Andyy

32 minutes ago, kiwijw said:

My exact reasons for loving night detecting when I ran PI's. I just found out by experience over time the benefits, no one told me. I just "worked" it out as I found the detectors just ran way smoother at night. It is not often I come across someone who mentions solar influence, but it is a fact. So thanks Busho. I usually timed it with a coming full moon. You could get in quite a few nights before, during & after the full moon. That way I only used a head lamp when digging & retrieving a target.

Good luck out there

JW ?

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.

9 hours ago, Mike C... said:

Nice V gold-can you say chupacabra ? Mike C...

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!

On 5/11/2019 at 1:30 AM, geof_junk said:

Midnight Gold is a term meaning claim jumping here in Australia, the haul you got is great mate.

 

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 ?

5 hours ago, mn90403 said:

Looking out a marvelous picture window at roos everywhere and birds and wow!

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!!

34 minutes ago, flakmagnet said:

Night hunting, taking all the smart precautions like not falling down mine shafts etc, is really fun. We put a small light on an antenna close to our camp so we could see how to get back. 

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.

43 minutes ago, mn90403 said:

I leave tonight for Australia.  15.5 hours later flight time I'll be there!

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

On ‎5‎/‎5‎/‎2019 at 6:47 PM, flakmagnet said:

"For example, the audio response for small gold will be a low-pitched tone followed by a high-pitched tone. A ferrous signal such as a bottle cap will produce a high-pitched tone followed by a low-pitched one, enabling the user to discriminate the ferrous target."

Have you GPZ owners found that smaller gold does indeed signal with "a low-pitched tone followed by a high-pitched tone?"

 

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

3 hours ago, mn90403 said:

WTG Andyy!  You and I have talked about night hunts before.  I've done less of them lately but in the next few weeks I might have to try them again because the days are short and the nights are long!

Mitchel

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

9 hours ago, jasong said:

That said, there does seem to be a point where someone just starting should dig everything no matter what, for a time. That's the only way to figure out what "looks right" in terms of what produces nuggets when they reach the point where it pays to stop digging everything and start covering more ground later.

*PS, if trying this approach I find it essential to keep all your tracks recorded on a GPS and a main database of them on Google Earth or similar. I recently lost a card that held a ton of my old tracks from 2008 to 2015 and it really made things difficult in places I had left incomplete to revisit later. Think of exploration like macro gridding. Find a place you are interested in with good geology then systematically cover it, maybe an area 25 miles square, the same way you'd cover a patch 100 meters square. Keeping GPS tracks is essential in my book. When you find a productive area you can also use your tracks to make sure you've not missed any tiny washes or other productive zones that are easy to miss on the ground.

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

3 hours ago, flakmagnet said:

That's a great story about your two sources of gold, the Arizona landscape and your wife. I love hunting at night although I have not done it the way you do it...using the whole night. Continued good hunting. I'm sure Mother's Day will be a good one. Best...

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

3 hours ago, phrunt said:

? Your wife will want to keep that chunk, I think I'd have trouble standing after finding something that big.  Staying conscious would be hard enough.

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..

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)

On ‎4‎/‎23‎/‎2019 at 2:15 PM, phoenix said:

No mate, I run twin shoulder mounted WM12`s, I`m running a volume limit of 4, I let the background static dictate the gain, this bit yesterday the gain was 7 and I`m now running a target volume of 2 and I have threshold set so I can just barely here it. cheers Dave

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

11 hours ago, Rob Allison said:

Hey Guys,

   What ever happen to the 11" GPZ coil that Minelab promised?  I'm 99.9% sure when the unit was first released they mentioned a future  11" and 19" coil release, beyond the stock 14x13" inch.  Correct me if I'm wrong? 

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.

15 hours ago, Rob Allison said:

I'm sure everyone would love to own a SDC for backpacking, exploring and finding the small gold and then having a $8000 GPZ 7000 to punch down deep.  That being said, that investment is nearly $12,000 US. 

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 ...

56 minutes ago, klunker said:

Looks like they have metal eyelets and the soles are bonded with no stitching which is where most of my boot failures

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

On February 27, 2019 at 7:25 PM, billdean said:

I have been having a real problem when going into a new area trying to decide were to detect. Washes from time to time I find a piece or two by turning over rocks and detecting in that spot, but for the most part, most of the gold is gone. I've tried detecting on the top of the washes with a little better results if the washes aren't to deep but some of these washes have sides that go up a long way and are difficult to detect. So now I have been looking for contact zone or at least as I think I understand them. I have attached a pic in and area I am detecting now and it seems overwhelming to me. Everything looks like contact zones. I know gold is coming out of this area but I am really struggling to find any. I could use a little help deciding how to detect this area. I have circle and area that seems like a contact zone but is it? I am constantly looking for different signs, fuggy quarts, iron, etc until it drives me nuts.

 

I agree with the others.  When starting out, I spent too much time trying to find the magical contact zones.  As they said above, it is usually identified by a color change.  Your circled area has  a larger grey finger (probably of metamorphic rock) that I would consider a larger contact.   I also would check all  of those washes so long as the bedrock was not too deep.  If it's deep, hop around and cherry pick.  But the only way to learn is to cover a ton of ground.  You *will* get over the gold.

On ‎3‎/‎10‎/‎2019 at 8:46 PM, jinmon said:

SUCCESS!!! That Kevin guy might know a thing or two about metal detecting for lead, if only he’d stop pretending he’s talking about gold. Check out my haul from a few hours in the claims at Cajon Pass (note this is only the small stuff - I was already an expert in finding shell casings from an hour on Lytle Creek):

 

Just one more thing, I might add.  Really check your lead that you find.  Sometimes native copper nuggets can look a LOT like lead.  It was pretty cool when a friend of mine recently showed me what I thought was a piece of lead.  A small scratch on the side of it showed it to be a copper nugget.  And copper travels in gold areas too.  I now have to go through my bucket of lead to see if I threw in any copper nuggets.  LOL.

But, yes.  The gold is much more fun to find.  And I can tell you will be doing that soon.  Good luck to ya!

18 minutes ago, Chet said:

My first GPZ, about 3 years ago had a similar problem. In High Yield, Normal it would run great most of the day. In the afternoon when the battery was around 50% down it would sound off like you describe “detecting over a bed of tiny birdshot”. I could charge it at the car for 10 minutes and it would settle down until the battery was again down around 50%. I think an internal voltage regulator must have been failing. The replacement detector cured that problem.

My standard settings are High Yield, Normal and 20 Sensitivity. Most of the time wet grass, mud and water have no effect. But in some areas at times I still experience the same severe effects in wet grass.

Chet
 

Wow, you are smoking on those settings.  I run HY/NORMAL (and much lower sensitivity) on almost all occasions and if I do make a change, it is to General.  But I never hear anything off the grass itself.  Roots, yes.  But not grass.

I am really curious if the battery has an affect on the noise perceived through the GPZ.

4 hours ago, Condor said:

Hey Jasong, good to see you back with your observations as well.   

The reset helped some, but as the day wore on they continued to get worse.  The problem seemed to be a particular type of desert weed, not all of them.  I also used General and it was better, but I didn't find any gold.  The noise is a short sharp spike above the threshold.  They are not at all like a true good target tone, perhaps more like a surface piece of bird shot.  A few times I thought there might be a target tone in amongst a gaggle of those weeds so I pulled them all out and not a peep left in the ground.  I guess it's something to endure until they dry out and get blown away in the March winds.  The Nox 800 was able to run right through them with only an occasional bleep on the weeds.  

I agree - great to hear from Jasong, again! :)

As for the extra noise, I was out in the Vulture Mtns (AZ)  and there were wet weeds all over the place.  A lot of targets, gold and garbage, were even rolled up in mud balls.  But my Zed did not show any issue with this.  In fact, the Zed, from my experience, is much better than the GPX5000 in wet ground.  I have detected in mud, through permafrost, right after a rain, and it just chews it up.  Perhaps it is the type of weed in your location that bothers it.  If it happens with all types of weeds, it might be your machine.  I hope you get it figured out.