Goldseeker5000

Oneguy is out of Thompson Falls and I am in Kalispell.

Oneuy, you clearly have misread what I was getting at. All I was was implying was I was trying to get you out of the one district and get you to explore other good districts. Thats all. Maybe with your new camper you will do more exploring and research.

Steve, thats because I have been showing him some new good ground around Helena.

I agree with Gerry in regaurds to Montana being very very hot. The best areas I hunt are impossible with a vlf, but the monster is in fact capable if you reground balance often when it gets too noisy. Some areas you can't even move your coil an inch in any direction. This isn't just for a few feet or yards but 1-5 miles. You can see the black sands on the surface and if you dig down 5 inches, 10 inches, 1.5 feet, 3 feet, it is the same thing. Not tell tale signs of black sand but the dominant regolith is black sands and granodiorite.

Jin, your comment of detecting and a bear comes up behind you actually happened to me last year. I was detecting on a creek that dried up and I kept hearing something over behind me to my right side and 3 times I pulled the headphones off and looked back to see what it was. Never saw or heard anything, went back to detecting and I heard it again. Nothing across the creek but something moving on my side of the creek caught my eye. It was a large black bear coming towards me about 75-95 feet roughly away from me. I thought oh crap, all I have with me is my pick and rock hammer for defence. I decided to just stay put and see what happens. The bear looked over in my direction, sniffed the air and turned and went away. I'd be way more scared of snakes. I walked into a snake den in fall and one rattleing next to my left foot and almost stepped on 6-7 baby rattlesnakes. This scared the living crap right out of me. I couldn't stop shaking. Snakes bother me more.

Its a concrete rake, and yes it is good for that. Thats why I encluded it inmy tools for detecting.

The torch is for Hydro-shocking quartz gold specimens or to get nuggets out of Prichard mud stone, that are completely trapped inside. It usually stays back at camp.

I use a rock hammer and chisels all the time when I detect the bedrock on Libby Creek in Montana. There is lots of bedrock and no detector pick is going to get through it. Some nuggets I find in this bedrock have to be retrieved with a hammer and chisel. Some even take 45 minutes to an hour to break enough rock away to get the nugget out. These items always will be in my pack when I am detecting around bedrock. It is frustrating to have to walk away from a target you are certain is a nugget.

Did the thick patena layer cause the signal to be some what weak or iffy? Some of the gold at a region I hunt has a calcium or hard clay build up that is cream to orangish cream color and often causes the gold to be hard to get a signal on. It kind of masks it.

It is always a sad day when a great mind in our gold hunting community has passed away. It is a loss to all across the globe. You are very right Chris about a loss of knowledge and secrets with each one of these legends passing. I never met him, but it's a loss. I felt this loss when my two old timer miner friends, George Kornec and Clay Lewis passed.

May your streak continue! Good luck.

Well done Kiwi.

Very nice nuggets indeed. Makes it all worth while and feeds the hunger to find more .

It looks combersome and annoying not to mention added weight. It also looks like it would seriously restrict a persons movements while swinging on any terrain except flat ground.

Me too I hate ticks. I got one dug into the middle of my back and had to have a friend burn it outwith a cigarette while detecting on the Scott River in Northern California. Instant pain relief when it backed out. Way to go Scott, your skunk is broken. Glad to see you found some gold in another spot I mentioned to you.