Roughwater

This thread fits in well with Freds post for anyone thinking to go to Australia as it would be good to have a good contact there or be on a tour such as the one Fred posted. I can't imagine it being anything less than awesome than to travel to Australia and have a chance to find some gold at the same time.

Maybe Steve knows something? Internet searching is only showing me they plan to release 2 New coils possibly in 2016 which you probably already know. They are both 11X13, one Mono and the other DD. Late last year we heard Makro/Nakota was releasing a new detector (Impact) in 2016 but not heard anything about that either lately so I wouldn't hold my breath. http://md-hunter.com/garrett-atx-11x13-searchcoil-new-2016/ Link deleted since Findmall Forum update broke all old links http://www.garrett.com/hobbysite/pdfs/Garrett_New_Products_2016.pdf - scroll down to bottom of 2nd page.

Thanks Fred, That would definitely be a great way to prospect and tour Australia and the cost seems pretty reasonable for 10 day tour. Renting a 5000 detector seems like a good option as well while on the tour including days to have use their 7000 and 2300. Terry

Sounds and looks like a very well thought out portable set up. I was reading an article about Charles Dice in Nevada who it is said recovered 600 ounces by dry washing and I bet he didn't have a set up near as good as yours.

Just wanted to add a bit more info about Sunstones. I was just cleaning up my Sunstones a bit this morning. I'm not trying to purposely advertise the Sumpter mine but previously never displayed what I had found at that mine so below are pictures of my take there. The small bag of sunstones in the pic are what I found at the free collection area VS the loose one's in the classifier from the Sumpter Mine. Below is a close of of some of the more colorful ones but plenty more in the pile I didn't sort out. I found few reddish ones in the free area.

Well, the only way to know for sure is to give it a go. But my thinking is that unless it's a really thick gold Vein it's not going to work. The coils for that meter (Pulstar) are fairly large and not necessailry sensitive similar to 2 box units and are made for finding fairly large objects deep. Seems a high freq VLF, a 7000 or SDC would be more effective for finding shallow gold in vein.

Thats a fact Tom, it's a total Rip Off. These have been for around for many years in some form and sadly since they have been around so long I assume there are some suckered into buying them.

Thanks Steve, You all had been putting up with me for so long talking about my upcoming trip I figured I owed you all a story. I would have liked to had shared with you all the places where I found gold too but that didn't happen at least not in a physical sense. The gold I found was in the folks I met, the beauty of the west and observing wild critters close up. The trip was kinda one old farts boot camp. I had planned to do some gem mining but didn't plan ahead to do the Sunstone collecting and Opal mining. That was decided in route because I was in Oregon heading south and had some time to kill on my way to Nevada and both the Sunstone area and opal mines happened to pretty much be in route to Rye Patch. I am thankful to you that you started this Forum. There really is no other detector website nearly as helpful, factual and pertinent as this one. Thank you Steve.

The trip was good Tom. I try not to get my expectations too high. If me and my vehicle get there and back in one piece and no other major issues I call it a good trip. But for me I like driving out west better than anywhere else. I get a high just enjoying the scenery out there. I worked for many years in Federal Civil service when I lived in Ohio. Other than Southern California when I was in the Corps I had not been in any western state. However my job required me to take a Seminar to a base in Colorado Springs back in the 80's. I thought I was in heaven! I rented a car and toured the area all I could, and took my family and a friends family back there a year or two later. We saw the Garden of the Gods and hiked up the Barr trail up Pikes Peak and visited a gold mine among other things. We camped out in Tents. One campground being at around 10K feet was pretty interesting getting acclimated to the altitude and experiencing the temp drop at night. It was great! Anyway getting off subject here but as you can see I like the west.

Tom V Sounds like it is pretty much like yours. On my 2014 Forester with the back seats down there is still kinda of an overlap around your hips so you do need something in that area to make it comfortable (like foam). However I stored things on one side of the back and slept on the side. I got some extra length by filling the the floor of the back seat with a filled collapsible 5 gallon water container and on top of it I had other softer items so I could lay my head where one normally would place their legs when setting in the back seat which gave me enough length so I could almost completely stretch out. I normally get about 31 or better highway but I had a Thule carrier on top and ran the air a lot, even so I got almost 30 Mpg out to Arkansas but then running it at higher speeds and the mountain terrain along with the lower octane gas of the west and often running it while parked to stay cool and to keep things charged dropped my MPG into the mid 28's overall. As to holding up it did well. I had pretty worn out tires (Original tires with 41000 miles on them) but still made it up into some iffey trails at Rye patch with careful driving. I might have been in trouble had it rained back there but I figured not a great risk of that happening in July. The symmetrical all wheel drive on those as you probably know is really good.

Thanks Tom. It was great meeting you. I wasn't really too concerned with only catching one trout as I was having fun catching a few Smallies and watching you catch more than a few. Smallmouth have always been one of my favorite fish but I seldom am in an area where there are trout and Salmon. The rivers and streams I live near right now are too warm to support small mouth and I have to travel 2 hours or more to fish for them and further for trout. I think it best to enjoy whats available. Probably better if I am able to visit again to do so earlier in the year. I really enjoyed your tour of the Whites metal detector plant too. I like the little museum at the front office of the plant. Some interesting old detectors there. I had to sneak back into town before I left the area to have a frozen mug of A&W root beer which is something else lacking in my area of the south that I enjoyed when I was young. I know I mentioned it before Tom but I think it's so great that the White's plant is located in such a beautiful area. Sweet Home looks like an outdoor person's paradise. Again Tom I thank you for your time and for showing me around it was truly all good. Terry

Thanks so much Jim and Joanne. I was hoping the info I gathered would be useful to others. I have lived in the Midwest and Southern US and traveled to the western US several times but my trips never fail to give me enjoyment. One thing I never really mentioned is how ruggedly beautiful the Western US really is and how diversely beautiful. The landscapes that go on and on even in the prairie states are amazing to me. I happened to drive down a highway that bordered a couple of the Monument parks and driving past MOAB. Incredible formations! The mountain Peaks, the night sky's. It's like another world. Pictures of some things just cannot do them justice. You just have to see them for the full effect!

Your kids will really love it Matt. Even old, big kids love it.

Thanks Beatup. A little more on Sunstones. On my way to the Sunstone Free collection area I met a couple leaving. They showed me their Sunstones and passed on some info as to how to best get there. They also mentioned that a German Jeweler had been to the Spectrum Sunstone mine the day they were there. He had traveled all the way from Germany to take Sunstones back with him as they are more valuable in Europe than in the US. As I previously mentioned I had been to the Free collection area but I also visited the Spectrum mine. There was a pretty young lady there that assists you. They also have a selection of cut and Fauced Sunstones for sale. They make really beautiful jewelry. Attached is a close up of one cut and fauceted I bought my wife though the picture doesn't really do it justice. They sparkle like a diamond and can be found in variations of different colors. I suggest going to the Free collection area first and pick up some free ones but I think it's also worth while to Check out the spectrum mine. There are restrooms and sheltered picknick tables at the free collection area. Terry

Thanks Peg. I just did the tailings. Since I had no Idea what I was even looking for at the first mine it seemed the wiser choice and of course was the cheaper choice. The 2 boys I mentioned found more than anyone did and they were of course digging in the tailings. In my non-expert opinion if you know what you are looking for and want a large Black Opal the Royal Peacock holds some promise but it's a crapshoot. Actually I don't know of any mine actually called the Virgin Valley. However the valley were the Royal Peacock and several other mines are located is called the "Virgin Valley". I liked the Rainbow Ridge better overall than the Royal Peacock which is probably the most famous mine in the Virgin Valley. The owner of the Rainbow Ridge mine was ultra nice too and very helpful. I also found lots of what some called opalized wood. It was hard as a rock and if you bumped it against another piece of petrified wood it would "tink", as if you were bumping 2 pieces of porcelain or glass together. Whatever mine you choose check out the camping area as you enter the Virgin Valley as it's free and they have a pool of sorts, showers and of course campsites and flush toilets and it's all free! I couldn't believe it. Was a nice surprise. Terry

Thanks Chuck. I wasn't terribly disappointed that I didn't find gold. I had a good time and I wasn't sure when I left that I could even handle all the driving let alone all the other challenges of a long trip. I feel like it made me stronger and helped me jump start some serious goals to get more fit and to eat better. For what it's worth I am not selling my gold detectors not so much because I didn't find any gold but it's really not practical for me to be trying to gold prospect with the gold fields so far away. If I lived near good gold it would be totally different but I don't. I'm not wealthy so by selling them I can pay off my cards since with one check a month on retirement I would feel more comfortable with keeping my debts to a minimum than having detectors I would seldom use. I know I can find gems though so will do that more in the future and keep my 3030 for coin and beach hunting. I won't say I'm done with gold detecting though but for the near future I'm going another direction. I talked with Chuck some during my trip and he always gave me good advice. Thanks again Chuck.

I don't think many here know me well but I recently took a trip West from my home in NC in search of gold, gems and hopefully some fun. My first destination Sumpter Oregon where I trained on the GPX 5000 with Gerry and his crew. I drove my Subaru which was my literally my home for about 24 days and I had the back seat down and slept in it at night. Not the most comfortable but the most affordable. The training went great but would have been better had the weather cooperated as we got rain most of the 2nd and 3rd day so lost 2 days in the field. Even so the training was great and Gerry did his best to train us indoors. The last day of training Gerry put a lot of different nuggets and quartz with Gold on a table and went over them with several different detectors to demonstrate the strengths and weaknesses of each. Very educational it was. He treated us all to pizza and Beer that last evening. The one day in the field was very challenging as the area we went to was steep. The only ones to find gold during the training that I'm aware of were 2 of the ladies who I believe both used Fisher Gold bug II's. I think there were around a dozen people in the class. I did take the time to visit the Sumpter dredge which is a real sight to see. It's bigger than the dredge on the gold rush show and the buckets are definitely larger on the Sumpter dredge. Since I was in Oregon already, the next place I wanted to see was the White's Factory in Sweet Home. I had discussed my interest in visiting with Tom and he further enticed me with a change to go fishing which sealed the decision. So I visited the plant but neglected to take any pictures but I enjoyed the tour very much. Though some of the components were hand soldered most of the components were installed by a robot of sorts which was very impressive. The area around Sweet Home was very beautiful and scenic. Looked like an awesome place to live. Tom held true to his promise to take me fishing and though we didn't catch but one trout Tom was catching Small mouth after small mouth and nearly skunked me. He's a great young man and White's should be proud to have employed him. Next on my agenda was to try to find some gold so I went ten miles more up the same valley we had been fishing and tried my luck for a day and a half or so at a GPAA claim. Unfortunately no luck there but I did run across an odd critter in the moss when I was digging some bullets: From there I went to Southern Oregon and visited an area that contains Oregon's Gemstone. They are called Sunstones as they often lay on top of the soil and glisten in the Sun. This area of Oregon is the only place on Earth I'm told where these can be found. There is a Free Collection area and also some pay to dig mines nearby. I picked up pocket full both by just picking them up off the ground and by digging a nearly 3 foot deep hole. Picking them up was easier but I did find a couple large one's in the hole. I also went to a nearby mine and paid to get some off a conveyor belt were I pick up some with more color and got several pocketfuls in an hour. Pictured are the one's I found at the free site. Next I went to Northern Nevada to a couple of Opal Mines. The Royal Peacock and the Rainbow Ridge Opal mine both are in the same area. I met a nice couple at the Royal Peacock mine and their 2 young sons. The boys seemed to be trying to help me out but at the same time were finding Opal after opal even some of the rare black opals. They were doing awesome and they found most opals just looking on the surface. While back at the free nearby campground they invited me to share their dinner and got a tip to try the Rainbow Ridge mine which they passed along to me so I went their as well. Overall I think we all did better at the Rainbow Ridge mine, at least I know I did and the boys once again stole the show and found some huge fire Opals along with the many other opals they found. I have to think they (the boys) may have found several thousand dollars in opals. But backing up some the morning before we went to the 2nd mine I got a chance to teach them a little about how to use a metal detector at the campground and let them run around with it (the Eureka Gold) for a while. They seemed to quickly pick up on how to use it and found several items all junk but they were pretty excited to find a shell casing. Attached below is a pic of me and my young friends at the Opal mine In NV This is a little edit about the Virgin Valley Opal mines. This link and links within this link was the best info I found online about the Virgin Valley of Nevada: http://www.goldnuggetwebs.com/VVOPALS/ From Northern Nevada I drove to Rye patch where I had hoped to go to the same place that I had gone to in 2005 and done well but though I remembered how I had got back into the general area from Imaly Nv I couldn't remember how to get to the exact place and never did figure it out. So I just found a likely place and detected some for a few hours but no luck. So I moved on down the road hoping to find the spot but got too far away and met a guy on the road and stopped him and he was heading up the road to a mine and directed me to a place called the Rabbit Hole. I had heard of it being a good place to prospect prior so followed him there and he went on. I spent the next 2 days there looking for nuggets. It was really out of the way and I don't recall seeing any vehicle go by there so I was back there all along for those 2 days with the local critters, mostly rabbits but some Antelope as well that came down to the little pond at the Rabbit Hole to drink. I found many 22 bullets and a few larger lead bullets along with other metal trash but no nuggets. There were some open pit mines and lots of tailing piles but I couldn't find a single nugget. The rabbits help keep me entertained. They came from all directions and met around the pond. They pretty quickly got used to my vehicle and just ignored it and hopped right by me. The Rabbit Hole was OK but since I wasn't finding Gold and had had to drive about 10 miles to find Cell phone service to let my wife know I was still OK I headed off back to Rye patch was was maybe only 20 or so miles away in an attempt to try to find my old prospecting spot again as I had found gold there in 05. I found a similar looking place but it wasn't the place I was looking for but I still stayed there a day and a half or so. I found no gold and found it rare to hit on any target unlike the Rabbit Hole. I covered several miles trying to hit the more likely looking places but no luck. It was getting hotter. I hadn't seen even one vehicle parked any where I went in the Rye patch area. It was just me and my shadow out there searching around. I had really wanted to make it to the Veterans outing but it was still more than 3 days away. It seemed to be getting hotter and I was missing home and my wife and dogs and a bed to sleep in. But at least at Rye patch I did have pretty good cell phone service. I was however concerned about it being really hot near Reno area and heard that the outing would be more of a highbanker kind of prospecting instead of using a detector and the combination of things made me decide to start heading east toward home. I thought I might go to the diamond mine in Arkansas but as I neared that area the weather forecast was for it to be in the upper 90's so I flew on by and headed home. Terry

That's some pretty gold, nice detecting. Maybe you need to go back with the CTX but the beer sounds good too.

That was funny!

Wow, 85 in Nome! That would be like 110 in Rye Patch. That can't be good for the permafrost. At that temp it may not be perma anymore.

That was a great video. Thanks for sharing.

I know it must have been a lot of work but you came up with some nice finds too! Congrats!

If I found that I'd be doing the gold fever jig!

Since I don't have a 7000 I would like to see them make a coil that helps you guys find more bullets, iron and shell cases so I won't have to be digging them all up. If I did own one though I would like go with Goldquest and go for a 7X12. It would fit in those smaller spaces and still give decent ground coverage.

I was running the Stablizer very low most of the time. Often at 1 or a high of 5. For whatever reason, to my ear, the EMI seemed to lesson with turning the stabilizer lower. It also got lower with turning other things down but unfortunately I think the signal level also got lower. I probably should have tested my DD coils in cancel when the EMI went higher but I didn't think to at the time. Again this ground maybe the worst I have ever hunted on. It's full of little hot rocks that stick to my pick when ever I dig here. When I was trying to do an air test using the 5000 and the 14X9 Evo I tried waving one of the hot rocks that had stuck to the pick magnet in front of the coil. It would detect it close to the coil but of course when you ground balance it to the actual hot ground it balances those out but at the same time I figure it's desensitizing the detector/coil as well. This makes me feel like the 14X9 is a really sensitive coil but can be no more sensitive than the detector/ground conditions/EMI allows it to be. I was doing a little search on coils and came across this link which seemed like good general info from folks testing coils down under. http://golddetecting.4umer.net/t398-testing-coils-mono-and-dd I added this link as an Edit. It is a very old post but the basics of the coil for a SD, GP or GPX is the same today as it was back when. The GP and GPX however give the detector a little more adjustment for depth and or sensitivity. Most of you know this already but some may not and for myself being older and getting back to detecting it's a good review. http://www.docsdetecting.com/docsplace/jlange/confusion.html Terry