BMc

Also used to be popular laced in tomato soup . . .

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!

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!

Sometime in the mid to late 1990’s, I read an article in Western & Eastern Treasures about the tailing/dredge spoil piles in Murray, Idaho left over from the dredging of Prichard creek. The focus of the article was about how the rock/gravel from the tailing piles were being used to build a road to Wallace, ID, a distance of about 19 miles, and how good sized gold nuggets had been found by detecting the unfinished roadway. Seems that an experienced metal detecting couple from Arizona was on vacation and had been driving through the area when they noticed dump trucks carrying loads of gravel from the miles long tailing piles and depositing the gravel in the roadway which was then being flattened by a compaction road roller. Over the weekend when the road crew was not working, the couple proceeded to metal detect a stretch of the newly graveled roadway under construction and apparently did quite well. I happened to be visiting Murray, ID sometime later and, although the roadway was finished and paved, miles of the tailing piles, (as shown in the post card photo), still remained. I spent several fruitless hours pi$$ing in the wind, trying to detect some of those piles without any success. The detecting part went fine. The recovery, not so much. As has previously been mentioned on the forum, detecting in loose spoil piles of that magnitude was literally impossible. It was almost like trying to dig in a pile of jelly beans. I tried using a GB-2 with a 14” coil and a ML 2200d. I could only excavate to a depth of several inches before the gravel sides would collapse. Starting over just led to the same result every time. Eventually I gave up and drove over the newly constructed road into Wallace where I stopped at a local pawn/prospecting shop. I told the store owner what I had been trying to do and his face lit up with excitement! He asked if I would like to see some of the nuggets the Arizona couple had found? He then went into his safe, pulled out a few trays of nuggets and sat them on the counter. The biggest nugget was quite a bit larger than a silver dollar in diameter and flattened out to about ¼ inch thick. It appeared to be solid gold, as were the rest of the numerous nuggets in the collection. All were flattened to some extent but none were very thin. We both had a good chuckle over the daring and audacity of the AZ detectorists and wondered how many more nuggets they had found. Finally, I thanked the exuberant storekeeper and drove the road back to Murray with renewed interest. To this day, I sometimes still wonder how many gold nuggets there must be underneath that 19 miles of asphalt. 27-29 oz

I take your point HP. But, I have worked many dredge piles, that didn't have all that much old trash. Newer trash; bullets, especially, not much help using discrimination. I, personally have and still would start with a PI in certain types of piles just to see what it sounds like, then go from there. I've dug my share of Dozer shavings too. As they say in the Military: It all depends on the situation and the terrain . . .

Some of these piles are extremely hard and compacted, making it difficult and discouraging pick and shovel type work. A large coil PI detector can often be used to good effect by going over as much of the pile as possible before having to break it up, or rake it down. Don't overlook the possibility that the dredge piles may have been used as a base for any roads that lead into the area. I recently saw a nice nugget found in the road leading to a creek that was adjacent to a dredge pile in WY. Also, the dredge piles that were created on the day or days leading up to the War Production Board order L-208, in effect, shut down gold mining on December 7, 1942, and many of the newly created dredge piles were never worked as a result.

Nice piece of gold Reese! But I really have to say, you are doing it all wrong! You are using the wrong pick, using the wrong pinpointer, and worse of all, no one is holding you upside down by the ankles so you can dangle off into the hole and get way in there and dig it out! Reading the comments, I was reminding of what my Oklahoma born mother used to say when I was a kid and tried to tell her how to do something. She would give me a stern look and say, " Who's robbing this train? You or me?" 😊

Good on ya buddy, well done! You're a glutton for punishment and too bad you couldn't make the Wy trip in July/Aug, it was a lot warmer, even at 8000 ft! 😄

Must be a true story GC, that's the way I remember you telling it back in Aug when we met up in RP. I just hope I can remember it the next time it happens to me!

I am on my second Fisher Gemini 3 Two Box detector and have used them off and on since the 1990s. I carry one whenever I am out prospecting around old Ghost towns and mining camps to search for buried trash/bottle dumps and filled in privy locations. Over the years, I have found lots of relics and old medicine bottles etc (amongst rusty metal objects), with it. The Gemini 3 is simple to set up and easy to use. It may not be called "ground balance", but the detector has a turning knob adjustment, (part of the set up), that acts similar to a ground balance feature on a VLF detector. Once set up properly, I rarely had to tweak it any further since it ran smooth and quiet. One of its best features, IMO, is that it ignores, (doesn't react), to small surface metal items. Refer to manual for detector depth and size of objects capabilities. www.fisherlab.com Based on the information in the manual and my own personal experience, I do not believe the Fisher Gemini 3 Two Box capable of finding a single gold bar of the size indicated. I have detected oil cans and 1 lb coffee can sized metal objects at about 12" deep, and 2 lb cans/buckets at around 24" (or a little more) But if the bars were in a larger metal container or were spread out in a wider target configuration, 3 to 4 ft depth might be possible, IMO.

Esther Hobart Morris Esther Hobart Morris Died April 2, 1902 (aged 87) Cheyenne, Wyoming, U.S. Nationality American Occupation Justice of the peace Known for being the first female judge in the United States of America.

Hi, In case you don't have a copy, below is a link to the owners manual. I don't remember seeing any direct answer to your questions, but I haven't read the manual in awhile. It does say that the Gemini 3 is not suitable to search/trace faults (voids), but no mention of using in a cave, as I recall. I have used it for wall searches, but never found anything, and no reaction/non-positive response from the machine, of course couldn't be considered a success. The size of the items/depth of search are described in the manual. Example:("quart jar of coins) at about 1 ft') It might work if the item is large enough, but might false on you as well. You could try posing the questions in an email to the factory. They did respond to an email I sent to them a few months ago. Good luck! https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwivnLSNnJr5AhV0IX0KHX9OBd0QFnoECAUQAQ&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.fisherlab.com%2Fhobby%2Fmanuals%2FGemini-3-07.24.14-Reader.pdf&usg=AOvVaw26qVCBwrw6om4YL7LiUjGr

Equinox 800 is considered to be an excellent "all purpose" detector. If you haven't already done so check out Steve's review.

Just hope they can hold the line on subscription costs . . .

549 Australian Dollar equals 385.10 United States Dollars (Google format) insert amounts) Due to supply and demand, all the traffic will bear, etc etc, I would expect the price to be at least slightly higher in the US. (presently advertised on internet at $401.00 (MSRP: $439.00)