Gerry in Idaho

That's certainly a worthy mouthful. And a Tops for thinking of the shiny shot. Great on you 👏

Yes, I found it in the snow. It was old dredge rock tailing piles (see the rocks below) and so no actual solid dirt soils. Once I broke the snow and ice off the rocks, it was much easier to dig. I use an Apex pick for most of my Electronic Gold Prospecting. Good luck to you. Gerry

Great reply about a side benefit of us Swingers. The weight loss, toning of the arm and legs muscles and health improvements overall. I've many customers who have taken the MD'ing hobby to a different level and stage of their lives. One particular lady lost over 60 pounds in 2 yrs because she started doing the hobby. I remember when 1st training her, she could hardly get off the ground and back up. I was feeling kind of bad for her, but she persisted and said in the long run, it would do her good. Now, she looks like a different person and can easily get up and down, as she built her leg strength up. Many guys I has seen lose quite a bit of weight as well and they are Troopers and great Ambassadors for this hobby and the health benefits. Glad to hear you too earned some extra time on this earth with a stronger body and heart. Thanks for sharing, opening up and the kind words my friend.

My detecting career started in the early 70's but it was all about silver coins. Turned out pretty good mini investment when looking at today's Silver price. The lure to chase Au with a detector didn't come until early 90's and I went thru 3 different detectors and into my 3rd season of trying to find a nugget, before the 1st one popped. I learned the hard way coming from an experience Coin Hunter and had way to many bad habits. That's part of the delay in the AU game for me, bad habits. My 1st 1 ounce nugget came from Ganes Creek AK and I think it was around 2003 or 04 with a Fisher Gold Bug 2 and larger 14" coil. Yes, that's an airplane and I actually dug the nugget in the runway of all places. My 1st (watched a 1 oz one dug up) was when I was training a few customers in Eastern Oregon in the late 90's. We were all using GB-2's with small 6" Ellip coils as I prefer to teach customers to find the smallest of gold. Fact is a big one is hard to miss. The small stuff is the majority of what we find and to me, for a beginner, finding any gold is Success for a few customer. Frank's nugget was called the Heart of Gold and published in the old Fisher World News. It was a beautiful 1.15 ozt solid slug of gold nugget. On a side note, I have at least 100+ 1 oz+ gold recoveries by many of my customers. Heck a few of them have found more than I throughout the years.

Wishing you the best for your new direction. It sure has been a fun life chasing.

As much as I enjoy trying to make crazy finds with metal detectors, I also want to help people get outdoors and enjoy their surrounds and life in general. Way too much negativity on the boob tube and no matter which side ones leans, it really does cause the blood pressure to go up. I've lost family, many old customer friends and even USMC brothers, way to early in their lives. I try to share my detector adventures to help excite strangers into such a fun hobby. I really think my job is one of the most incredible ones imaginable as I get to talk metal detectors and traveling to different places while swinging the varies models I use. Hopefully this year.... you too, get to enjoy the outdoors around you while swinging your favorite detector. Good Luck.

At today's Au prices, most of those are worthy of a Mug Shot for sure. I think this was June 2006 and gold around $550 to $600 an ounce. Hopefully I can produce a couple Mug Shot finds for everyone this year. Best of luck to you as well.

Trying to train a wife? Especially a red headed one like mine?? Buddy, I'm better off just handing her a detector and pointing a direction. Thanks for having confidence in me though.

These prices are actually freaky scary in many ways, but it's out of our hands. Here's the issue I've recently heard, some Buyers are not actually Buying? Can anyone confirm? Also, when is a good time to sell and who's paying these prices? I started swinging Coin detectors in the early 70's and have hundreds of silver coins. Pic below, Sorry I didn't take pics back in 70's. Here's one of my early pics of White's finds at a yard, quite common back then. Started Beach/Water detecting in the late 80's and have a few pounds of sterling rings. Below - Later on in my Swinging career, when I was running 3030. Very common back then to get a bunch of silver jewelry. How does one go about to get the current prices? Pic below. A productive water hunt vacation produced G & S. The G on the right hand ( pointy finger was tungsten) and the sterling on the left hand (the ankle bracelet was gold though). Pic below using X-Terra 70 finds nice solid nugget. Are any of you folks selling and to who or how? Below is a fantastic handful of Au when I used to take groups to Ganes Creek, AK. All thanks to Steve H., as he told me about it & said to take my skill-set, go up there to put it to the test, and I did. Would love to hear from some of you who's actually making such moves right now? A few years back, a partner/I crushed up some crappy looking specimens. We then panned.. and smelted a couple globs Ended up with 2 nice cones of Au. We took them to AAA Refinery in Portland, OR as they actually paid for the Gold and Silver content, not just Au. It was hard work crushing/panning and the smelting was really cool, but loud. We had the neighbors wondering what we were up to making all the noise all evening. But at the end, it was worth it for both of us. Most interesting is my partners Au was mostly from Nevada and his Gold purity was about 10 % less and his Silver purity was about 10% more than mine. Most of my specimens came from Oregon that I crushed and evidentially it has a better % of Au. Are any of you folks selling and to who or how? Thanks in advance and I look forward to hearing from others, especially recent movers.

Loving it. Now what?

You know, she's not much for patience as Gold Hunting takes, but I'm thinking the GM-2000 (and the recent run up on AU) just might give her a little more incentive. About the only place I see her swing pretty consistently was on our England Adventures when digging Roman and Celtic.

Glad to see others realize the importance of a good quality VLF detector for (they're not rare) specimens. I've been preaching this for 10+ yrs and even get occasional folks who will argue, their PI will most certainly find it. I quit trying to explain to ignorant (so called Experts) a few yrs ago. It's just that much more gold for my customers who've taken the class and myself. Yes, a PI can find Specimens, I know so and have many ounce of Specimens with PI's. But I have literally found pounds of Au with VLF's and you are 100% correct. They are not as rare as many folks believe. Realize, if your PI doesn't see it, you don't know what you missed. I've recovered such specimens in Idaho, Oregon, Nevada and California. Heck, a few of my Specimens have multiple ounces of Au in them and none of my PI's see them. I will give credit to the newer PI's though for seeing some of them but not at the depth my VLF's hit. The old GPX series was better at it than the GP and even older SD series. The 7000 is better at it than a 5000. The newer 6000 is better than a 7000. Axiom, 6000, and AlgoForce are the best of the PI's for such specimens, but even then, some of my collection is just invisible, so below. Yes, the Manticore and Equinox read a #1. The pic below is a High Dollar specimen recovered a few yrs ago with the VLF Eureka Gold and it was missed buy his buddy with a GP-3500. The below pic is from Cali last year and an ore dump pile. I personally hunted it with my Axiom and found a couple. I then had my brother check it afterwords with his Equinox and sure enough, a few hundred bucks in specimens. I have been teaching this in my 3 Day Field Training classes and even have the gold there to test for those who think otherwise. Next 3 Day class is at Rye Patch, NV April 17th - 19th. Some folks seem to think a expensive GPZ-7000 GPX-6000 is best at all gold, when in fact they know nothing. Part of it is the writing that Minelab puts on their box though as it's misleading. I had to refund a guy one time (the Washington State mine with all the bigger gold) who was pissed at Minelab after the guy missed a nice specimen and his buddy found it with a VLF. One of my favorite tools for Ore Dump and Hark Rock piles is a good quality high frequency VLF detector. Bottom line, if you only swing one technology, you are missing some gold, period. Thanks for sharing your experience and congratulations.

Hopefully you do dedicate a 3 Day Weekend with my Field Staff/I. Each of us own a GPX-6000 and know it well. In fact, I consider it the best PI on the market for performance at Rye Patch proper for someone trying to find a few pickers. Sure the majority of Big Gold has already been recovered from there, but that's perfect for Training, as we want our customers to know best of how to find the majority of nuggets that's still left at the old patches, the small bits. Good Luck to you this year as well my friend.

Jim McCulloch - Your years of Success make my finds look like a plain white bread with butter sandwich. Thanks for the wink. okara gold - Buddy, I sure hope to find a few treasures with my detectors this year. And if I don't find many, at least I'll be out there enjoying Life/Wife and Adventure. Best of luck to you as well Sir.

beatup - Thanks and I'm hoping to see some of your Adventures of 2026 show up on here. Gold comes in many ways. mn90403 - Most don't know your situation (kids) and the sacrifices you take, but you do the best with it. Those memories with the kids are more valuable than any gold ring or nugget. That's what makes you a special kind of man. Gold will shine on you in 2026. Thanks again for taking your time away from family to join us at Rye Patch last year. Your efforts shined through with gold recoveries from both of your detectors. cudamark - Yes, that rocking this world surfing chunk had me shaking in my boots. I've held some World Class Au and that's certainly one of the Top 20, possibly Top 10. Glad you enjoyed it and good luck to you in 2026.