Gold Catcher

Welcome Jared! SF-East Bay here

8 hours ago, mn90403 said:

I'll go to Barstow and try to stay out of the wind.  It will be near freezing at sun up.  We found some gold up high but it is flat near Coolgardie.  

Yup, been there several times on the GPAA claims. I mostly found tiny stuff there though, if any. I hear that you have to dig a few feet until you hit the caliche and then look there. Check out the area south of the I-15 (Mount Ord)

6 hours ago, Andyy said:

Dang, Gold Catcher ... i love the action shot.  Thing is, i usually get too excited to stop and slow down when digging.  My luck i will spend 5 minutes just to get a nice frame of an old dry washer nail or piece of tin, caught in time.

The tragedy with this one was that when I was back home I looked at the video recording  that I made from digging the nugget out and  I noticed on the video that there was a another nugget close by that I somehow missed. It must have jumped out as I was digging out the first one. Take a look at the upper right screenshot of my video. What an unforgivable mistake....Have to hike back there.

Ha, I am a member of all three as well. Hardly make it to outings though as I live in the Bay area. Used to live in San Diego and still drive down to the El Pasos every now and then. Just mesmerized by the desert landscape there. See you around on there some times 🙂 BTW, only found one tiny piece around red chispa. Not much left there 

31 minutes ago, mn90403 said:

Keep guessing.  I've never found that much gold there.

There is still quiet a bit...small stuff though, like this 2 grammer, but I hardly get skunked when I go there. The landscape is absolutely incredible.

Benson Gulch and Goler Gulch are heavily worked, but....there is a spot where I fond gold consistently. Needs a bit of hiking though, but it is in the El Pasos. Dale district?

Let me guess the location. Randsburg district? 🙂

I find this topic quiet interesting and JP's comments are valuable to me, as always. When I spend 8k for a detector I want to maximize everything I can. Hence, details matter greatly to get the most out of it. Perhaps this is not so important for less sophisticated detectors.

Perhaps you could attach the bungee on the D ring that is on the front of the should strap. But it would not be ideal for a heavy detector. I wear a harness that also serves as suspenders and a bagpack on top of it. Not ideal. And falling down pants is a super anoying problem for me, having heavy digging tools attached on my belt including pick. Harness/bagpack/suspenders all in one would be best.

A combined bagpack/harness would be great. Haven't found one yet.

In GB semi-auto it keeps the iron track constant and locked in on the ferrite. In my experience, this helps greatly when hunting in grounds that have highly variable mineralization with high and low iron contents in close proximity

I clip it on the cover and use my headphones without wireless module. I found that the Prosonic adds to the EMI of the SDC, hence I use the headphones directly plugged in. It only adds a bit to the weight, but for the SDC the SP01 is a real blessing. I don't use it for the GPZ, also because I don't want to have another metallic object attached on my body close to the detector. In high yield/normal/gain >10 the machine is whining whenever anything metallic comes remotely close. No problem for the SDC though. Note the knuckle guard. That's the single most important investment to make for the SDC.

The SP01 I only use on my SDC which is a great addition for this detector. Not only is the audio on the SDC very low which can be boasted with the SP01, but also the filter works such that small targets are being amplified. A little bit like the Volume setting on the Zed (not the Treshold level though). 

My preferred settings for the Zed are different. Whenever possible, I run my machine with High Yield/Normal/Smoothing off. I rather cut back on sensitivity than switching to difficult or to audio smoothing. I use difficult and smoothing only when there is absolutely no other choice. Both act like filters and you will miss small targets. I have tested this myself many times, including ye Patch, El Pasos, Quartzite, etc.. The only thing I sometimes do is switching to general/normal. In some cases, targets are better heard in general. The GPZ settings were discussed at length also at another thread a while back. Now, everybody has their own settings that work the best for them, and that's a good thing. I just found that for me audio smoothing and running the machine in difficult will diminish the GPZ performance very significantly.

Did you use semi-auto for GB? Also, lower the sensitivity when ground balancing.  Sometimes the gain is too high and the ferrite won't cancel out properly. Also check that there is no target close to the ferrite. 

7 minutes ago, phrunt said:

my back got very sore after a couple of hours

I use CBD/THC pain cream every time after I go hunting. Takes the pain off my shoulders, arms and back better than any medication I've ever tried. Without it I would probably already sit in the wheelchair by the way I abuse my body when prospecting. Of course it is legal here in California, I don't know if it is available in NZ or Au. But this stuff works like a miracle. 

I like that! Just the other way around then (pi then vlf). Need to buy little marker flags.

That 31 ouncer my pinpointer would have picked up though

Yup, love my SDC. It's made for shallow gold but it actually punches pretty deep depending on circumstances. Size and shape/density of the gold matters alot.

Also great that you can do all this with your wife. My wife thinks I long lost my mind...

Thanks for following up with the thread, Geof. And congrats to your awesome finds and the systematic mapping.  Keeps the legend alive that you need to go to Au to find kilo' s of gold with virtually no trash 🙂

I think Steve had it spot on. Start with VLF/iron meter and then move to PI/ZVT. I always dig everything, that's my point. If you start with the Zed right upfront you will get frustrated. I am in the El Pasos often. Many of these piles don't even have one clean spot where I can rest the Zed on the ground without my ears blowing out.

Thanks for the encouragement, Andyy. This is the type of answer I am trying to talk myself into :).

Regarding claims, I still find gold on club claims even if they have been sometimes pounded over decades. It's just alot harder and the gold is usually small. It's just impossible to have every square inch covered even after a long time. That being said, the satisfaction that you get from finding something so many others have missed is just not the same as finding a new gold patch altogether in the wild. Hasn't happened to me yet though, at least not for being able to retire (or anywhere close)

Yup, all good points. However,  I am more optimistic in the desert areas down south. One thing you got right for sure: i am way past to save myself....