azblackbird

I've been wearing the Camelbaks ever since they first came out. All others in my opinion are nothing but imitators. I've got several packs with some being almost 20 years old now. They all still get used depending upon what the situations are. The one I find that gets the most use now since I've been detecting, is the 100 oz "Charge". All it has is the "bulletproof" insulated pack with the bladder, and a storage pocket for snacks and what not. That's all I need, since I carry everything else on my Rokon.

Here's a few tips I learned over the years from using the Camelbaks out here in the AZ desert. If you want your water (or in my case tea) to stay cold all day long, pre-fill the bladder the night before you head out and put it in your refrigerator. In addition to that, don't use ice cubes in your bladder, they melt too fast. When you put your bladder in the refrigerator for the night, throw a couple bottles of water in the freezer. When you take them out in the morning, remove the plastic from the frozen bottles and put the frozen chunks in your bladder. On the 100 oz bladder there is a divider in the middle. The frozen ice chunks from the bottles fit perfect in each side of the divider.

Cleaning the bladder... fire up your tea kettle, run some hot water from the faucet inside the bladder and rinse it out real good. Then fill with half hot water from your tea kettle and half hot water from your faucet, add a tablespoon of bleach and swish it around real good. Make sure you run the super hot water through your bite valve hose and rinse it out real good also. Rinse and repeat one more time for good measure. After rinsing, stuff some paper towels in each side of the bladder, then hang upside down to let it fully drain and dry out. Been using this method for almost 20 years now and my bladders still look brand new and they've never ever had a bad taste.

Heres another aspect to be aware of, at ten grand a pop these detectors are going to be tempting bait for thieves so best keep them locked up and not left in trucks outside at night. i wouldn't be surprised at someone being robbed at gun point of their gpz, especially in the remote desert areas some of you folks go to...

Thieves by nature are pretty stupid people, so chances are they wouldn't know what they had if they did steal it. But If theft is a worry, for about $40 a month, you can get a GPS tracker that would be small enough to easily affix to your detector to where it would even look like it was part of the unit. If your GPZ is stolen, give the cops the latest coords and let them make the arrest. No use putting your life in jeopardy for a $10,000 piece of equipment.

Being a relative newbie, I'm still using a TDI Pro and GMT. Once I've mastered those and have found enough gold to warrant an upgrade, then I will do so when that time comes. For me, it's all about finding new/old or undiscovered gold bearing areas that 99% of the modern day population don't have the means or the initiative to prospect. Once I find a few producing patches, the odds are stacked highly in my favor that I'll be the only one able to access those areas, thus never having to worry about somebody else coming along with the "latest and greatest" and trumping any of my finds.

Very well stated Steve. 

I noted this on another forum but want to do so here too so here goes. How many of you have experience with pocket gold?

No experience, but that's where I'm concentrating my prospecting efforts on. Thanks for the posts. There's definitely a few tidbits I picked up that has given me a little more insight into what I should be looking for. 

Not a single fricking cactus in sight... must be nice!

Hey, if it works that's all that counts.

1.5 gram I get an easy 10" or more with a 12" coil on the TDI Pro. Good to know that I'm not giving up all that much. With that said, naturally many times, an inch or two in added depth is all it takes to make an old patch new again. Definitely looking forward to more reports from actual field users. I see a GPZ in my future eventually. 

Now that's some pretty gold!

My guess is turquoise.

This is it folks - most of your questions answered, and fodder for forum controversy for sure!

All except the price. 

Quite the machine. Seems to me you'd better have your techie hat on if you're going to take full advantage of all it has to offer. I see one in my future eventually. Me thinks I'll take the same approach with the GPZ 7000 as I did with the TDI Pro. Many detectorists unloaded them at rock bottom prices just because they could never figure out how to get them properly dialed in. I guess Whites was getting tired of all the complaints and made them a "certified" dealer only purchase, just because of user complications. Will the GPZ 7000 suffer the same fate? I guess I'll just have to wait patiently and find out for myself. 

Do you get a lot of flat tires from cactus? How do you tell if the GoPro is actually recording anything since they have no built in LCD monitor?

No flats to cactus. Slime in my tires. Camera blinks red and vibrates when recording.

I see all these bungie cord attachments, hip sticks, harnesses, and various other "detector-aids"... and it got me to wondering.

If your swinging arm gets tired... why not just switch arms? 

I sell my pokes as I find them getting old to look at. I've never got caught holding the bag (poke). I have a fair poke right now so if your looking, I'm selling!

Nothing like getting paid to exercise... right Lucky? Now that's my kind of health plan! 

Hey Ivan...

My camera quit around noon, so no "lunchbox" videos. I thought it was the battery, but turns out it was a corrupted SD card. A quick re-format solved the problem. You want to know what I carry huh? I'll try to shoot some video this weekend and will show what I carry with me when out prospecting.

Got out the other day for a quick run up a wash that I’ve had my eye on. My goal for the day... follow the wash all the way to the end, check for bedrock, and flag those spots for later sampling and detecting. Goal was achieved.   

It was another awesome day to be out! Enjoy the video... make sure to watch it in HD for the full effect.

Now that's some funny sh*t right there Steve. The Citi commodity team don't have any more of a clue about the future of gold prices than a monkey in a zoo. That I can guarantee! 

You can send it to Reg Sniff in Pueblo, CO. Just google his name and you'll find out where and how to contact him. He's the TDI guru and does all the mods (or has them done) that will turn your TDI into a brand new machine.

Now that's an awesome adventure! 

Riding a Rokon off trail is not going to harm the environment one bit! Have you seen the balloon tires on a Rokon, and the fact that it is two wheel drive equates to very little wheel spin so not likely to cause erosion.

Hmmmm... let's see what does more harm to the environment. Two tires at 4 psi of ground pressure per tire, or a horse with rider at 30 psi of ground pressure per hoof. Me thinks if I was a plant, I'd rather be run over with a 500 lb. Rokon with rider, rather than be stepped on by a 1500 lb. horse with a rider. Of course trying to convince the enviro-whackos differently is a futile process, as they generally lack any sort of common sense. 

WOW... nice score! That's what it's all about!

azblackbird What are you using for a video cam?

It's called a MetroFlash, which is the same as the Polaroid, and Ion, only cheaper. Even though it takes awesome videos that rival the GoPros, the bad thing about these little bullet cams is that they have no external batteries. They're all built-in. Guess what? My battery died on me yesterday, so rather than throw the camera away, I now have to figure out a way to take it apart and unsolder the battery and solder a new one back in. Shouldn't be a problem, but just a pain in the butt to do so.

My suggestion... if you're not handy electronically or mechanically, buy a camera that has an external battery.

I don't carry a backpack when out prospecting, I carry all the essentials on the Rokon. Basically everything I need to comfortably spend at least a couple days (no matter what the weather) out in the desert if the need should ever arise. Since I'm no more than 1/4 mile or so from the bike at any one time, besides all the normal prospecting gear, I carry a fanny pack with some minor first-aid/survival stuff, a camelback full of iced tea, trail mix, beef jerky, a smoke grenade, and my SPOT.

And so it all begins yet again. The speculation. The accusations. The arguments - the drama! And once again everyone gets to find out where they fit in the scheme below.

I used to be an early adopter/innovator of technology. Funny thing... even though I thought I had to have the "latest and greatest" (and many times paid handsomely for being the first in line), as I got older (and much wiser), that ideology has gone by the wayside. I've found out that "new" only lasts for about a month. I'm now perfectly content in waiting several months for that "new" to wear off from somebody else that had to have that new detector, vehicle, computer, phone, or what have you... and then pick it up for 2/3 or 1/2 the price they originally paid. I sincerely hope MineLab sells the s**t out their new detector, as I know for a fact that somebody, somewhere, will eventually need to dump that "new" detector, whether due to financial problems, or maybe it wasn't their cup of tea, or they're now in line buying the next latest and greatest detector.