azblackbird

Daayyummm... if it's not gold, it's coins or relics. You guys are killing it! 

Is a chest mount really the witches tit? I saw what you did with a GMT. Got me thinking if I should try a chest mount rig with my TDI Pro. Sounds like you may be on to something.

Judging by your photo, it looks like you got caught in a witches eye. I guess the best way to explain it is like real dry fine quicksand. It's due to the way the wind blows and how the sand eddies. Much like a river and the low pressure zones, or how snow drifts in a blizzard. I used to go to the dunes all the time, so over the years I've learned how to read them pretty well.

Gotta love technology. USB port for firmware upgrades, sharing settings, fine tuning, etc. etc. Guess I'll be saving my pennies for this one. Judging from the specs, looks to be the holy grail of gold detectors! 

I've ordered plenty of stuff from this outfit. I re-fabricated my Harley and Goldwing headsets/connectors and they had everything I needed.

Me thinks the local riff-raff wouldn't dare swing a bat at that behemoth. Awesome!

Funny story... living and growing up on a ranch in rural eastern CO our mailbox was located on the main county road 5 miles up from our ranch. As a young kid the old man always let me drive the P/U, or if the weather was good I rode my motorcycle up to get the mail. After several damaged mailboxes from the local drunks playing mailbox baseball, the old man got smart and made up a couple dummy mailboxes filled with concrete. He placed them on each side of the real mailbox. It wasn't long before we found out who the pranksters were when one of the "school bullies" showed up to school one day with a broken arm and his face full of splinters from a shattered bat. I didn't say a word.

Now I get it? I got it 40 years ago.

When you stated… "I was ecstatic. I have to tell you that nugget really means a lot to me. Why? Because the location I was hunting was nothing anyone pointed out to me. I was running around looking at some old prospects and had a theory going on the geology and where the gold was coming from. I decided the location would be good on my own just based on what I was seeing, and I scored a really great nugget. The satisfaction of figuring things out and making a good call means more to me than the nugget. It is what real prospecting is all about."

I was assuming that you normally don't do a whole lot of research on new prospects and usually hit known and pounded areas when looking for gold. My bad if I made the wrong assumption. Personally, I try to stay away from the "tourist areas" and totally rely on my research, limited knowledge of geology, and what mother nature is trying to tell me when prospecting for gold. When I find that first nugget in an area that "there is no gold", then I know I'll have accomplished something! It could be next week, next month, or next year, but I'm gonna keep prospecting in areas that I think the old timers might have missed.   

The satisfaction of figuring things out and making a good call means more to me than the nugget. It is what real prospecting is all about.

Now you get it.

 It may make a neat little crevice tool but jury is out.

I got one the other day. Will be going out tomorrow to play with it sniping bedrock. Took a 4 grain piece of lead shot and mixed it in with some AZ dirt in a gold pan and was easily able to find it. The TRX started giving me a signal about an 1" 1/2 away and naturally got stronger the closer I got. From an inch on down the signal was very strong. Hopefully it will do the same on gold. 

You know the "hole" in PI detectors sounds like an interesting magazine article to me............

No fair… Steve already wrote it for you. 

Pretty obvious the guy who found it is somewhat of an experienced detectorist. Most newbies (judging by the many videos I've seen) would have hacked that piece to death with their picks in trying to dig it up. 

Nice job!

Been interested in building a vac set up myself for a while.

I built this one for $45. There's all kinds of ways and methods to build one. AZViper definitely makes it easy with his ready-to-go kit if you want to do it yourself. I was very tempted to buy his components and build mine own, but found an old shop vac on CL for $10 and a leaf blower for $20, so I went that route. Works great! His Trommel, Miller Table, and Blue Bowl set-up is a work of art. Very fine craftsmanship if I do say so myself… 

Nice review and nice gold Steve. Surprised me, but what do I know. I own a Turkish made skeet gun, and the craftsmanship and engineering ranks right up there with the Italian made guns. I guess they do know how to build stuff. 

Gold prices are reflected by the current stock market, we can't have both.

I always thought gold was tied to the perceived strength or weakness of the dollar. 

Supposedly Tony Beets (Gold Rush TV show fame) is going to restore and start using an old dredge up on his claims this season. That should be a sight to see. Me thinks the shows producers ponied up some big bucks to make this happen. I don't see him investing his own money for this project, otherwise if it was that economical he'd probably have done it years ago.

Believe what you want… I still call BS.

Yes that "news" site does make up all of their articles, usually with a hint of truth as a basis.

Kinda like the Onion. Just a hint of truth to keep it real.

Thanks for answering my questions Chris.

"I have done a bit in the past but found nothing. I have not done any recently, but I will do some more in the future, although that may need to wait until next year. We shall see."

Is this a patch that you see yourself spending some considerable time on, or is it just more or less something to fall back on if you have a dry spell and need a gold fix?

"So you need to explain what you mean by first pan out of your DW concentrates"

I guess what I'm trying to convey is that you basically took your DW concentrates, classified them down, then panned them out and that's what we're seeing. In other words, you had no residuals that would warrant further processing with a Blue Bowl or Miller Table. I was expecting to see a vial of fine gold along with what you posted. But if it's not there, or is to time consuming to mess with... then it is what it is.

On 9/17/2014 at 9:37 AM, Reno Chris said:

I did not re-run the fines through the dry washer a second time if that's what you mean. Generally that is a lot of work for a small amount of gold unless the material is wet or has other problems. I did go over all the DW fines (and coarse too) with my metal detector and got one little flake.

Whoaaaa Nellie… are you telling me that what you're showing are the results of your first pan out of your DW concentrates, and there was nothing finer (mesh wise) worth messing with? If that's the case, it sounds to me like you may have hit upon one nice little patch.

Okay… time to pick your brain. Forgive me if if some of the questions I'm going to ask you are amateurish in nature. I'm still a newbie to all this.

1. What made you select this particular area to detect or drywash?

2. Did you do any research on this area (geology wise), or was it an area that is/was popular among the past/present day gold prospectors?

3. What are the geological features of the area?

4. How would you describe the specific characteristics of the area? Are you on a bench, hilltop, hillside, tertiary channel? Is the gold in your opinion eluvial, or alluvial?

5. Are you doing any sampling of the general area to see which direction the source may be?

That's enough for now. I'm just trying to learn why gold ends up where it does, and try to avoid the places where it doesn't.

Dayuuummm Steve, that was one helluva read. How's your fingers? 

I'll reiterate once again. Between you and Chris, (and a few select others in the internet world), I've learned more about gold prospecting in the last couple years from reading your guy's forum posts, internet sites, and books (Chris), than I probably would've ever learned in at least 10 years, if I'd had to research all this information on my own.

I'm like you… I tell it like it is and don't subscribe to any of the politically correct BS that so many authors/writers these days have succumb to. Keep your writings and posts coming. My little pea brain is like a sponge soaking everything up I possibly can. 

Nice going Chris! Just out of curiosity, the stuff you're showing looks like 1st run concentrates... are there any fines? 

 I know a GoldCube is made for this also, but $500 is a bit much for those of us on a tight budget.

Gold Cubes are not made for fine recovery. They're good for concentrating your concentrates. You're still going to need to classify further after the Gold Cube. Blue Bowl or Miller Table is the final stop, unless you want to start playing with chemicals.

I totally agree. I don't plan on filing any claims on any ground unless it's just way too good to pass up and I can get investor backing for a small operation. The problem is this area is kinda sensitive to the environmentalists and all the goody two shoes, so ramping up a large commercial mining operation is pretty much out of the question. Which is kinda why I'm thinking this exploration company can see the writing on the wall, and thus are letting their claims expire.

I always have mixed feelings about gold prices. I like that I get a good price, but I do not mind lower prices as it makes picking ip decent properties easier.

Bingo! I've had my eye on some gold claims from a well known exploration company here in AZ. Cool part is they've already done the geology reports, drilling, assaying, and sampling. Apparently when gold was at it's highs, the ground was good enough to package up and present to investors with prospectuses and the whole nine-yards. This past couple years they let some of the claims expire and kept the best ground for themselves. Now it appears they've pulled the offerings and I'm hoping they let the rest of what they own expire. I won't know for sure until the BLM and County update their records.