Goldseeker5000

Welcome to the forum Tree. So your nickname, does it have anything to do with a Ghillie suit?

Phrunt, the Gpx does have good discrimination. You can't compare the Gpx discrimination with the Nox or Monster or even the 705. The Gpx discrimination only goes down 6" so if your target is deeper, it won't work till you get within 6" of the coil. Furthermore, the discrimination on the 5000 and the 4000 work flawlessly for what it was designed to do in the goldfields. Dig every target regardless of what disc says and test some various sizes nuggets and you will see it works perfect for what Minelab wanted it to do. I trust the Gpx discrimination 💯%. It has never let me down. And I don't expect it to do what I know it can't.

I always take two detectors, my 5000 and the Monster. At time I will even take the 705. Two pinpointers two or three scoops because I have a tendency to walk away from them when I finish filling in my holes. I also take all of my coils except for the 705. The 6" HF has stayed on now for a couple years now. I take two picks, two loupes, two pruners, several magnets. Two packs, depending on the hike and what I am taking with me. Just ask Oneguy, when I go detecting/camping, I am always well prepared and outfitted.

And some thought my release date on my book was long. Minelab has me beat by a mile, on every detector. I'm glad I'm not in the market for a new pulse induction detector. Though it would be nice to see what they come up with to top the 5000 & 7000.

For me, it used to be the X-terra 705. That detector continually impresses me. And at times it has frustrated me. But now it is the Gpx5000.It offers me so many settings and ways to mix and match how I want to set it up to hunt a particular area that it easily wins. My Gpx4000 was quiet but never quite like the Gpx5000. A detector that continually amazes me is a detector that I seek to unlock all it's capabilities. For me the 5000 paired with the Evo coils, covers most all of me needs. Versatility is what I need in Montana. The 5000 provides it.

Here is the story of Henry Plummer and the Innocents (road agents).

You mentioned that the guy's wife posted on Facebook that he got into a truck with strangers and went prospectors. This sounds fishy as if she is trying to create a path for law enforcement to pursue. Basically redirecting them away from where they should be looking. This happened in Glacier Park here in Montana in 2012. A man had just got marry two weeks prior and also just signed on buying a house here in Kalispell. He went missing for several days. He had a good job and people were looking for him. His wife said she saw him leave the house and got into a red car with Washington plates with people she never seen before. Fast forward. I was working in Glacier Park as a construction flagger on the Going to the Sun road when man in a car with a strobe light came up to the front of my line and said he was an FBI agent and needed to get through to investigate a man's body at the bottom of a 300 ft. Cliff. I checked to make sure it was clear to send him and off he sped down the road. Well it turns out his wife was seen going into glacier several days in a row and it turns out she and her husband were hiking in Glacier and they were on the top of this 300 ft cliff hiking. She pushed him off the cliff and watched him die. She then kept going back up to the crime scene to make sure his body was still there. She was telling his family and officers he got into a stranger's car. So my point is. His wife sounds guilty and that she is trying to throw officers off do they don't look at her. Just my gut feeling from what Jasong posted. It is a damn shame that in 2020 in some areas we can't even go look for gold without Henry Plummer types trying to Rob and kill us while we are out enjoying our hobby. Sad! I am quite familiar with people coming into my camp uninvited or strolling into my camp from out of the forest.This is why I always carry a 12 Ga. Shotgun with me out prospecting. One time of getting a gun pulled on you and you will see what I'm talking about. I had a friend that went to help another friend with his claim and when they got up to his claim, my friend George was shot by a high powered rifle by someone hiding on the guy's claim. He lived but he never helped any other miners again. Everyone that is out detecting this winter, be safe and be observant of your surroundings. Not a quick look around, but take the time to thoroughly scan for people watching from a distance every so often throughout the day. I have learned to do this every 30-40 minutes. It's good practice. You never know if you might be being stalked by a lion as well.

Lol, Ridge Runner, yah that is part for the course. We gold prospectors are all tinkerer's and inventor's by default. We all are always looking for a more efficient way to get to the gold or extract the gold from the gravels & Clay's.

A gold screw, desert fox or even a rain gutter with ribbed matting and or corduroy would work quite well. If you make a 4-5 inch wide by 4ft long sluice, attach or weld a sloping water defuser at the head of the sluice with a threaded pipe on the outside wall of the defuser to accept a hose, then this will work very well. It makes cleanup of concentrates fast and easy. Adjust the steepness of the sluice for best gold recovery. I made one like this and it worked very well.

If Ridge Runner is who I think he is, then a pan is going to be way too slow and if he is the Chuck I know, he has a lot of material to reprocess.

Is this Chuck from Butte, MT? If so, I can give you a phone number of one of the Libby club guys. One or two of the guys in the club makes trommels out of 20 gallon barrels and utilizes a regular Keene sluice. Much better than the Camel mountain trommels. Probably far less expensive too. - Reese

Keenes are good boots, but the last two years the glue has been separating so I had to keep taking them back in for a new pair. One pair, the keene-dry barrier failed two days after buying them. So I don't buy keenes anymore. But you can't buy a more comfortable boot than keenes. I think their quality has gone down hill.

You know, now that you mention the sweating thing, I do remember them doing that. At the time I was in the water alot and I just ignore that fact. I'll still get another pair. For me they were super comfortable and had good traction. I wear boots with metal eyelets for years now with pulse and vlf detectors, and as long as you keep your feet away from detector, it's been no issue for me.

I used to wear these desert tan converse combat boots. They are said to be waterproof outers but my pair always let water in, but I didn't care because your feet dry super fast in them, like within an hour. Ever your socks. I will be buying another pair in the spring because they were super comfy and I think they would probably work well with my bad Achilles tendon. Here are some other Converse models as well. I definitely would not wear these in areas where you have to wear snake guards as they will NOT give your feet any protection against a snake bite.

Lanny would be a good person to ask on this, here on the forum.

That black light is pretty cool. Where can I get one? It that thing will make a scorpion glow like that, then I wonder if it will make a rattlesnake glow and stand out in neon as well. Could be useful aside from obvious uses for rocks. This has me thinking intently.

I have to chuckle at this topic as I am very guilty of this unpleasant situation as each year goes by since about 2009. I typically loose my scoop. One time I was out hunting with Oneguy and I found a scoop, and I thought cool, I got a spare. Well within 30 minutes I had lost my favorite scoop, the one that comes with the Gold Monster. I tried to back track my route, but I was unsuccessful at finding it, so I used the one I found, which I didn't like too much as it had riffles in it. Well the next trip out hunting with Oneguy and he said he found a scoop and asked me didn't you loose a scoop last weekend. Yep! Sure enough he had found it and gave it back to me. Well Lunk and Steve showed up and one of them was talking about loosing a scoop there and I pulled it out and sure enough it was one of theirs. I seem to be getting worse with this as I now am aquiring a habit of leaving my phone in shopping carts and driving off. I did this two weeks in a row. Yep, I gotta laugh at this. This getting older thing and forgetting scoops, picks and my phone makes me annoid at myself. I have to be very aware that I don't forget my test nuggets on the ground when out detecting. That would really piss me off.

Congrats Oneguy. You did very well this year. That is a well earned haul. Impressive.

Skookum, the shorter the distance it has to travel and gentler slopes the more it will keep a tighter path. The gold will have less likelyhood to hit obstructions and change course, thus widening the fan. Something else to consider as Jim has mentioned,the geological formations in the crust, various types of hydro-thermal gold deposits do happen at deeper depths. However with metasomatism, the replacement of one rock type with that of another through hot mineral Rich magmatic fluids, gases, and other fluids such as highly mineralized hot waters cause the deposit to become brittle speeding up the erosion process around the contact zones. If there is no visible sign of the contact zones anymore then look for all the right rock samples lying on the surface. When this happens and the gold bearing contact has completely eroded away, detect the slopes around where the various rock samples are lying on the ground. The gold should be within detectable depth. There are however more rock types that you should pay attention too as well, such as, limestone, dolomite, marble, pyrite, galena, bornite,scheelite,garnet, traces of arsenopyrite in the quartz. Knowing the rocks associated with gold deposition in your area is important and it is important to know what the gangue rocks are as well because it will help you map out your boundary of the rich area of the contact zones and where it transitions to barren gangue absent of gold. Those surveyor flags can help you with this as well. It will help form a visual picture of the contact zones. Circular or a tight zig-zag around and up the slope will give you the best coverage.

Pick up a pack of orange survyer flags and cut half of the wire off of each one to help save on weight. Detect in a circular radius moving outward, increasing the size of the radius. Overlap your swing and pay attention to all signals. When you hit on a piece of gold put a flag marker in the ground. From there detect in a circular direction again or perhaps on surveillance just a 3/4 circular radius is needed until you hit on the next nugget. Put the next flag in the ground. Repeat this process and you will start to see a line and the direction you should be detecting in. Remember, that regolith, including gold has a tendency to move down a slope or Hill in a fan shape, spreading out towards the lower sections.This will apply whether it is coming from a lode or or an old placer gold pocket eroding out of a hillside that was once part of a former drainage.

Yah Allen, I'm talking about Murray Idaho. Cougar Gulch. Right close to town.

That drift mine looks a heck of alot like the mine a ways up in Cougar Gulch. If that is the case, you won't find anything in there Allen. I spent more than two hours in there detecting with the Gold Monster and my friend was using an SDC 2300. However, my other friend who was with us found a one ounce specimen, mainly gold. Large thick globs of gold to be exact, the year before. If it is in Cougar, then the gold is very much visible and it is both fed from veins the old timers cleaned out and an tertiary river channel. I found where it is still feeding it as I found the gravels on the saddle on the ridge two years ago. I heard you gave up gold detecting Allen.?

Bado1, how much did your stay in the hospital and anti-venom cost? I have heard stories recently that it can cost total between $50,000-$60,000 . If true, then getting bit if not wearing them, would be a very expensive learning lesson. I was retrieving a target and reached down with my hand to scoop some dirt out of the hole and stuck one of my fingers right into a prickley pear cactus spine that was sticking out in the pile of dirt. A little better than a quarter inch stuck straight into the tip of my middle finger just below the fingernail, and broke off just under skin surface. Talk about excruciating pain. Had to use clippers to chew away skin til I could latch onto the tip which was a little bit below bleeding layer.

What ever the model number is on Minelabs gold machines, you can count on the price being $1000-$3000 more. Some were spot on, like the 705. We all will just have to sit and wait till the product ads come out for the 6000. We have no choice, do we. I think Minelab has all this tech lined up a few years ahead of time before they release it, so they always have something coming out to sell. That is smart. They are probably working on technology now for detectors 5-10 years from now to be released. It keeps a steady flow of revenue coming in as they want and need it to. White's had tech they sat on and didn't put out there and look where they are. I think the 6000 will have something new that the 5000 and 7000 doesn't have. I also think the tech in the 6000 will be a new plane or a new platform to take gold detectors down a new road of capabilities, just as the GP Extreme was.

Gold Catcher, Minelab doesn't put out detectors that are essentially the same as the previous model or two with a new shell. They have technology improvements they release when they see fit. What you are describing is what Garrett has a habit of doing, not Minelab.