Gold Catcher

Very cool, thanks JP. Sounds really interesting and thanks for the detailed description. It also shows once more that good knowledge of the geology is the foundation for success, with you being a living example 🙂

Absolutely enjoyable reports, thanks JP. Always an inspiration. Just curious, in the places where you hunt is the gold originally coming from lode deposits near by? I am not familiar with the geology in your area, but where I hunt known lode deposits can erode quiet substantially into massive alluvial fans. Interestingly, in these fans the heavy material travels up, not down. Hence, heavier gold can be quiet shallow in these fans. I was just wondering if you have a similar situation there. Your gold is nice and chunky. 🙂

Looks highly suspicious to me. Let us know....

Thanks for your detailed answer, JP! This is super helpful! Much appreciated, as always. 🙂

It also has the trash of >100.000 old timers buried. Most places don't even have a clean area where you can put down your detector without your headset blowing off your ears. The GPZ is great in finding those beautiful sounding deep targets, which turn out not seldom to be large pieces of mining equipment junk left behind >>100 years ago. Of course, unearthing this junk will often take you > 2 feet of digging, which makes this even more fun. Don't get me wrong. I like it up here. The Sierra's are beautiful and there are spots where you find gold. But for the most part I use my SDC and focus on bedrock. My GPZ I use more in the desert (NV, Southern-CA, AZ). For really hopeless areas only the GM1000 with iron meter allows for some hunting fun.

To add, I can of course go to general/normal or HY/difficult, but was wondering if there is anything else that might help. Thanks.

Good point, Simon!

Hi Jp, can you recommend settings for grounds that are plagued by high ground saturation? I usually reduce gain until the coil pumping keeps the threshold stable right above ground, but at times this means sensitivity of 6 or lower in HY/normal with the ML14 coil. Any other settings/tactics that can be beneficial without too much impacting performance? Thanks!

The way I read the ML FY20 half year result is that they just show the current fleet of detectors (with exception of X-terra). I don't think this necessarily means that the same fleet will be there next year. I still think the 4500 could disappear given it's life cycle and perhaps other changes are coming up too. I would be highly surprised if they would let us know in their current 1/2 year update for sure what will happen to their product line going forward. The only thing that we know is that they work on 5 new machines. This does not mean much since they could all be at different stages of development, with some possibly years out. The rumor mill needs to keep spinning I am afraid.

Thanks for sharing, RDD. Another example of how HY/high gain settings can miss targets

I have this exact headset and I love it. Never used it for detecting though as I was afraid the noice cancelling feature would add to EMI, or any other electronic component of the detector would be compromised. Do you recommend to use it, in combo with a booster like the SP01? Is this headset made for hearing the right detector audio frequencies? I know this can be an issue. I often hunt in howling wind which would make this a nice tool to have, assuming it would not compromise detector performance in any way. Thanks.

Much higher gain than that and I would not be hearing faint threshold variations anymore. Conservative settings work well for me but require a very focused hearing practice. Yet, this gives me better results than turning everything up into screaming mode

Great idea!

Thanks, yes this is always the best way to go. Assuming though you are close to your vehicle. I have done hikes with the SDC in my backpack and the GPZ resting on my shoulders, but this can be quite tiring 🙂

Thanks, JP! I have not yet have much experience with my 19 in coil, but will do some testing to get a feeling for what nugget size will be detected with the slow timing and at what depth. This might even be advantageous in trashy areas with small surface trash (bb's, tiny wires...etc). The slow timing might simply make them go away...Should also work with the 14 inch coil I suppose. The question will be what remains still big enough to not slip through the time gaps 🙂