for the 26 foot long barrel and I- beam contraption I knew nothing about. We got it home and the fabrication work began. Over the next 8 months my dad (who was now seeing I was actually pretty good at finding gold) taught me how to weld and how to make anything I ever needed from scrap iron. He is a real McGuiver, the hopper is made from welded together propane tanks, and the cut 4 foot x 2 foot slabs of 1/4” steel that came from the areas where the 3/4” expanded metal screens now are. The trommel came with a 35hp 3-phase electric motor. “That won’t work”, my dad said. So I started. And I began my search on Craigslist for a gas motor. A week later I found a 65 horsepower Wisconsin 4 cylinder engine in Sonora for 150$. It wasn’t running and the seller had no idea if it would run at all. I got a ride to acquire the engine and upon arrival I made sure the engine wasn’t seized and took it home. Growing up riding dirt bikes on a dusty road I knew how to rebuild carburetors like a professional. So I did just that and the engine started right up! The sluice box and hopper for the sluice were then added. Everything fabricated by me and my dad based off of what we had learned and inquired from the internet. RUNNING THE TROMMEL FOR GOLD!! We got a 1602 permit after finishing the trommel and getting it set up, and we ran 50 feet long and 10 feet wide of the seasonal creek I had been finding all of that placer gold in. This task took us one weekend to complete and when we cleaned out the 2 sluice boxes there was an astonishing amount of gold in the first, and none in the bottom! How much did the first sluice box obtain? 27 ounces!! Most of which was very sharp nuggets/pickers and a few jagged eraser sized quartz specimens. METAL DETECTING; Metal detecting for me wasn’t very exciting in the first 12 (YES TWELVE!!) years… I had started with a Garrett gold stinger 2 and knew absolutely nothing of how to find areas good for metal detecting that have indicators for metal detectable gold. I gave up on detecting for a few months and went back to my prospecting in creeks with a gold pan/sluice box. MINELAB; if only I were had the knowledge of how to properly run the gpx5000. I bought and sold 3 whole sets of minelab gpx5000 due to me getting discouraged when going for months in a row nearly every single day with no return. Okay now let’s get to the INTERESTING part of this exciting stories of mine which are such great memories now. SAME MINELAB; COMPLETELY DIFFERENT MACHINE! I would try for the next few years repeating my buy-sell cycle. Looking back now I would tell myself not to get discouraged. Because you might just give up on the MOTHER LODE! on September 9th of last year(2022) I had gotten the itch to prospect with my gpx5000 and look for the famed “nugget patch” everyone is so eager to find. I wasn’t 500 feet from my dads doorstep walking behind his house when I got a signal. That signal turned out to be a 2.3 gram nugget of rough gold! FINDING THE NUGGET PATCH This is where it got tricky, I had a friend of mine come over and examine the area where I found my first metal detector nugget. He had a minelab gpz7000 with a gp19 coil. He also knew a whole lot about gold prospecting, hard rock mining, geology, and metal detecting methods. He was the previous owner of the famous colorado quartz mine. Located in Mariposa California. When he got here we spent three hours metal detecting 100 feet up the slope where the nugget was found; aswell as 50 feet on each side looking for the brothers and sisters of my exciting piece of gold. When he had gotten tired he decided it was time to go down the hill and give up. “That nugget must have fallen out of some poor miners pocket or slipped out of a burlap sack full of gold.” DONT GIVE UP!! The following week I would spend some time every day walking the hill sides while swinging my gpx5000 which I had finally gotten my college degree to know how to properly tune & use it. One day I had gotten another signal, thinking it was going to be trash again I slowly proceeded to dig it up from the ground. I couldn’t believe my eyes when I pulled out a solid round 1 inch quartz-gold specimen weighing in at 13 grams! The hunt was on.. I COULD GO ON… I could go on and recount every single one of my finds and the excitement that came with them, but I could write a book by then. Long story short, It has been 1 year and 2 months since my first metal detected gold nugget, and my specific gravity gold total is over 15 POUNDS!!!(gold weight only) most of which is coarse-big nuggets and crystalline gold quartz specimens. Very few are placers. My passion has always been learning something new. CONCLUSION so here we are coming to the end of my story. I will give updates and add a few more memories a few days a week. Until then, REMEMBER, BE SAFE AND SWING LOW AND SLOW…..OH! and if your an alluvial placer lover; heavy pans!

I had planned a trip to Arizona to get to know the Garrett Axiom for the first full week of November. Of course, I got sick and was still sick when I finally left Denver on Monday November 13th. I did make it to Phoenix and got into the area I was hunting by midday on Tuesday. I got in about 18 hours of detecting time with the Axiom and even though I was tired from being sick, I enjoyed using it very much. The area I was hunting is not known for large nuggets. The largest that I have found in this area is 6 grams and I wasn't expecting anything like that. 1 gram sized or smaller gold was fine with me. The ground in this area is moderately iron mineralized with lots of dark gray quartzite looking hot rocks that are full of magnetite, lots of hot rock caliche, basalt, tuft, porphyry, andesite, schists, and other benign metamorphic and sedimentary rocks. This place was super dry. They really need some rain in this area of central Arizona. I committed to dig every possible target each session until I got too tired to safely dig which happened after about 6 hours in 85 degrees Fahrenheit heat. Since it was still pretty hot and rattlesnakes and a pack of ornery wild mules were still in the area, I used Aukey B80 wireless earbuds with a Bluetooth transmitter plugged into the headphone jack instead of over the ear wireless headphones. I only used the 11X7" Mono coil with the Axiom since bedrock is not very deep at this location and I wanted to really see how small a target the Axiom could handle. I was running the latest available update and did a full reset before getting started. As Steve H. suggested in one of his posts, I kept the Axiom's sensitivity at 4. I tried 5 for a bit but there was really no point in doing that. Sensitivity 4 out of 8 was plenty sensitive. I was using the Fine timing, Slow speed, threshold on 14, volume on 8, and the Axiom usually ground balanced around 48/25 with ground tracking OFF. I did try the more advanced ground balance window a couple of times when the prevalent hot rocks were getting overwhelming but I would eventually come back to the original ground balance. So basically these were very close to default settings. There was enough EMI and ground noise in this area near Phoenix to cause the occasional warble which never fully went away even after frequency shifts. However, compared to the sometimes unstable SDC 2300 and GPX 6000 when I've used them in this area, the Axiom was very quiet and predictable as far as the non-target warbles that it sometimes produced. The photos show the targets that I recovered. I did not keep any of the pesky hot rocks that were unavoidable. The smaller plate has a 0.32 gram flat nugget and a 0.12 gram rice kernel shaped nugget. There are several wire targets on that smaller plate that do not register a weight on my cheap gram scales which go to 0.00 grams. Several lead shards give their weight as 0.01 grams. Both of the small nuggets were around 4" deep as were many of the targets on the smaller plate. Some of the targets on the larger plate were easily detected at 8+" deep using the full length of my Garrett ProPointer AT pinpointer as a ruler. As far as I am concerned the Axiom is extremely sensitive to small sub gram targets just the way it is and it's 16 hour battery life, great ergonomics, well organized display, excellent features and overall performance are really amazing.

My Buddy LuckyLarry’s little 9x5 coil has been on Fire, since the No-Where Patch Story! We both swing this little guy on our 6000’s. It’s very sensitive and has fair depth, for Northern Nevada’s shallow placers. But, in open Country it’s like Paddling your Life Boat in the middle of the Ocean. This hunt we started hitting the old Horse Dung Ridge Patch. It’s a Mile long Ridge that I never swung the entire length only stopping at its first patch. Larry, has some legs I’m about to the end of Horse Dung Ridge I pulled my second nugget about 10 ft apart. I turned to signal Larry of the fast two nuggets and head my way. He wasn’t on the ridge hunting the left side as I last seen him. I dug up 4 more nuggets very fast and looked for him again. I just caught a glimpse of him swinging over another Ridge way out of voice range! Back to digging nuggets and it seems like the next thing I know someone’s voice scares the hell out of me. It’s Larry with a big smile on his face. He said, looks like you found a patch as I settled down from the scare of being lost mind and tuned into my detectors sound for the next nugget. Larry, said he thinks he found a patch too and produced some very nice Quartz with ample showing of Gold. We walked back to my Buggy leaving my little patch to hunt the newly named Big Specimen Nugget Patch! Upon arrival he showed me the shallow hole that all the pieces came out of and we set off grinding the area. We swung that Ridge for 1 1/2 days with little joy! We know and inch is a Mile in this Hobby and haven’t giving up on this depleted Quartz Vein. Larry’s Specific Gravity weigh in for these 3 pieces was over 45 dwts. Mine on the left received and honorable mention 😂 But, when Two Lucky’s are on the hunt, finding that Needle in the Haystack is possible! Until the Next Hunt LuckyLundy

The largest lake in my county is about 30 minutes away and they’ve lowered it for the winter. First time I ever hunted this lake was last weekend at a small beach area. Only got clad and it’s included along with today’s clad. I started off at that same swimming area. It’s pretty small and I got all the high conductors last weekend so today I dug medium and low conductors. I got a scratchy mid 30s signal and out popped a gold earring. After I got home I confirmed a 14k stamp on the little hinged piece that goes through the ear. I then moved down the shore and came to an open space about 40 yards worth of shoreline between houses on the shore. I soon hit a wheatie. Then not 5 minutes later I hit three silver dimes all within 3’ feet of each other. Probably a spill. After those three I say to myself “game on”!! About 20-30 minutes later I got a nice sounding 94 and up pops a ‘56 GW! Right next to it along with a bunch of iron grunts was a 90-91 and another silver rosie! I kept scanning that area and through the iron grunts I’m getting a high tone with mid to high 90s numbers popping on the screen. I dig down and up comes a 1960 big ben! Most likely another spill. To top things off, when I got home my new MI6 pinpointer was in the mailbox!

Summary of Gerry’s Detectors last 3 Days Field Training at Rye Patch, NV of 2023 for the customers. We’ll still offer 1 day 1 on 1 this Winter in AZ, all the way into March for those who prefer Individual hands on. I think due to the cold weather the previous week (lows in the teens & highs in the 40’s) with snow cover peaks... half the class cancelled. This put me in a bind and as soon as I realized how small the group was, I called 2 of my Field Experts and told them, not needed. Something about cold in the desert that just does not sit well with a few. Actually, the weather turned for the good and we had some of the best possible temps one could hope for. Sure the low temps were in the upper 30’s/low 40’s but the high temps were optimal at upper 60’s and low 70’s. Yes, the Nevada desert was shining brightly with hardly a breeze and way warmer than expected, as a few of us got too much sun having fun while learning/listening and enjoying the group session. Even had a few unexpected guests getting the last of the warm sun-rays for the year. I won’t go into details on what my Field Staff/I share the 1st day as it’s hard learned from many hours of us in the field with a variety of detectors, coils, settings, sites and kinds of gold. All I know, is the customers certainly do appreciate what they see/learn with their own eyes and that’s exactly what we want. We finished the day with a quick Proper Detector Setup so those who want to enjoy the evening swinging or before class the next morning. Soon after one of the VLF detectors (Equinox) and it’s owner from NV scored a picker nugget (sorry Floyd I didn’t get a pic). It’s nice to see/hear of gold being recovered the 1st day, especially for Rye Patch for anyone who knows how hard that area has been detected. Not much time after, Duke from Idaho was giddy with joy seeing his 1st NV gold, just a picker....but gold. This guy Duke, was a hard nut to crack as he is prior US Military Special Forces and an Expert Coin Hunter who’s retired and puts in 40 hr weeks swinging his NOX. He’s well over $1000 in clad alone. This summer he’s spent so many trips in the gold fields trying to find some Au on his own and it just never happened. Duke called me the week before saying he was cancelling as the weather was cold, his ego was bruised and his tent/sleeping bag was not designed for such weather. He had just returned from a multi day hunt looking for the shiny yellow with ZERO results. After that trip he concluded maybe chasing the elusive heavy metal was just not his cup of tea. I accepted Dukes words and removed him from the list. Not 10 minutes later my gut told me to call him back, so I did. It’s not that I wanted to see Duke fail, but more about his background and how much alike it is to mine. I’m prior USMC and for 25 yrs was a heck of a coin/relic/jewelry hunter. I thought I knew metal detectors inside and out and since my Success was so great, I just assumed the pursuit of gold nuggets would be the same. Boy was I so far off base and wrong, but at least I didn’t give up. I had a long talk with Duke and told him…most of his no gold problem was the Success of his coin hunting. Two totally different styles of hunts and target signals to be listening for (plus a bunch of other things most don’t understand). I promised if Duke would show up with an open mind and... if he could accept personal criticism from my Field Staff/I, as well as he change his habits, he would learn the ropes for this new chapter of using a metal detector. As for the tent/sleeping bag, he showed up with more blankets, but forgot his coffee making essentials (that’s a totally different story). Those who understand morning coffee, must know. Anyway, long story short, Duke did in fact learned/listened and found gold. He was totally surprised at how different the Au hunt is, but he accepted his bad habits and shined above the past. I can tell Duke will be a great nugget hunter if he desires to stick with it. Just before the day ended Mike from Idaho came up to me with his 1st NV gold and I was a little surprised all the previous classes had left a nugget for his GPX-6000. It just goes to show, even the best of us can’t find it all. Day 2 we stayed near camp as it seemed to be producing some nuggets. We hunted the wash near by and could see plenty of recent dig marks. There was much exposed bedrock from a recent rain and I knew there was gold to be had, but also some spots of heavy trash got scattered down the wash as well. It’s tough in those situations but those who persist and learn to use their tools properly (super magnet) can save time and hopefully be rewarded. That’s one good thing about trash areas in old gold producing prospects, you know there’s still gold left to be earned. We managed a decent picker in the wash with GPX-6000 but not much more gold from there. One of my previous customers hunted near camp on day 2 and he managed a a few with his 6000 as well. Remember, he's a previous customer and has already taken the training. The pic below is the same customer and his finds from this year in 5 months of swinging for gold. It seems the new improved GPX-6000 is the best at what’s left at Rye Patch and we were starting to see that. Yes we had two Axiom’s in class and even though they were able to hear most of the targets before we actually dug them, they had yet to score their own gold. Day 3 the final and usually the best day for Success. The students have had multiple 1 on 1 times with my different Staff and plenty of tutorial. It seems the knowledge is most remembered (repetition) and best coil control, ear’s listing to the right sounds vs the wrong sounds…is being accomplished. I can assure you of 10 trips, 9 of those the most gold recovered is on the final day, which should make sense. It just goes to show the advances and progress the folks in the class have learned. As the man in charge, that’s exactly what I want to see and it keeps my Staff/I happy. Up until this time on the 3rd day, Minelab ruled the gold count. Most of that was due to the number of Minelabs in the class vs other brands. The two Garrett Axiom guys were getting a little antsy and I could see it in their body language. I made sure Lunk who owns the Axiom with great success was on them aplenty showing the capabilities of what I consider the best value Pulse Induction gold detector on the market. Is it the best for all scenarios, NOT AT ALL and no detector is (that’s an upcoming write up). Axiom’s come shining through. That’s exactly how the last day of the training ended. The students are putting everything they’ve learned together and so their chance of Success is 10X or more of when they arrived. To start the Garrett glow, Frank all the way from Colorado is swinging an old push windrow and his Axiom lights up a beautiful Rye Patch type character piece of gold. It looks to be just the right size for a dainty pendant down the road. Frank was all lit up and smiling as he explained how he thought the sound of that target was so smooth and clean, he was pretty sure it would be nonferrous. It’s just a matter of it being the right kind of non-magnetic metal, and it was. The other Axiom guy, poor Randy from Oregon, we noticed his detector on occasion would act up and then work fine. We limped him through until the 3rd day when Lunk handed him his own Axiom detector. Thanks’ Lunk for doing so, as Randy didn’t even purchase his unit from me. Hey, that’s just part of why I and many others feel, my team of Experts is the best out there. Having a detector run flawlessly is a big part of self confidence and if you are newer to the game, it’s such a letdown. Well Randy didn’t have to worry now as Lunk’s Axiom is a proven golden winner and those Special Settings Lunk has hidden in the menu (just joking) came through 2X for Randy. Randy with new confidence in a properly running Axiom digs a nice chunky, semi rounded, solid, Rye Patch nugget. What’s even more impressive is about 5 minutes later and less that 5 feet away is his biggest prize, see pics. Yes that’s a water worn, thick, soft, yellow, heavy metal, 3.2 gram, gold nugget. Randy is a mostly quiet kind of guy changes to a little more bubbly of a character while he explains to the rest of us how he found his 2 nuggets. It sure will be a nice drive home for him as he rattles his container with gold and confidence in his abilities. Mike from Idaho was the last student that I know of to find another nugget with his GPX-6000. After that I know of a few my Staff recovered as the training session winded to a close. Did all customers find Gold? No Sir, and we are quite blunt about the odds up front. But most did and that’s a good thing. Did everyone get to hear undug and unknown targets with their own detectors? Yes and that helps build confidence for those who may not be so lucky to go home with gold. Remember, my Field Staff/I provide the location and detector education. We have no clue who will find gold and not, as we don’t know the students and or their capabilities. We promise each person will have a greater understanding of their detector and it’s capabilities, both good and or bad. No use in using a particular detector in a situation where said machine is weak for such task. But, so many people unknowing do so and when your detector doesn’t beep on that kind of gold, you’ll never know, because you missed it. Detector Knowledge and Self Confidence is a big part of Golden Success and not knowing/having it, is like playing poker with a guy who has an Ace up his sleeve. You don’t believe me, lets play… it’s your deal. Thanks for taking the time to read and any questions, please ask. Thanks, Gerry 208-345-8898 Gerry's Detectors http://gerrysdetectors.com/ Gold Nugget Detector Field Training

There’s a very popular river that has literally thousands of people that tube down it in the summer. It’s fed from a dammed lake about 5 miles upstream. In the spring, summer and fall they open the dam gates to raise the river level for the tubers and kayakers. They finally quit opening the dam for the winter so I donned my hip boots and took the nox with the 6” coil. It only got up to 46 degrees today so needless to say I was cold. It’s very hard to dig between all the rocks so I had to roll up my sleeve to retrieve the items I found. My scoop is nearly useless. Got a nice titanium ring early on and was just about ready to quit for the day when a solid 11 signal ended up being a 10k ladies ring. Look at all the vapes in this river (really just a creek). This is a trout stream!

Got this permission a while back but waited for Chase to be able to make the grueling 2 hour drive to search it with me for the first time. A huge 100+ acre farm that has potential, it is part of a very old land grant. There are another 100 acres nearby as well. We got in about 4 miles of walking, up and down hills, across slopes, and pretty much covered the outer edges. Chase had to go but I stayed a couple hours more. Honestly with all that coverage we didn't find much but I did make one find that was on my "Why haven't I found this yet" list: An 1864 2 Cent piece that looks good on both sides. It's the more common "Large Motto" variant, in pretty good shape. We both agreed this place has been heavily detected, but I managed to get a few things, it's a lot of walking. Here's all the stuff too big to put in a display box: A large spring scale plate, a brass hook fragment, a belt buckle I think it's from the 70s or 80s, a rope cinch or pulley, and some sort of brass finial with a square hole in the bottom. Here are the keepers: A dog tag from 1955, some broken brass tab that I think may say "Jan 6", one really old button and an aluminum two hole, a copper memorial, two clad dimes and an IHP with a completely obliterated obverse. The 2c coin is next to the brass ring I got as I was leaving. Lots of trash today, no iron but lots of junk. Got a great fall sunset while cleaning my gear. 🙂

I'm down due to a severe shoulder injury, but not out. 😀 I've been thinking a lot about this article for a long time, even teased it a couple of times, I always keep my promises. A farm is a complex system, and to my great joy I've found that most detectorists have their "eyes on the prize", the immediate areas around barns, houses, and roadways. My best finds have come from other parts of a farm, partly because many of the farms I have hunted were previously detected. I want to share some of my observations over the past 4 years with you. I've also posted two other tutorials, one regarding using the website historicaerials.com and the app OnX Hunt, and another showing how to use the incredible Lidar imaging website from USGS. Here is the link for those: Probably the most important and first thing I will share is not only to get permission to hunt a farm by interesting the farmer in having you search it, but also to inquire as to the history of the place, and listen. Allowing a farmer to talk at length about the property is one of the top ways to ensure cooperation and the possibility of being able to keep some or all of what you find. If you act hasty, impatient or shady in any way you will be rejected. Scour the Internet prior to and after talking with the farmer so that anything the person says will make sense, but do be careful not to reveal too much of what you know. Promise that you will not be a liability, and that you will not call attention to the farm with any historical authorities. I'm not an artist so all of my illustrations will be somewhat crude, I apologize for that in advance. 🙄 Above is an actual aerial photo of a farm from Google Maps, not necessarily one of my permissions. 🤔 "Turn Zone" I've noticed that most farmers make one or two passes around the field both when planting or after harvest. This serves as a guide for what I call the "turn zone", this area will be at either end of the direction the field has been sown. Prior to mechanized farming methods, farmers used large animals to pull the various tools used. Traditionally a farm will be tilled and sown in the direction that produces the least amount of turns the animals would have to make. At best you will be able to determine this by eye and perhaps using old aerial photos, but sometimes large tracts are farmed in different directions in order to produce different crops at random. Generally the turn zone will be at the end of the furrows, not along the sides. I have illustrated these zones in red on the aerial photo. Typically most finds will be located in this area about two bush hog or tilling widths (modern equipment) from the edge of the farm. Buttons, tack buckles, and coins can be found in this area in abundance, as not only is it a stress on equipment and clothing turning the animals, it is also a rest area before continuing back in the other direction. "Rabbit Hunting Zone" This zone is found usually in the more remote parts of the farm to avoid discharging firearms in the direction of the house and barns. It is illustrated by the orange tick marks along the tree line. Hunters flush out the prey there, and sometimes just fire into the woods, as small prey won't usually be seen in the open. Coins, buttons and other pocket contents can be found there, as well as a tremendous amount of spent cartridges from various firearms which makes this zone a bit difficult. If you're not up for a lot of signals you can avoid it. There will be a lot of other junk there such as discarded lubricating cans, parts, tools and lots of can slaw. "Stress Zone" One might think farms are usually flat, but in my experience they are anything but. Gullies, washouts, and rises from the sublime to the ridiculous abound! An aerial photo doesn't show these anomalies well so I created a crude drawing to illustrate it below. The incline might seem steep but I've seen it often. Getting farm animals to cooperate going uphill and downhill is no easy task. Therefore, relics get lost in this stressful endeavor at the bottom, middle and top of a rise. Buttons pop, buckles break or fall off with straps, and coins are lost from resting or maintaining tack and tools at the top and bottom of a hill or rise. In addition, relics get washed down to the bottom of the hill by storms. When searching a hillside, be mindful of shelves or indentations where relics might get trapped. "Hot Spots" Old farms were often the center of local activity. Fairs, Markets, Horse racing or riding and local entertainment to name a few. There is often no surface evidence of such activity. There may also be little evidence that a building once stood in the field. While searching the above zones, it is often good to crisscross the field to see if iron concentrations can be found in open space. The presence of such can well indicate a hot spot where activity occurred, and finding the edges of such a hot spot will allow for a more concentrated search. When concentrated iron is found, simply search in concentric circles or straight lines to find where iron is no longer detected in quantity. Miscellaneous Look for washouts, contours where water drains from the field, any evidence of running water during storms. If you search these spots from end to end there will be a high concentration of lighter materials such as aluminum at the lower end, but often heavier objects can be found at the beginning. The presence of many lead bullets in a particular spot indicates it is the drop point or backstop of projectiles such as one might find at a shooting range. Unless the actual target spot can be located where there is a possibility of finding pocket relics, it is somewhat doubtful that anything but bullets or shot will be found. Flattened bullets in quantity would be an indicator. Look at topographic maps on historicaerials.com going as far back as you can, they often indicate the presence of roads that have been moved or are no longer in use. Many relics can be found along old roads. Those maps prior to the 1960s will often indicate the location of buildings that no longer exist as well, represented by square dots in the oldest maps, and up to large rectangles in later maps. Water features on a farm present an extra degree of challenge, particularly waterproof equipment. Look for really tall trees that appear to have been on the farm for a long time after noon (12PM), these "signal trees" indicate the possibility of a break area from the hot sun. I've found coins and buttons tracing the shade. I also want to call attention to "dragged" objects that get caught up in the various implements, and items broken by such as well. Dragged items can be found anywhere, and broken items can often be found in straight lines from the piece you have currently discovered. Hunting in an increasing spiral from the object or along the apparent furrow may produce additional pieces. This is as much as I can think of at the moment, should I think of anything else I'll post it, or if any of you have other suggestions, please post them here. Happy Hunting!

X-Coils have been working away in the background and took me by surprise with this one, I've always wanted a Concentric coil for my GPX 5000 but not a giant sized one, and I think they've nailed it with the perfect size coil for my needs, a 15" Concentric for the legacy GPX. I have a spot that I like to detect that's quite close to home but the hot rocks drive me mad with the GPZ there, I've found a few bits of gold there, biggest is 1.2 grams and that was with the Equinox 800 and 11" coil, the reason I was using it was I got sick of digging hot rocks with the GPZ, I haven't even bothered to take the 6000 there as I already know it's worse on these particular hot rocks than the GPZ. I've had the GPX 4500 there once but had a fair bit of problems with EMI as it's near a busy road and every car going past sent my 4500 nuts, their alternator or something, you could hear them coming. It's quite a steep gully with a road going through the bottom of it. This nugget would have been no more than 20 feet from the road So, I'm very much looking forward to using this 15" Concentric coil on my 5000 and going back to this spot. In mono mode on the GPX it's a full-fledged spiral mono coil, flick it to DD mode and it's a Concentric coil which handles bad ground and my hot rocks very well, along with being very good for EMI. A real 2 in 1 coil. This coil will be on its way to me very soon, I can't wait to use it. My 5000 hardly weighs more than my 6000 now with its carbon fibre shaft and lithium battery setup.

I live on a 20 acre farm property in northern Alberta, Canada that was homesteaded in 1930. I practice my detecting technique in the yard. I've found a number of cool items including WW2 RAF buttons, some jewelry, and several coins (1929-1961). I recently purchased a 17 inch coil for my CTX, and I took it for a test spin in the yard a few days ago, despite the cold weather. I hit a 12.46 (silver quarter) target at 9 inches about 50 feet from my front door, next to an old spruce tree. Out popped a well used 1938 quarter. I'll take a Depression Era silver any day.....

This summer was awfully dry in Minnesota, too dry to be digging grass, and the farm fields I like to hunt were in crop, so while I had tinkered a bit with fresh water hunting, I got more serious about it this summer and being new to this group, thought I'd post a few of my better finds here. This first one was not a water find... this came from a pasture that was used as a small golf course in the 1920s. It is a 15 gram 14k Yellow Gold Masonic 32nd Degree Scottish Rite Ring. Others were all fresh water hunts, mostly at old beaches that are now just shoreline.

Went to an Orthopedic surgeon today to get a prognosis on using my dislocated shoulder for metal detecting. 😬 First I thank you all that wished me well (or at least had thoughts) in my recovery. 👍 Doc poked, prodded and tested my arm functions, and told me something very interesting - that older people (I'm 63) that dislocate their shoulder have a much lower chance of dislocating it again than younger people do. 😝 You're "broken in", so to speak. I told him of my obsession, he was impressed and he told me that it was ok to go out and dig. It boils down to the old Hee Haw sketch: "Doc, it hurts when I do this." "Well, don't do that!!". 🤣 So, I got out in the field out front for about 2 hours, and the only thing that hurt was holding the shovel over my shoulder. Still got a couple of muscles in my arm that aren't quite healed. It wasn't a bad day at all. Got an IHP that I think is 1902, a silver plated spoon bowl served up as a taco, and an extremely old (17th-18th century) drawer escutcheon in 3 pieces. I'll take an IHP any day, even if it's toasted. 🙂 Game on! Not much trash either, the nail was in the same hole as the IHP, and the steel can bits just had to go with that brassy 82 and 89. The small lead pistol ball was a really weird tone because it was mixed in with the aluminum. 😀

Found under a bench where sketchy people drink, its just along the TransCanada trail theres a picnic table and bench 750 (18kt) italian gold, with emeralds and diamonds, I'm missing one gemstone and a couple diamonds, they are super small in each square of the white gold V Its from the province of Alessandria, I think I found the maker too, I emailed them (in english) and I got no response, maybe I should have emailed them in italian I used the legend, in park mode, 40khz, 6 tone, 1 ground suppression and 1 audio gain, all metal discrimination pattern I tend to always hunt in 40khz cause I find it rings well on both canadian steel core coins and canadian nickel coins The ring rings around 28 and 30 its a tad jumpy Awesome end to the season, actually it was almost the start of my season, around april 1st I got my detector and this is the first spot I thought to dig, but I had no experience with digging plugs and didnt want to ruin the grass so I didnt dig there, and then I forgot about the spot for a while and decided to check last week and boom ring Could you imagine if this ring was the first thing I ever popped since I thought of that area first😅

Photos

I went out for a short hunt at a park in Albany, OR on Monday. I wasn't really expecting to find much, I mainly just wanted to get out of the house for a while and get a little exercise. I had only found a few clad coins and was on my way back to my truck when I decided to make a quick trip around the edge of the basketball court. I was about 3/4 of the way around the court when I got a 56/57 signal on the Deus 2. Out popped this 14K gold ring with several small diamonds. I tested the diamonds and they are real. I was using my modified General program. So far this year that makes 4 gold rings and 1 gold pendant that I have found with the Deus 2.

Do you have a 'Nemesis Ring' that you know exactly where it is but just can't find it? Today I finally found mine during a low tide hunt very early in the morning (around 2 o'clock).. The owner first contacted me on my Facebook ring finder page a year and a half ago in May 2022.. At first she send a message with a picture of the ring and where she'd lost it.. I realised she was still at the beach so I took a PulseDive along for her to also have a go at finding it.. While she snorkelled around with the PulseDive I ran a heavily overlapping grid with the big Nox coil.. We spend nearly two hours there before giving up, and I've been back at the same spot nearly every week since then.. This morning I was looking for another gold ring (my new nemesis) which I couldn't find but instead I found her ring in exactly the same spot she'd lost it.. A billion tides since then didn't drag it into the bay.. It's got me a bit buggered why this little gold ring stayed where it was dropped whilst other much heavier rings get dragged out to sea.. It hadn't even buried itself too deep (around 30cm deep).. Another one of Neptune's little jokes I suspect.. I've send it back to her in Cairns, another very happy customer and another load of Karma (and $100) coming my way..

Buddy and I were able to get permission on an old farm. The owner doesn't want anyone else on it and has been incredibly generous to let us dig there. Think we still have about 20 acres to fart around on, targets are sparce but there are interesting finds. Image of some of them. For privacy reasons I won't post pics of the landscape or of key structures. Figured a few of ya might enjoy these, maybe even have more info on some of them.

I know it may not be much by some standards, but 1882 beats my oldest coin by about two years. So I am happy to have it! Now to supplant it with something even older… Found it at an old school house about 5 inches down along the edge of a bowl shaped depression from an old tree. It was a little jumpy on modified fast (Deus 2), but kept giving me a fairly consistent zinc penny range signal. Also, the neighbor lady said she spoke with prior detectorists. So the site has been cherry picked.

There’s a key comment here that tells you a bit about what’s going on under the hood in Auto+. That is a sure sign the ‘gain’ has been increased over manual mode. Manual mode on the 6000 behaves differently compared to a traditional Gain or Sensitivity control. As you lower the manual control you notice a gradual settling of the upper flutter in the threshold but sensitivity to near to coil target signals still sound bright and clear just slightly subdued relative to the manual filter* position, which flies in the face of a traditional gain control. In Auto modes there are two things happening simultaneously and they need to be in alignment for best performance which requires careful control from the operator. Or you can just not worry about it and let it do it’s thing when the conditions call for it. As an example ALL stick shift drivers complain about auto gear boxes in 4x4 vehicles, even the later 10 speed designs, they never get it 100% right. For max depth with the 6000 you need to run Max manual sensitivity, that is by far the best detecting scenario IF conditions will allow. This is why I like the new Nugget Finder 12x7 Xceed coils, they were designed from the ground up to work in hot variable soils so run very quiet allowing max manual sensitivity. Max manual sensitivity opens up the sensitivity filter to provide max edge of detection response, once again assuming the conditions will allow it. The NF coils have a natural mellowness to them which then flows through to the end user especially in hot ground. The main aim being opening up the sensitivity “Filter” (*for want of a better term) to get max information through to the end user. In super quiet soils the ground balance has nothing to work against so target sensitivity can actually suffer, suggest operators carry around a mild hot rock and ground balance to that occasionally and see how things go. One of the reasons why I don’t like a full auto GB and prefer to have the ability to FIX the GB. Put the hot rock on a string and throw it down every so often, sweep over it holding the Quik-Trak button in to help keep the GB centred and averaged, give it a try you might get a pleasant surprise. JP

Hey Mitchell (mn90403), since the anniversary of your finding the "Goose Egg" is coming up, (Thanksgiving Day), I hoped you wouldn't mind if I "bumped" the photo to show the good folks and anyone who might have missed it the first time around, what you were alluding to : "My 5000 and the 18" NF was a lot of fun to run. I almost got in the pounder club with a deep Arizona nugget." Amazing find indeed!

With the arrival of new, increasingly high-performance tools and the informative spread of the Internet, the number of finds has decreased dramatically. On the other hand, due to international events and the market, gold prices have skyrocketed recently. Although I have owned Deus2 since last March, I only managed to make seven dives in the month of October. I must admit that a series of 6 out of 7 lucky sessions were productive, and incredibly the Deus2 paid for itself completely. I am quite busy over the summer, but I am finally starting to communicate with the instrument as I should. Below is the latest piece from a few days ago.

I recently had a callout from a young English backpacker who'd lost four silver rings at Florence Bay.. She said they weren't very expensive but held a lot of sentimental value.. She'd send me a video of the exact spot she'd lost them, so it was easy to pinpoint where she'd been sunbaking.. She'd taken off her rings and put them on a towel before she went for a skinny-dip, when she got out she shook the sand off her towel and the rings went flying.. She'd spend about an hour trying to find them but no luck.. Then she called her hero.. Sadly, it was a very long week later before her hero finally worked up the courage to undertake the horrific trek to Florence Bay.. Young luscious backpacker babes might bounce up and down those huge hills (cliffs) like gazelles, but old and cranky ring recovery dudes find it hard going even on their best days.. Even so, along the way I kept thinking this would be an easy job.. I knew exactly where the rings were and if they'd moved much during the tides then they could only have made their way further into the bay.. I was confident because unlike many other bays on the island, Florence Bay is nearly enclosed so I wouldn't have to worry about the targets being carried along the beach by currents as well as down into the bay by tides.. Turned out I was dead wrong.. Enclosed bays can also have currents along the shore, in this case they'd spread the rings far and wide along the beach.. This presented her hero with a much larger area to search, it took nearly two hours to find 3 out of 4 rings.. I guess the forth ring is in the drink somewhere.. Moral of story: No recovery job is easy.. and take along shore currents into account as well as tides, even when the bay is enclosed.. The first picture shows Florence Bay.. The second picture shows the beach with the red circle marking where she'd lost her rings and the red arrow showing my wishful thinking.. The yellow circles show where I found her rings.. She was very happy, she didn't expect to see any of them again.. She made a substantial cash donation to the 'Save the Ring Recovery Dude' fund.. 😁

Since the season is over I'll just do a photo dumpoofof what I found, theres a gold ring and a gold chain, and two sterling rings, a sterling anklet and S charm and two silver dimes, and two sterling gold plated earrings

Hello Everyone, i want to know where a expert metal detectorist where would spend its time looking for nuggets around Hilly terrains like in California.. i have been gold dredging around a certain area for some time in the rivers and creeks in the Dominican Republic. i have found some nice gold in some producing areas but i want to look where other miners haven't looked. i don't really know any books that would help me out on this subject or know any successful nuggets hunter in my area. This is what learn so far..... i know there's something they call " pocket hunting " that sits up on the hills from where gold originates. i also know about shallow gold around the benches where gold rest after traveling from up hill that haven't made it to bedrock. we also have gold patches.. in which they exist but harder to find a virgin patch.. since a lot of Oldtimers seem to wash up all the top layer of these areas. so i would want to know from a word of advice from experts .. what would they be looking to target when taken into an area of this nature. and with what type of metal detector would they take and coils.. we have found multi ounce nuggets in the area but more deeper in the mountains. some creeks we have failed to find a complete paystreak in which i believe the gold is sitting more on the outer banks of the creek..

Back at it again. I bought the m8 coil on Monday specifically for this spot. I’ve found rings here before with the deus & 11” coil, it’s a major swimming enclosure on our town beach which is always extremely weedy and well done by another detectorist. There’s usually 3-4ft of thick weeds all throughout the enclosure and it’s full of rays and very difficult to stand in or detect. I was fortunate enough to spot it a few days ago and realise that a heap of weed had washed in to shore, meaning it was pretty thin out in the water. I got up at 5:40am and got there at 5:50 just on sunrise. A nice low tide was there to greet me, along with no wind and no swimmers! The weed was only max 4-8” tall and very thin. The max depth was just over 6ft so I was easily able to duck dive before the drop off. I quickly got in the water with the snorkel gear, armed with the xp mi4, manticore and m8 coil. After the heatwave last week I was expecting a few junkers and coins at least. The second target I got was the stainless ring/ear stretcher thing; nice. After about 20 minutes, boom! A massive 9ct ring weighing a whopping 10.something grams!!! right in no-mans-land (in the weeds between the shore and pontoon) Nice and shallow in the top section of weed. Followed by a silver ring. I wondered around for a bit longer, weaving in and out of the weeds in the deep end right before the drop off and dive board. Thankfully there was only 1 small ray out and about, breeding season must be near? Not sure. The enclosure has small jail-like bars limiting large rays or sharks getting through. Unfortunately I can only spend a limited amount of time per square meter as it’s so silty and muddy that you simply can not see anything after digging a small hole in the clay. Plus, there’s lots of sea urchins about, so I’m not too keen on putting my knees and hands where I can’t see. I’ll generally get a target and jam the pinpointer right down in the mud, then I’ve got about 30 seconds to find the target before I can no longer see anything. The water was very still, so the silt cloud was staying in the area each target was, which was good. After it settled, it looked like a thick fog in the weeds which was cool to see. just as I was about to finish, I did 1 more lap around where I found the 9k ring and got a beautiful shallow, solid low tone. Similar to the Australian 5c coin signal, right in the middle line (about a 10 TID I think). Boom! Another platinum ring!! My third one ever, and all in the last few weeks! This one is a ripper too. It’s got a serial number and a beautiful little diamond. Shame it’s not my size lol. So many foreigners here it’s hard to return most items, but not from lack of trying. the gold ring was worth about $30 more in scrap than I paid for the coil (slightly discounted tho) which is awesome. I’ll polish it up and maybe sell it privately, as there’s no unique markings and the tarnish tells me it’s been there a while. It was dark gray when I found it, but ended up being white gold. the platinum ring is hard to put a value on. If I can’t return it, maybe another $300-500? It’s about 8-9 grams. I went back the next day and got another silver ring and a fresh-ish 925 sterling chain. Also a plethora of sunglasses and swimming goggles. I found 2 dive masks too but had to leave them as they were too awkward to carry around and had urchins living in them. the mrs claimed the Rayban sunglasses which cleaned up great in the ultrasonic. Nothing special about the other ones. I'm still hoping to find a GoPro or phone by the end of this summer lol. Unfortunately I’ve got no underwater footage as I lost my GoPro on the coast a few months ago. All in all, I spent just over 3 hours in the water over 2 mornings. Not a bad payday.

I went back to the spot where I dug my last gold ring and started to grid the area. I dug nothing but lead for the first 2.5 hrs ;( I moved further down and started another grid pattern. Again, lead almost every hit. Luckily nothing is deep and recovery time is just 10-15 seconds per target. I was running the Deus 2 in General mode with 3 tones, 97 sens, recovery speed 2 and tone break set to 24 and was digging everything from there and up. There is every size and shape of lead weights and it hits solid. The lead was ranging from the low 50's to the mid 80's, so, I had to dig it. 4 hrs into the hunt, I got a solid 57, scraped about an 1" of sand off and bingo, finally a nice 10k ring. She's a 3.7 grammer with fake stones. About 30 minutes later I get solid 97 and ended up with a silver ring. I had to empty my pouch 3 times and knew I was getting close to beating my record of 6lbs 🙂 Sure enough, I had 9.2lbs!!! Nice thing about it, the lead is worth more than clad and I can sell it at some point. After 6.5 hrs, I was ready to call it day. I would have stayed if I was digging a few more keepers instead of all the lead.

I just completed my 3rd hunt with the Manticore. It is a very small sample size but here are my initials thoughts on the detector. It seems more powerful than the Nox 800. I haven't seen any extreme depth but, to me, it hits much harder and more definitively on targets. The handle vibration feature further enhances this sensation as well, IMO. I keep forgetting to look at the 2d screen but I like the combination of tones and black/red TID numbers which really help the non-ferrous targets jump out. 2 of these first 3 hunts were in the salty wet sand of back bay areas and other hunt was in shallow fresh water. The Manticore performed similarly well in both environments. Many times already have I heard/found good targets amongst other nearby targets both ferrous and non-ferrous. On 1 particular spot I had a persistent 80's TID peeking through a number of lower fluctuating TIDs. I scooped up a pencil fragment with its eraser holder followed by a small lead fishing weight before finding the last target in the hole - a clad dime. I have yet to find gold with my Manticore but I have found silver on each of my first 3 hunts with it. My most recent hunt yielded a 1928 penny, 1920 & 1944 dimes and a 1919 nickel. I don't think any of my other 7 detectors could have found all 4 of these coins which I think is an indication of the Manticore's ability to sniff out desirable targets. Much more testing is needed but my early results are encouraging.

Thought I would recycle a previous post from a now defunct forum showing a couple of detecting trips and the end results of getting stuck while crossing a steep and narrow creek in the Bradshaw Mts of AZ. Awhile back, a couple of friends joined me to check out a hand dug hard rock mine/prospect in central Arizona that I had recently located but not had a chance to detect. No claims records or markers could be located and it didn't appear to have been worked in years. The previous miners had crushed the ore and shoveled it onto the crude wooden ore chute that snaked down the side of the ridge to the creek below. The country rock of the prospect hole appeared to be a mushy red quartz conglomerate that looked unstable. No hard quartz lead was observed. After several minutes of examination, and detecting around a large, indignant pack rat that currently occupied the prospect, we decided to depart the area. No gold was found but in the interest of keeping morale up, we decided to drink some of the "we found gold" beer anyway. The next day, I soloed to an area where I'd previously had good luck. It had rained a few days prior to my arrival and the ground was dry on the surface, but still damp a few inches down. I got into the area OK at first, then ran into a heavily washed out cut across the road, so I turned around going back out and as I angled down to cross a steep "V" shaped creek where I'd had no problem coming in, the mushy schist bedrock crumbled and dropped my rear bumper down enough where the Pintle hitch of my military style cargo trailer buried up, causing the bumper to be high centered with no rear wheel traction. Bummer. I cleared part of the hang up with a sledge hammer and chisel but finally had to resort to a high lift jack and stacked rocks for clearance and traction. While I was gathering rocks in the creek, I noticed that part of the bank appeared to have recently eroded and collapsed, exposing a couple of large rusty, vuggy chunks of quartz which looked interesting. After I was able to get my truck unstuck and up the road a ways, I grabbed my EQUINOX 800 and went back and started detecting the stretch of the creek downstream from where I had found the rotten quartz. Most of the pieces were on a shallow compacted layer of gravel in the narrow stream bed, and a few were on top of flat rocks covered with sand and dirt. After I started finding those little dinks I forgot all about getting stuck!

A very interesting topic, Steve, and I agree with your assessment of the various YouTubers and air testers. I wrote field tests for Western and Eastern Treasures for well over a decade. I also did field tests for Lost Treasure and even Kellyco when Stu was alive. I never did the irrelevant air tests that have now become an unfortunate standard. The only air testing that I ever made us of was to learn target response. Monte's nail board test interested me but I never paid much mind to it in terms of the real world. To me, a "field" test means to actually test it out in the field. Though the era of published field tests is pretty much over, I still apply that same standard to any new detector that I try out. Let me share a very short story from several years ago that was sort of a precursor to all of the woodblock nonsense tests that we see today. I was working under an NDA for a detector manufacturer and was asked to evaluate a new model. According to the company, it had been signed off on by all of their testers but they still wanted me try it out to see if they missed anything. Well I did. It had one major problem. It didn't work. Inland it could not handle trash. On the beach it would false like a microwave timer on crack. You couldn't identify good targets from bad at all. When I told them this they were shocked and asked for a few days to look into the problem. A week later they got back to me and this was their confused response (and I quote): "We are very confused. It worked perfectly in the lab." Fast forwarding today, I would highly recommend paying attention to all of the YouTube air tests the next time you hunt a vast expanse of Styrofoam or wood blocks. Bill

In the old days, the response of any target that was discriminated (whether using a linear disc or notch) was just blanked out. That is, if you were listening to a threshold audio, it would go silent over a disc'd target. In digital detectors, you can do whatever you want; make it grunt like a pig, or give it a Price-Is-Right "loser jingle." The processing price of discrimination is negligible. A detector can reasonably resolve target phases to around 1°, and you could easily notch targets down to that resolution. That is, you could have 180 notch settings and control each one, even giving each one a different tone if you like. The White's V3 did this.

A couple of months back I decided to look into hearing aids again. As it turns out I had done this as an 'exercise' about 7 years ago with a hearing test, but the test didn't cause me to be fitted with aids. This time I got tested and fitted. The aids that I chose to try required a hearing test and then based upon the hearing test they would be programmed. The style that was suggested to me was a behind the ear model by Horizon. It requires a wire to an earpiece. It really was not that noticeable with my big ears, and I had a 45-day trial period. These aids after insurance are a bit more than an Axiom! The programs for them are interesting which include tinnitus, noisy room, echo room and universal to name a few. It is controlled by my phone program on my android smart phone and can also be used with Bluetooth controls which allow you to take phone calls. I found that feature to be a bit distracting as I only wanted to hear better. They did make me hear better and I used them a couple of times with the external speaker on my 800. One night I forgot my headphones and went to the beach but that was just too much noise. I've been a headphone guy for many years, and I've had volume control and additional power on my GPZ with the Sp01 and B&Z Booster. Prior to my GPZ I used noise cancelling headphones with my 5000 that had a volume control that was direct wired to my headphones. I really didn't think I was missing much but I didn't compare much either. Lately I was beginning to sense the volume I required was quite a lot on my headphones and I was also asking some of my friends to repeat things. It was time to find out more, so I got these aids. They were good but I developed a problem with them because they wouldn't stay seated in my ear canals. I was constantly pushing them back into my ears for maximum benefit. Each time I would take my reading and sunglasses off it would cause them to loosen. I'm remembering I did put my headphones for the 800 over the aids a couple of times but it was a bit uncomfortable. Nothing remarkable comes to mind if I did or didn't leave them in. I informed hear.com that I didn't want to keep those aids because of my lifestyle. My contract was voided. They suggested I get another pair that would fit completely inside the ear. I ordered Signia aids this time and when they arrived, they were programmed in the same way. These aids fit better. Now that I had an in the ear aid, I wanted to try them out with my detector. That was about 10 days ago, and I should have written this piece then as I've forgotten some of the things, but it is simply remarkable what these aids do to both of my detectors. My 800 was the first one to use on the beach and all I can say is that EVERY signal sounds different. I use 50 tones most of the time and for years I've known the sounds of my targets and ground. I've found a lot of stuff but now I've been introduced to sound enhancements and programmed frequencies I could not hear. My brain now has new information. My first reaction was 'what have I been missing' all of these years! A nickel doesn't sound like a nickel. Quarters are higher pitched than they were before. There is a new chatter in the swing. Sounds that don't register on the digital scale can be heard. I'm just totally blown away. I've been several times to the beach recently in tough conditions, but I can hear things deeper, farther off the coil and with more detail. I'm a big fan of the 15" coil on the beach at a sensitivity of 23 but the last time out I got the feeling that it was too much information coming in and had to take it down to 22 or 21. Who knew after all of these years I was missing all of this information? Some of my initial thoughts were that EVERYONE should get tested and wear aids. This could be better than getting a new detector. Dealers should offer 'in the ear' amplifiers which will give anyone a better chance. This is more than just an increase in volume. It is a substantial increase in information coming back from your detector and coil. I just had to go out and detect the desert for nuggets. I don't think I will ever detect without hearing aids in in the future. I've been out a couple of times and found small gold with the GPZ and the 800. These were limited tests, but I found gold that was in the .2g range both times within 15 minutes of starting the day. The total is 7 little nuggets for about 2g. I could hear the subtle variations that I know I had been missing. I think now I understand what Kevin Hoagland and others told me for years about the subtle break in threshold in a way I was incapable of before. My mind is definitely not occupied with thoughts of 'what am I missing?' The clues I can hear with the aids are more distinct than without. I still have the Sp01 powering the headphones on the GPZ and use the WM12, but I hear more of the nugget. I'm anxious to get back out on patches and find more MISSED nuggets. I know my old setup left missed gold and not just unseen gold. I may actually find gold that others have missed because of my equipment and what I CAN hear! At least I can hear a big difference with good hearing aids.

I wonder if I’m reading this right. A huge price increase is coming from Minelab, like nothing ever seen before in the metal detector industry. Basically a 10-20% boost across the board on prices in Australia. No word yet on U.S. prices. The GPX 6000 will go up a solid $1000 Australian dollars and the GPZ 7000 will be over $10,000 again, as in $10,499. From https://www.detectorprospector.com/topic/24431-minelab-price-increases-january-1-2024/ There is also a special note in the Gold Monster “includes 5” coil only”. Does this mean the Gold Monster will no longer come with 10” and 5” coil, but come with the 5” coil only? While raising the price $200? And forcing people to lay out another $200 if they want the 10” coil. When I had the Gold Monster I never used the 5” coil at all. Seems like right out of the First Texas playbook with the Gold Bug Pro - sell it with the less desirable small coil to make people buy the coil that should be standard with the machine. It’s all pretty amazing. I was in business for my entire career in retail and even back in the 1970s when inflation was way worse than it has been these days, I’ve never seen anything remotely like this kind of price increase. It’s high enough I have to wonder if it will backfire. Obviously Minelab wants to make more money. But there is a point where a price increase reduces sales so much that a company ends up making less money, not more. This would seem to be pushing that limit and the results in future Codan reports will be interesting to see. No word yet on U.S. prices. Maybe it’s only the Aussies that need to get out the Vaseline. But if this is for real, I’d expect anyone who thinks they might want a Minelab detector to buy before the end of the year. And for dealer sales to plummet next year. The only good news is there is time to act before the price increase, and that sellers of used machines will see a good boost in value next year. Final note - no Equinox 600/800 on the list. Just no price increase for them, or getting discontinued what with the new 700 and 900 models now out?

Actually I had dialed it in pretty well, I just got tired of getting nothing but nails and bullets. I bought and sold my gpx5000s 2 times because I got discouraged. Then the third time I finally got a stroke of luck. And after two months with the third gpx5000 I had enough saved up to buy a gpz7000. Which the very first day and very first time ever using it I went out, turned it on, walked 5 feet, and got a 68 gram nugget. Fifteen minutes later and 20 feet away came the 10 ounce nugget aswell. I was done detecting for the day by 9:30am.. then i upgraded the coil to the nuggetfinder 17x13 z search. And the rest is history. Both nuggets are in the photo.

I bought myself an early Christmas present in order to make a few specialized brackets/clamps that I didn't want to pay to get manufactured. Finishing that, I decided to print myself a desk ornament. And here it is complete, I just spitballed the coloration at the point the old gravels stop and meet the granites. These models are pretty useful for estimating paleo surface and drainages and whatnot if you spend the time and get more accurate with the coloring and go to 4 colors. I'm still trying to work out a hack to get a topo map or a geologic map printing on the top surface, haven't figure out how yet though. These are good for scaling up to like 500 square miles and mapping specific elevations with different colors, and quick visualization of that sort of data, for exploration purposes. You can do similar in Google Earth but it's plane feature in 3D view is buggy and shifts heights, which has caused me to unknowingly miss some areas on aerial research. Also, there is just something more intuitive about having the physical model in hand and seeing the topographic relation of all the terrain. You can make your own .STL's from DEM data for any location in the world here: https://touchterrain.geol.iastate.edu/

My first hunt at the beach for this coming season and thought I had scored some precious yellow when I saw this shiny item in the scoop. It sure had the weight of gold. I quickly ran the coil over the hole and spoil pile again and got another repeatable mid tone and out popped it’s twin!! I immediately thought, no this can’t be real.... two gold pieces from the one hole on my first day out. Sure enough, they turned out to be very shiny yellow brass, much to my disappointment. So they have now been assigned to keeping my other metal critters company.

Got out for a few hours on Saturday, just hunting the field in front of my house. Can't get to all of it easily, the neighbors all have big dogs that they let run free. I try to stay in the low spots so they can't see me. An additional benefit was being upwind 😀 That's my house in the background. 😎 The field is about 70 acres, turbo tilled corn stalks. It's bad because it's like walking on a dump, but good because all the trash keeps the soil moisture in so digging isn't all that bad. I didn't expect to find much, and was right. 😏 But what I found was worth every minute! While in this spot which is on the hill side, I got a nice 87/88, usually aluminum but this one sounded sharp and different. No brassy tone. I was really shocked to get this beautiful old button! It's domed and has a solid shank in back, all cast and hand engraved. I'm estimating its age as early as 1650, because I found one like it on the Internet that claimed the same age: Different pattern but exactly the same construction. How they got that one to stand on its side is a mystery 🤔 Here's the back of mine fresh out of the ground. Total haul below, got a small Tombac too which is probably more like 1720 up, but still very old. Not much but all quite aged. 😎 Earlier today I was going to post this, but my upstairs air handler quit on me, I had to climb a rickety aluminum ladder to get in the attic, and coming down I fell about 8 feet when the ladder slipped and I landed on it. I am very fortunate to only have sustained a dislocated left shoulder and one small cut on my right arm. It could have been a lot worse... 😬 Went to the hospital and the doc showed me a DIY trick to put it back in place, after many extremely painful attempts I went for broke and pulled really hard. It popped back in, I kissed the Docs' hand and asked her to marry me. 🤣 I'm home, whacked up on morphine, waiting for it to fade and the pain to start but I thought it would be good to get a last post up here for a bit, my arm is in a sling and I hope I recover quickly.🙂 Here's the trash, not bad. Also got an old pocket knife but can't identify the maker.

A shout out to all who serve (past & present), Happy Veterans Day, officially tomorrow. A special shout on this day 10 November, as it's the United States Marine Corps Birthday, 248 years strong. Semper Fi my brothers and sisters.

As one of those old timers let me clarify that. It is not so much depth that is limited but the ability to detect the target, which can be perceived as the same thing. Is there anyone here that does not get jumpy or dancing target id numbers on weak signals, especially those in highly mineralized ground? The problem is that targets often do not have nice tight distinct single number responses. The number varies with how you swing over the target. In effect a target produces a range of possible responses. By limiting those responses you limit the ability to detect the target. Let's say you read that a nickel is 13 on an Equinox. So you block out everything but 13. Well, you go past those oddball nickels that read other that 13 on the first swing. Whether you were limiting the depth on those targets or limiting the ability to find them at all is a fine distinction. Any notch on any number can inadvertently block a desirable signal. One of the finer points of a detector with a wide target spread like the White's V3i was that you could put a notch of a single number on a certain pull tab response. It would not eliminate the tab but cause it to break up, letting you know it was probably a tab with a trashy response while minimizing the overflow/slop dangers of applying, for instance, and range of three or four blocked numbers to cleanly reject the target. Again with most detectors this is most commonly seen with the zinc penny. As it corrodes it produces a wide range of responses. To get rid of all those pesky pennies you have to notch out a range. But that same range can include Indian Head pennies or jewelry items, so how aggressive do you want to get? Every employment of discrimination is nothing more than a gamble, a way to change the odds when dealing with limited time. But rest assured that in mineralized ground almost all targets can occur in such a way as to read ferrous or to shift target id into some other trash reading. This is just gold nugget detecting 101 but it applies as much to every type of detecting there is. Overthinking discrimination is fraught with danger because it is at best a dull tool. So this old timer says not that the more discrimination you employ the more you limit depth, but that the more discrimination you employ to more you increase your odds for leaving good targets in the ground. I rarely ever notch or outright reject anything, preferring to use full tones and simply dig targets that sound good. I'm a fairly proficient cherry picker with a PI detector just by reading the tonal responses. IAR is a way to try and replicate in electronics what a person like me is doing with their ears. Most round targets and most non-ferrous targets produce different signals than most ferrous targets. Not all by a long shot, but enough to sway the odds in your favor.