LuckyLundy

I couldn’t wait to get out after seeing Calmark & Gerry’s Flood Pictures of Rye Patch dry washes!  Though I’d give it a few days to dry out and for a Road Crew to fix the main dirt roads.  Road Crew, did a great job with a new Culvert installed on the main drainage of Poker Brown wash and regraded it to my left turn to the Majuba Placer.  I was impressed with the erosion of this storm, had to be one for the record book.  Being a student of Hydrology during my dredging years, I learned each flood was different from each other in their course of moving material down a drainage.  I had my eyes set on two dry washes that produced well for me in the past, both with shallow bedrock.  Parked and loaded up my RZR, I headed off to the first location.  Donning my gear, I was hoping my Headphones took a charge.  My charging light wouldn’t show it was charging, I was hoping the light was just burnt out.  Anyways, it was working just fine as I was swinging my coil on the short hike to this small section of dry wash.  I arrived, and looked down at my location…it was nearly unrecognizable and was covered with yards of fresh packed dirt.  I looked up stream, to see what caused this mess.  The wash had such a flow 25 yards above my spot it cut a new channel and layed all the overburdened to the slowdown bend of my location.  I still swung it and the new cut to no avail, I’ll wait for the next flood to see if it moves the overburdened…I hate shoveling 😂.  Next spot, was perfect!  The flow exposed my favorite 10 ft section of Shale.  I swung into this area 20 ft above the exposed section to give my 6000 a chance to ground balance.  I was eyeballing a spot during my slow sweeps of my 10x5 Coiltek and as soon as I went over the bedrock I heard the sweet sound of my plan come alive.  Keeping my eye on the spot,  I set my detector down ahead of me it made a familiar tone and I gently raised it up and back down, yes another target.  We’ll long story short, I pulled these seven out of the 10 ft section.  When I first found this spot many Moons ago it was a good 8” down to the bedrock and produced several 2+ dwt nuggets.  Thru the many new models of Minelab detectors it produced other nuggets and I’m sure the 6000 just clean this exposed section out for good.  Except now, I’m sure the Gold goes into the 3ft bank of overburdened of the wash on top of this bedrock, I hate shovels!  I’ll bank this spot just in case they redesign a shovel into a backhoe!  It was late in the day and I headed back to camp before dark.  It was a windy night and the morning it died down to a tolerable wind speed for detecting.  At my location and 10 minutes in, my detector made a noise I hadn’t heard before!  I looked down at my battery charge and it was only down a third.  Well it was working fine and continued my hunt a few minutes later the same noise?  A few minutes later and my headphones turned off 🙁.  I tried, for 30 minutes with just the unit’s speaker and as much as I like the speaker it wasn’t good enough with my worn out Military Hearing fighting against the breeze of the High Plane Desert.  Beautiful weather and I hated to leave, got home and found the On-line repair ticket of Minelab USA.  Until the next Hunt!

LuckyLundy

Recovering from a record breaking Winter of Snow, now we are suffering from near daily Rains.  My Theory is there is so much moisture in the Sierra’s coupled with warm Spring days turns it into afternoon Thunder Storms.  Anyway a person addicted to our hobby has to get out and search for their fix.  This story is about my 3rd trip and just like the first two trips knowing that the ground was subpar for detecting…but, it’s the hunt and hunt we must!  Met my Pard Lucky Larry out of Elko, NV we quickly hoped into my RZR and hit the trail.  Notice I didn’t say Dusty Trail.  We hit several old haunts with limited results at each.  We ended up hunting some new ground, I dropped Larry off on one side of the hill and I drove over it to hunt the other side.  Hour later, I went back to my RZR to pick up Larry and my trusty machine would not start!  During the over a mile hike back to my truck, I figured it was my Fuel Pump…of course no Shade Trees out in the high Desert to confirm my diagnosis.  Lucky I have a winch on my RZR as we would have never got her loaded up, didn’t bother trying to crank it before loading as I knew I’d need every bit of my battery to load it.  It rained on and off as we drove back to camp and continued thru the night.  Next morning we drove to a nearby patch and pulled a few more dinks before I loaded up and left with rain drops just starting to fall.  Back home with my newly Amazon delivered fuel pump, I hoped in the bed of my truck where I left my RZR.  Let’s see if the battery recharged itself, the sucker cranks up! I unload it and take it for a ride in the back 40. Cranked every time I turned it off too!  Still no shade trees, but in my garage I thought maybe it was Vapor Locked?  I read up on it and it’s not uncommon…so if you see my little Red RZR way out in no-man’s land laying in a puddle of oil, know I shed a tear!  It’s Memorial Day and according to Weather report 3 more days of afternoon thunder storms.  Rye Patch area will need a few dry days to get the ground settled down to hear them dinks, but there is always some shallow ducks to get your coil over until better conditions arrive!  Here’s our loot for the day and a half trip…yes, my poke is on the left.  Both Larry and I used the 10x5 Coiltek on our 6000’s…great coil.  Until the next hunt!

LuckyLundy

Well I thought I’d shake off the dust from myself and prospecting gear this last weekend.  I wanted to keep it simple and easy for the first trip of the year and headed to Rye Patch.  I met the whole Gang from Idaho, good group of Men.  Ground conditions was OK and will improve each dry day.  I found it hard to get my coil over something gold in color, yet enjoyed the chase and the abundance of Horny Toads enjoying the Sun as I was.  My second day, I called it a hunt at mid afternoon and loaded up making sure my one little nugget found a safe place in my truck for the 2 hour drive home back to Reno.  Until the next hunt!

LuckyLundy

I ran through my photo library and remembered this day!  This Chinese Camp was just above the creek they pounded.  This day I only found one nugget, some coins and a Silver Chain.  I know nothing about the age of the chain.  Over the years the little creek and bench gave up a handful of ounces they left for us and hundreds of coins.  I’m sure to this day there is more to find!

One reason, I don’t go there!  😂

Steve, is more than right!  If you’re looking for missed nuggets then you’re hunting old patches.  Slow your swing way down, like you have your shoe laces tied together.  Overlap your swings and keep that coil level, boot cobbles and get under brush that others may have avoided…the above may not work the first time, so repeat until it does! 😂👍

Rick

I’ve been more than blessed other than with Nuggets!  The Friends, Adventure and lifetime of memories are my best finds.  I was a pretty successful dredger in the Motherlode, but that gave way to full time metal detecting to satisfy my Gold Fever.  I can’t remember every poke I’ve parted with, but if I remember right this one was over 5 ounces.  It’s a mixture of California Foothills nuggets and the bottom one was just a hair shy of 1-ounce from the Sawtooth Knob area of Nevada.  You bet I wonder, where all the big nuggets are at…until the next virgin patch of fatties, keep swinging that coil.

LuckyLundy