alaska detector

Sad but true. I’ve been finding some pretty good gold, including good footage, and my first inclination is to share the joy I feel. But, I unfortunately know full well what it attacks when you broadcast it. Maybe one day when I’m done on the gold fields I’ll do like you did and post some long form memories.

I absolutely love my 6” concentric coil on the the Whites 24k. A very good coil on a solid detector that pairs well with my 6000.

I took the 10x5 out again and aside from finding more gold, I found a treasure I consider even better. I was detecting in the middle of nowhere up a hillside, and checked under a boulder that I wouldn’t have been able to reach with the stock coils, and pulled out this beauty. Given it’s age and where it’s at it certainly dates to the local gold rush. I have no intention in selling it so I cleaned it up, and I think it turned out great.

I received my 10x5 on Thursday, and took it out yesterday to a bedrock crevice area I have worked hard, and I was shocked at all of the gold I picked up. This is all ground I know I have thoroughly swung the detector over before with the 11” mono, and the signals were everywhere. Besides the gold I was surprised at how quiet the detector now was, and I could even detect up the bedrock walls with out the detector freaking out. What a great experience.

I too have found a drum stick nugget, though it looks like someone took a bite out of it before I could get to it.

Building off of what @GB_Amateur said there are several good prospecting YouTubers out there that are educational and entertaining, Dan Hurd, Vogus Prospecting, Schwendi, Pioneer Pauly, Tassie Boys, etc the list goes on with a lot of good ones. I learned quite a lot from them. Matt

I’d say prospecting is as much of a science, or more, as it is an art. A rudimentary knowledge of geology, physics, and the ability to study and research areas to prospect -are essential to success. I’d highly recommend getting two books, the first being “The Essentials of Geology”, and the second being “Fist Full of Gold”. I bring this up because what you have here is an assortment of rocks from a stream system It’s going to be really hard to attempt at answering your question, but here’s a general rules; gold generally travels with the heavies which is all dependent on the local geology and history. Has the area had past gold production? What have past geological surveys or reports said about the type of gold in the area (size shape)? Are there pay streaks, or are there pockets? Are there indicator minerals? What layers was the gold found in? Was the gold found on bed rock? Was gold found on falls bed rock? Etc etc. A qualitative answer is so nuanced that I’d be throwing guesses at a dart board and I don’t want to lead you astray. The red one appears to be some form of hematite, and the small balls on the left looks to be lead. The top rocks looks to be quartz, and the bottom, idk could be a lot of things. I’d highly recommend looking to see if there are any local prospecting groups or clubs in your area that you could join or tag along on. You’ll learn so much more from an experienced prospector one day in person than you’ll learn in a month researching online. Not to say that online doesn’t have value, it does, but when you’re trying to get started like you are it’s best to tag along. I hope this helps. Matt

What’s the compressor that you’re running for air, can it handle two divers? The compressor is the main factor on if you can support two divers, if it’s a PCA-10 type then you’re good there. So far as the reserve tank, idk, I’ve seen all kinds of set-ups, and I suspect there’s more than one way to do it, the main issue is if the reserve tank in use can withstand the pressure, and supply enough reserve air for the divers. But, I’m relatively new dredger too so grains of salt. I’ll ask a couple of more experienced people I know and see if they have a better answer for you. Have spoken with Scott at ADMS? He’s a dredger, and is pretty knowledgeable. Also there’s a dredge builder forum on FB that I’m a member of and has a lot of knowledgeable people to ask.

I certainly don’t say anything, it’s the easiest way to get a bunch of people on the patch you worked so hard to find.

Call me jaded but I’m always initially suspect of grand claims unless there’s ample proof, or multiple trusted sources. There’s too much incentive for people to lie about a find to garner attention or raise the value because of the location or size. I’m not saying this is the case here, but I’m always skeptical. As an example I think back to that find in the late 2000s purported to be a massive nugget from California that ended up coming from Australia, it’d had already been auctioned off and it was a big mess.

Here’s some more on Liberty with Nick and Rob’s mine:

I had rattling in mine too that I noticed when I was cleaning it up for the end of the year, I was concerned. I took off the cover for the plate for the speaker and saw there was a screw that had worked it’s way lose, and another that was going to be. These were the two top screws that look like they connect to the shaft housing? You may want to check there. Anyways, I tightened them back down, and crossing my fingers because I love my 6000. No issues other than the screws, though it’s was pretty noisy the last time I took it out, but I chalked that up to the snow on the ground and it clinging/freezing to the coil. I’m sorry your having issues, it really is a great detector when they work.

For sure, and they seem Kiwi as too, so no surprise the content is down to earth they’re just doing their thing. I went for a 3 week trip to NZ some years back and it was one of the best places I’ve ever been, really reminded me of AK. Boarding the plane to go home I was thinking, why in the hell am I going back?

I love watching abyss dredging’s videos, they really get on the gold and seem like genuinely great guys. Where they’re detecting, I’m fairly certain this is in the west coast of the South Island, probably between Greymouth and Nelson. Given how river worn those nuggets are I wouldn’t be surprised if they’re coming from an old channel. I really hope they’re plotting their finds into a GPS so they can look for patterns.

I mostly hunt remote bedrock canyons with little to no background EMI issues, so I’ve been running the 6000 in the 11 inch mono at Auto to Auto + with and without threshold. The few times I’ve run into issues on these settings was when it started pouring down rain, and I couldn’t the detector to quiet down. And the other time was this weekend when it snowed overnight but the ground hadn’t frozen yet, snow was clinging to the coil and ice was starting to form. The detector wouldn’t quiet down at all until I wiped some of the snow off, but even then it was really noisy. In both cases it was getting to the end of the day and I was cold so I packed it vs resolve it. This probably isn’t common, but I’m curious if anyone have had issues with this detector, or other detectors in snow.