LuckyLundy

Joe,

Some Prospecting trips are tough!  Others trips make it look like you might know something that others don’t!  Lucky ? coil finding needles in vast open spaces is amazing.  As you know, I just got home last night from a two day hunt, picking up nuggets, I left!  Think, I’ll take a break and swing on this side of the hill before the snow falls in the high country!  Here’s my end poke, Until the next Hunt.

LuckyLundy

For those that don’t follow me on Facebook this is the end result of 3-days behind my GPZ at Rye Patch.  Robin and I, just got home from a big group hunt at Rye Patch and a few days later one of my partners said, he was heading back up.  I already had three other buddies there that didn’t make it to the outing and his call got me off the fence to pack my truck up with my gear.  Surprised my new Super Ice Chest still had some ice in it too!  If you followed my last posting we all had a great trip, but the wind was doing what wind does...keeps nuggets out of your poke.  It creates all kinds of noise to fight to hear a faint signal or tones while metal detecting.  I knew we left nuggets behind on this hot little patch.  Not a puff of wind and the area produced like I was hoping.  We took advantage of the warm calm Autumn Desert on a handful of other old huants and if you listened close, you could hear the whispers and cheers of times past while adding to the poke of memories of the present!  Leave no nugget behind...I always leave them behind, it’s what keeps me motivated to come back!  5 of us added nuggets and good times to our pokes.

Below is my harvest (keeping it in season) of the Great Pumkin Patches of Rye Patch!

LuckyLundy

Years ago, when I started to hunt Rye Patch I knew it was well past it’s hey days!  Yet, I continued to see nuggets being found there by others Prospectors!  Our group, finally started to pop some gold after wearing out several sets of boots and skid plates on our old trusty GPX’s. With the new generation of Minelab Detectors, SDC 2300 and the GPZ 7000, it was a new game.  Having cut our teeth on the learning curve of both new detectors on the California side of the hill, we set our sites to Northern Nevada.  Multitude of hours by our group to establish productive ground and techniques with our GPX’s, lead our new detectors to what seemed like brand new patches of gold.  This last outing was no different!  One of our hunting members had a moment of Total Recall and remembered a few years back that we found a few nuggets in a spot with our old GPX’s.  Well we hit the spot swinging and soon our detector’s started to sing back to us!  Now remember, I was out there a couple weeks ago, trying to track down a couple new spots for this group hunt trip.  I didn’t find any new spots on that trip and we didn’t even hunt the old spots on this trip, which I did good on. Now, there is only one way to run the SDC and that’s turn it on, it’s and incredible detector and the operators of it on this trip pulled teens of nuggets with it.  But, you have to know the variable sounds of the SDC when you run the coil over a target that set you apart from others swinging the same machine over the same dirt.  It’s the same with the GPZ 7000, you really can’t run it wrong, just turn it on!  You make it run for you and your inner self.  Sure I have settings, I like and so does everyone in our group of Prospectors.  You have to know what it’s telling you if it’s a target or not, there isn’t many Duck nuggets left in any old gold field(s).  Air testing or burying a test nugget does not reproduce any of these nugget signals (tones).  I’m still learning tones of the GPZ and will never be and expert of them.  The sweet tones of a nugget, I do have lock in my mind is what keeps me and boot makers happy!  Lucky...No - spend the time in your local gold field, might take a few pairs of boots, skid plates and multitudes of digging holes in hot ground and rocks to learn the tones of your settings of your detector.  We had a great time, even though the wind was crazy windy and made Detecting a challenge - Persevere, press on regardless!  Until the next hunt

Here’s Robin’s and my 2 1/4 day hunt total in dwts

I haven’t posted of late, been a long Smokey and hot Summer in NorCal which keep me in controlled atmospheric conditions, lol.  Now, since it’s cooling off somewhat, I made my first Rye Patch Trip of the season.  This solo trip was perfect, only had to worry about myself and how long my cooler ice would last, only had two bags of ice!  Arrived and set up camp and hit a Patch for a late afternoon swing to see if I could get the skunk off my back.  Skunk was off with a dink nugget to the poke and a good nights sleep with the moon blazing!  Well to make a 2 1/2 day hunt short, I had fun and met a few other Prospectors enjoying our hobby as well.  It’s a nice change of scenery from the woods/manzanita of NorCal to open plains of the desert.  As many of you know Rye Patch isn’t what it use to be...or is it!  Well,  I ran out of beer and steam in my engine and headed home, knowing I left gold for the next trip(s)...until the next hunt!  Big one was 3.53 dwts for a total of a little over 9 dwts.

LuckyLundy

Most of us Prospectors are avid outdoorsman!  You can find us with the same smile on our faces be it fishing or hunting.  This Deer Season my old Buddy NuggetSlayer (Jeff), headed up to the hills to hunt some Deer.  Well early into the hunt on opening day, he took carful aim at a 2x2 Blacktail Buck.  One well placed shot, Jeff let the Deer run over the top of the ridge to bleed out as he hike to find the blood trail to track it down.  It ran a little further than he expected, but the woods opened up and was easy hiking following the Deers trail.  Called his hunting partner on the radio for some help, he had it field dressed ready for the hump back to the truck, when he arrived.  With all the excitement of the hunt, he was dreading dodging all the pine trees and brush on the other side of the hill and down to the truck.  Then it hit him, he was smack in the middle of and old Hydraulic Pit.  He quickly changed from his hunting hat (even though it’s the same dirty one) to his prospecting hat!  Deer hanging at camp and rested up he hiked back to the Hydro Pit and scouted it, he sent me pictures of both Deer and Hydro Pit.  I told him it looks like a no-brainer, just a matter of getting it under the coil and dig it!  We waited well after hunting season to finally get there with our GPZ’s.  Chilly start with the trucks temperature gauge saying 25 degrees.  But the little hike over the ridge made it feel a few degrees warmer, lol.  As any Hydro Pit, plenty of trash...Relics to some, but the wrong color for today’s hunt.  I finally, found a dink and called Jeff on the radio.  Didn’t take him long to find one several yards from me.  Jeff, made a big circle and came back to his spot and heard another possible target at the edge of his dig hole...yep another nugget!  Well to make a long story short, he found a little spot that didn’t get washed away back in the day.  We messed around making his hole bigger and 14 of them 15 nuggets came out of that pay material.  Well this spot is to far for a day trip and it’s way to chilly, until after next Springs snow melt to finish this spot off and to explore the entire Hydraulic Pit.  Now, Jeff can afford some Potato Salad with his Deer Steaks!  Until the next hunt

LuckyLundy