Andyy

Speaking of quotes... I'm sure I will find a way to slip this into my conversations about 10 times today. Thanks, Norvic! And good luck in the home stretch, Mitchel.

Woohoo!!! You're starting to build up some steam, now. Andyy

Yes... as all the others have said, Congratulation! Now you can rest a bit easier with maybe a hair less pressure knowing your prospecting skills were good enough to get you some sassy Aussie gold. Well the first is always the hardest as they say ... go get yourself some more! But above all else... take in the experience. Hats off to you Mitchel.

Well, I had completely forgotten about that, Mitchel. My brother is a professional, in New York. Commonly hits the open circuit. Let's just say I am a very good racker. I'll have to swap stories with you sometime. Snooker is a great game. I wish we had more of those tables around Arizona. In the meantime, keep your eye on the ball! Errr… on the gold! Remember Pre-Shot Routine …. or detecting routine … ok.. I got nuthin. Oh yeah … BE THE BALL!!! (Always loved that one!)

Yes, less EMI was an unexpected plus. I make sure to noise cancel every hour because my GPZ gets significantly quieter over time. As for full moon, it does help, but I have a couple different lamps that I bring with me. One is a Predator and I can't remember the name of my other. I will check when I get home. Both are adjustable and can get very bright. The benefit of the Predator lamp is that you have the Red or Green LED option, on top of the standard white. The colored lights also will not be seen by animals, sometimes, which is why hunters use them. The colored lamps aren't as noticeable by people as the white lamps either. And while I do not claim jump, I like being discreet. And if you like to see what is watching you, you simply holler out loud and scan with your light. You *will* see eyes within 500 feet of you and realize you are never alone. Just before finding the gold, I had run across a raccoon and a grey fox. You just won't see these during the day.. Also, certain times of the year, the colored lights helps with bugs. My only complaint is with the red light. Sometimes they kind of bother your eyes, where-as the green just gets seen as white, eventually.

Stop it, Mike! You are scaring me. ? It is funny how the mind plays with you for a while when you first get out there. I have a 9mm that I wear that makes me feel a little warmer inside. And when I have forgotten it, I keep my pick extra handy. But I think if a mountain lion or chupacabra went after me, I wouldn't have much time to shoot. I'd probably shoot myself trying to get the jaws off my neck. LOL. Thanks for the comment!

Geof- really? That is strange. Well I can assure you that this is not why I go at midnight. To me that is bad karma, energy ... whatever you want to call it. I go way out on the fringes of areas not claimed in a very long time. There is the befit that others are likely not to see you at your new patch, however. No denying that. Anyways, thank you for the education ?

And Was-a-roos, I am told. I understand those are the road kill roos. Oops, not to bring things down. The GPZ should do well in the rain. I think it is one of it's strengths. But then I don't have that rough of soil that you will be dealing with. I am really curious if you are going to be stuck in Difficult mode the whole time or not. Live it up, Mitchel!!

The first time I went out night hunting, I went up on a ridge and saw a light moving around where I parked my truck. Hastily I made my way back, only to find out I was seeing the reflections of the moon off the windows and mirrors. You'd be surprised how much your mind plays tricks on you. I usually, get a startle or two from various things within the first 15 minutes. Then my mind ground balances to the sound of the detector. Fear goes away. It is a peaceful experience, and you'll see a few more animal. Rabbits freeze in bright white light to where you could run up and kickem over (I don't of course). Tarantulas will be all over the ground in Sept. and Oct. Scorpions are everywhere but that is just natural. Burros kinda scare you because you'll come around the corner and see these huge alien looking eyes turn toward you and freeze from 100' away. Creepy. But the hardest thing for me to get used to were trying not to walk through webs at night. Funny thing is, they are there in the day, too. You just can't see them ... or what is on them. For me, the key to making night hunts work is #1, already knowing a high probability area. I say this because you will be able to notice contact zones and such, but you will only see what you shine your light on. And key#2 is figuring out what caffeine concoctions allow you to hunt wide awake all night without wrapping your car around a tree, once you have to drive home. And yes, you feel crazy the first few times you do it (and it *is* a little crazy). But if you already know it is gold ground, and are just checking washes off your list, it is peaceful experience. Andyy

Only way I have seen VLF's get around the hot rocks seen by PI's is to run in discriminate, which loses you a lot of depth. That is why I play rock soccer. Problem solved.

YESSS!! I really wish you the best, Mitchel. And I am not afraid to admit that I am a little jealous as well. :)

Getting back to your original question ... in Normal Mode (with HY or General), I disagree with the above statement for the GPZ. I consider myself an expert in the small gold arena .. LOL. Never ... never.... never... has any of my small gold registered low/high in the above settings. When it wavers, I know it is wire, like Jason said. But I dig it. When it goes low high, I know it is a cold rock or a iron. But I dig it. Note that I said "I know" but I still follow by "I dig it". Because, I found a big piece of gold that was hiding under a larger cold/hot rock. So I remind myself of that find any time I come across that sound that "I know" is iron or a hot rock. Andyy

Ahhh... yes, Mitchel. I remember those discussions. Yet aren't you currently in Australia? I wonder how different night hunts out there would be. The only thing I have to worry about for Arizona night hunts are crazy people, getting bitten by a rattle snake, falling down a mine shaft, the occasional hungry mountain lion, and UFO abduction. And so far I haven't had any of those things happen to me (at least I don't think so) Andyy

Jason - I agree with you on both topics (dig everything and the gps). My first couple years were hard. I had no mentor and no knowledge of how to find gold. So I dug everything .... when I put my coil on the ground. And sometimes that just meant finding areas where the bullets were less likely to be, or where the overburden wasn't 3 feet deep. And I would make sure to go to many different areas and study what the ground looked like on the various club claims. Eventually, clues on geology and topography began to show themselves. I started going away from club claims and finding more and more gold. But still with a lot of dry spells in between. So my third year or so I decided to start sharing information with a couple new friends and I learned new techniques I wasn't using in regards to getting more out of known gold washes, and I learned different styles of detecting, where you don't necessarily cover every inch of the wash because you're not really sure if there were gold nuggets there. You are doing quick scanning and cherry picking. At this point, the information was very useful to me as I had found gold and understood geology a little better. Whereas if I had done this in the first place, I think don't think it would have been as helpful. I now see the benefit of being able to quick scan washes and to be able to switch gears once gold is found. But the GPS is a much underutilized too. I also store ALL tracks. And being able to set up a game plan is a huge benefit that really keeps you focused when in the field. I hit washes that you can see on google earth, but are out of sight when just walking around on treks. Andyy

Well, it definitely made my Cinco de Mayo one to remember. Thank you for the comment!

Phrunt - short story ... When I had a GPX5000 I would set up these little glass vials with nuggets and tie a string to them to do different depth and timing testing. (sort of a DOE for us engineers, who have testing in our blood) Unfortunately, I'm somewhat clumsy and dropped one of these glass test vials and it broke. I cleaned up the glass and somehow missed picking up the nugget inside. Well my wife is cleaning up the area, later on, and picks up a rock that was on our rug and went to throw it away. Mind you, this wasn't a lunker but probably only a 1 gram nugget. But she stopped after picking it up. She knew from the weight and feel that it was no ordinary rock. So yes, women are natural gold seekers, too. So ever since, I lock up all my nuggets in a safe to keep her away . Just kidding about the last part. The rest is very true, though. Ha..Ha..

So I titled this as such because when it gets especially hot (here in Arizona) I start my hunts at midnight and go thru until the morning until about 8am. For me, this offers multiple benefits. There is more time with the family on weekends, which for me is #1; I cherish this more than gold. And secondly, if it is hot out, I cannot keep my ground balanced, as some put it. When it starts getting hot, I would tend not to look as hard and rush through areas. Anyways, back to the gold. I was in a wash last week when I ran into some pretty good gold. I found 11 small pcs adding up to almost 4 grams. Now, for my night hunts, I won’t go every weekend, I usually skip 1 or two so that I get my sleep cycle working again. But then there is Mother’s Day coming up and so my wife briefly mentioned that I should go this weekend, too. An hour later I am charging batteries. She walks by and says, “wow, you really have the fever don’t you”. I just laughed. She knows me. She has seen me prospecting for 5 years and put up with it for 5 years. One of the best decisions I made was marrying her. I explain all of this because it was nice to come home and show her the source of the fever. So I went back to this area with my GPZ and started walking through more washes I had marked out on my gps. Nothing for the first one, but the second one, I got a nice strangely shaped 2.75 grammer. Now, I can kinda see a patten on my gps when I look at my finds. I finish the wash and go to a wash that is in the direction of the gold distribution. Good topography … I am in. First couple of minutes of slow hunting in this wash yields, nothing. And then I start focusing on a bench that is maybe a foot higher than the rest of the wash… and I get a signal. A clear, still loud, but smooth signal. My heart jumps as I begin to dig. The dirt just fell away until 15-16” I hit gravel. By now the target was booming. I scrape the gavel back with my pick and I see a large piece of gold flip out! It replays in my mind over and over. Needless to say, you may have heard my scream at 2:15 in the morning (Arizona time). LOL. From there the gold kept coming. I got a couple more pieces farther up the wash and then came back and placered the area for a couple more little ones missed by depth. Wide range of sizes. THAT is why I love the GPZ. And it was nice to see my wifes face change to a smile when she felt the .86oz chunk fall into her hand. Priceless. All in all, my findings came to just over 1oz. Who needs sleep ... Andyy

Interesting, Mitchel. I actually turn my coil to near perpendicular and touch the target areas in the 10 or 2 o'clock positions to better pinpoint the target. walking up to the target in this manner (when out of the hole) will get your target in the scoop in a much shorter time. My interest in the smaller coil is strictly for fitting it in the rocky areas. This would save much time from having to placer an area to get a few more inches. While it doesn't help much with can size targets, it helps greatly with the <1/2 gram targets, which unfortunately, account for the largest portion of my poke :) I have tested this over and over again, and I almost always get two or more extra pieces of gold that I would have walked away from. But to get back to your comment on "fringe" detecting, I agree that the edge fringe is really strong compared to other detectors. You can really notice this when you are sitting next to you GPZ (trying to separate a small target from the scoop) and you have your pick too close by. You will be there forever. LOL

Phoenix - SSSSHHHHHHH, what are you doing?!? Stop telling people that the GPZ is good. More gold for us. LOL. (kidding of course-there's still plenty to go around) Controlling the hum on a GPZ is definitely far different than the GPX5K. Sensitiity/Threshold/and Target volume all seem to have to be in perfect balance. There's fewer knobs to turn on this machine, but they sure can change the way the gold sounds off and if it sounds off at all. If you can really force yourself to not dig those targets that sound like gold, and instead test some of the settings, you will really get a handle on what changes the target sound in your ground. It was eye opening for my locations. Andyy

There was originally a printed page that said 11" and 19" coils. I am not sure where I saw it, but that has since been removed from all documents I can find.

You hit the nail on the head, Rob. I think this is the underlying gap that Minelab is content with and that we are not. I love my GPZ, but it is not a good fit in many environments. And so we are forced into experimenting and tinkering with our equipment. I *do* believe this will put a bit more pressure on Minelab to reconsider previous decisions with what options they will offer. But time will tell.

Firstly, I scrub the ground (because I can where I am at) Secondly, I run more conservative settings with my sensitivity down in the 5 or less, area. Everything else is pretty much like Northeast runs. What I found is that when I went back to my patches, I got nothing more until I lowered my sensitivity. When I did this, the ground noise went away and I heard deeper targets. Overall, when I switched to the ZED, I find many more smaller targets that the GPX5000 was not sensitive to get. If you have pounded areas with your larger GPX coils, don't plan on the ZED getting too much more. It all depends on your patch, I guess, and what you've already pounded it with. I *do* find the ZED more sensitive to improper handling and requires (in general) a slower sweep than the GPX. But I still love that I can get almost everything I need with this one coil. My only gripe is that the 14" coil does not fit in all the areas I want to put it. Good luck! Andy

Heck, what can I say.... if it makes my machine lighter, I am all for it :) Darn - why didn't I put a patent on that ...

Nope ... no metal anywhere (not even the eyelets). It's nice to know you can walk through cactus and not have them pierce the leather. Jumping Cholla are all over my neck of the woods... and the gold likes to hide where the others don't walk. There are other brands of non-metal shoes on this website as well. Search "non metallic". There are many choices. I went on the cheaper side with the Avengers. I kick rocks out of the way all day long, like I am playing rock soccer. The ceramic toe helps protect the toes.

I still enjoy my Avenger 6 work boots. Not too pretty but have good thick leather so the snakes just bounce off. https://www.workbootsusa.com/avenger-7416.html