1515Art

2 hours ago, jasong said:

This is a Midget Faded Rattler, and was taken in 2016 in Central Wyoming. I swear these things are virtually identical to Mohave Greens, even the white markings under the eyes, they are so similar I literally cannot distinguish them while staring at them. Makes me wonder if the venom might be very similarly deadly too as they appear to be closely related.

Unfortunately this was taken on a potato-level quality $50 Walmart phone I was using to make videos at the time.

Sorry Clarke didn't mean to make your gold thread so much about snakes. 

 

The conversation is informative and fascinating there’s a lot of good information for I guess a desert greenhorn like me I need to know, I had no idea the differences in toxicity and was regarding most of the rattlers like the ones back in Northern California. The one I saw seemed skinnier than the western diamond back and the venom glands were pronounced I don’t really remember the color except while the markings were defined in the evening shade of the bush the colors were subdued.

37 minutes ago, Condor said:

I haul it on the back of my F150 on a Motorcycle carrier that plugs into the hitch receiver.  Leaves room in the truck bed without hauling a trailer.  

I spent almost an hour on their website imagining the possibilities, I’d have to give up my extra fuel tank and rear approach angle plus the extra weight back there makes an already poor handling rig miserable on the freeway, or I think I try one. I started with little yamaha’s and Kawasaki’s when I was 11 years old rode every day in the orchards and hills where we lived and when they built the local college drove the campus cops nuts for building in what had been my playground for years, it was a game for me and they never caught me! However, I’m 67 now and last time I crashed the mountain bike in the Santa Cruz Mountains woke up on the trail with a crowd around me separated shoulder and chipped pelvis not sure if I’d been going up hill or down. When part of my senses returned under crowd protest I mounted my bike and headed downhill into town where they bought me a cup of coffee and insisted on calling my wife to pick me up. That hurt and I’ve cooled it a little since then too, we do heal slower now.

Wow, bad as it was you were lucky to get out of that, little story on my first trip up detecting in north of the rye patch by 40 miles roughly and wandering around looking for the claim I couldn’t find one of the local ranchers stopped to see if I needed any help. We chatted for a while, he knew the area I was headed for and told me to follow him he led me there. We talked a bit more anyway next year back out there I asked another prospector about him and was shocked to learn he’d passed from an ATV accident (4 wheel) obviously the Rokon’s lots lighter but he rolled it on a hillside and got pinned under for a couple nights till they found him, he survived the accident but died a week later after discharge from the hospital with complications from blood clots being pinned under it for so long. Point being I guess we take chances, but it’s lonely out there, good you switched to the RZR good equipment is our friend... hmmm, I’m 67 and that Rokon  sounds kind of fun wish I could fit it in the Jeep.

I’ve run my whites SST over 1 ounce gold eagles should be about the same as Kruger I would think? Because of the mass and alloy it had high ID numbers in the low 90’s on the whites in an air test. Depending on the area you need to cover you could first mark and dig all the big target signals starting with fence lines and around any thing that stands out for you as as a monument, then if you don’t find it dig everything you get a hit on. I don’t know what part of the country you live in if there’s a time crunch put out the word I would imagine you could get a lot of help be a fun hunt to be a part of helping someone retrieve a lost family treasure.
 

25 minutes ago, mn90403 said:

After experiencing the symptoms which I can't remember well now for some years and not knowing what caused them or thinking they were bad hangovers I had a reason to have some strong antibiotics.  It was a cathartic experience and it caused me to research and then I put the pieces of the puzzle together.  I had to take more antibiotics before I was completely over it but each time I could feel them working on what was still in my body.  It is a foggy 5 year period in my life.

Wow, that must have been difficult very lucky you were able to figure it out👍.

11 hours ago, oldmancoyote1 said:

Gold is where you find it, ... but usually not where you look  :   )    

You can't find gold without looking.   Crush a sample and pan it.

I just started doing that I picked up a 1qt dolly pot and so far I haven’t picked good rocks, but at least I’m learning. To speed up the sampling I also bought what looks like a well designed and durable mill powered by any angle grinder should have it in hand in a couple days and I’ll process some more rock from this last trip.

https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=mighty+mite+gold+ore+mill&docid=608056318056532948&mid=27C0E425DB4BF47A76B927C0E425DB4BF47A76B9&view=detail&FORM=VIRE
 

this quart conglomerate weighs about 15 pounds hit very hard on both the 7000 and sdc with stronger signals in different spots and minimal magnetic attraction, breaking it off a 6 pound chunk it looks very mineralized and has many metallic specks although some of that could be light refraction through micro crystals I guess I’ll see what shows up after a good crushing?

Cleaned up my specimen nugget a little, lost about .1gram from when I found it most of that was sitting in the acid wash after panning out the liquid. 

5 hours ago, Gold Hound said:

 Nice gold 1515Art

You guys are lucky your rattlers aren't as dangerous as this angry fellow... 



That is a Common Death Adder, Australia's version of the rattle snake. But much more poisonous.

If you are unlucky enough to get bitten you have about an hour until paralysis sets in then convulsions followed by death from breathing failure. I found this one when I  flipped a larger flat rock as it had a target under it which turned out to be a 7g nugget!

Has he a little tiny rattle on his tail to give a warning or is it just silently dangerous? Thankfully we don’t have those, you fellas have some nasty critters.

3 hours ago, RedDirtDigger said:

Nice finds Art. Its makes your day when you ping one straight up.

Snakes are thick as where i live in oz. I like night detecting in the desert in Western Australia, thats when you realise how many snakes are really there.

Night time and death adders, sound like a party good thing you got giant gold nuggets I guess you get used to dealing with them and the gators are a must have you ever had one strike detecting out there at night? Would you even know?

17 hours ago, dogodog said:

The gold looks great!!, Two years ago in Kentucky I tripped up on a 54'' Timber rattler crossing a trail. My wife was not happy with me picking it up and moving off the trail. Brings back a bunch of memories of me and my old man catching rattlers, never harmed any and always was amazed at how beautiful of a creature they are. Maybe she was protecting a big old nugget, hope you scanned the area well Ha Ha. Glad to see your out and about creating some good memories.

I’ve never picked one up, you are braver than me I used to see them all the time when I mountain biked, occasionally we’d run over them when they were sunning in the middle of the trail with our bikes it pissed them off but didn’t seen to do them any harm.

17 hours ago, mn90403 said:

I got Lyme disease in Texas in the early 80s and didn't know what it was for a few years.  I had the classic bullseye on my calf but it was not so well known at the time.

That pretty much must have sucked I’d guess, how did you eventually get over it?

1 hour ago, brogansown said:

Art

Good job.  I was out yesterday too and got a small Gold Bug 2 piece and saw a bull snake.  Here in Eastern Oregon the bull snakes precede the rattlesnakes by a few days, so anyone coming our way should now begin to look out for the rattlers and of course, the ticks.  Lots of ticks already.   A few years back I got Lyme's disease from one of our ticks.

Gary

Lyme disease something to get you out there in all sizes, that sucks you had that infection I have lucky and avoided the ticks, now no more snakes.

56 minutes ago, Jim McCulloch said:

Here is a possibly life-saving hint for US nugget shooters: when in the field ALWAYS use "blue-blocker" eyeglasses. Most of the buzztails in US nugget country are some shade of green. By blocking ("subtracting") the blue, the snakes are now a fluorescent yellow, and thus far more visible. HH Jim

good tip thank you, that would help a lot.

3 hours ago, GB_Amateur said:

Now that's enforcement of social distancing!  And the planet thanks you for not killing the messenger.

Back on topic -- 4 g sounds like a pretty juicy nugget to me.  Thanks for showing us they're still out there.

 

I was never inclined to kill anything out there, but am especially sensitive now in honor of Fred’s memory that was something he was passionate about.

3 hours ago, Jim in Idaho said:

Yup...even up here it's getting close. I won't be taking Heidi out to the desert now. I would imagine they've been out down there for several weeks. Nice job on then gold, by the way...LOL, and it's good you were paying at least some attention, Clark

Jim

I’m not really sure why I didn’t get bit, just stupid luck I could hear him buzzing for a while and he was right at my feet, think I might have been really close at one point with my hand reaching for my rock, that I later set down and forgot because I was still a little jumpy from being so close and not realizing it. Luckily I’d used the coil to drag my found prize I’d soon forget to drag the target within my reach.

2 hours ago, mn90403 said:

You know what they say ... pictures or it didn't happen! (Three feet is a closeup.)

I'm glad you avoided the old snake.  About how big do you think it was?

It is 'funny' how the instincts are alerted by a snake.  They really give me a jolt or anything that moves like them.  

So, which do you prefer?  Early gold or late gold?

Mitchel

I don’t usually carry my phone, I did have the gps that has a geo camera just so I don’t loose where I’ve parked the Jeep, but the picture quality is kinda poor and well, I was to freaked out to take pictures although I did think about it. He was pretty good sized several coils scattered about a couple foot area and his head was up another 6 to 8 inches s-curved ready to strike, so he had to have been a good 4 feet.

ill take morning gold any day, something to rattle in my cup while I’m walking around digging hot rocks and trash😃.

I forgot to mention had my first rattle snake encounter out in the desert anywhere and I’ve become careless from never seeing one. I bought snake gators years ago but they always wind up staying tucked away in the Jeep as unnecessary extra weight hanging on my legs and in the future I’ll be using them. It was evening probably 630’ish, I’d picked up a signal and after retrieving a goose egg shaped piece of quartz half rapped in magnetite I had the rock in hand looking it over and I kept hearing this rain bird sprinkler sound in the distance, pulling off my earbuds the sound was more clear and the light in my head clicked on when I spotted a rather pissed off looking large snake not more than 3 feet away coiled up warning me this was his spot. This old guy can move pretty quick and in less than a heartbeat we had another 6 feet between us but that was way to close and just lucky for me he gave a good warning. So, they are out... be careful everyone!

Headed back out to Gold Basin for another day oh hunting with the 7000 it was going to be a little on the warm side according to the weather reports so I got there early and by just around 5AM was firing up Zed, less than a minute later my first swing under the bush next to me I got a nice solid hit and about a foot down and out popped a nice big spongy 4 gram chunk. Then nothing but hot rocks and one little meteorite until the end of the day when I found the little .3 gram piece  a boot scrape down in the side of another wash.

2 hours ago, mn90403 said:

Now you are on to the meteorites!  Most of them I find any more are apart from the gold patches because most of the meteorites are 'towards' the helicopter area and the gold is towards Senator Mountain but they cross in there somewhere!  haha

Now that I’ve had one in my hand it’s a lot easier to spot them, before everything was a meteorite now just half of everything looks like one, the golds a lot tougher but can’t help but love to see even the tiniest flash of shiny yellow after a long day of hot rocks, lead and bits of iron rust.

16 hours ago, LuckyLundy said:

WTG!  That’s one of my favor places out there!  Just wish it was closer!

Rick

Thanks Rick, I miss the gold hunting up north, but love the trade off for the short drive and am liking it better as I begin to learn my way around.

7 hours ago, Jim in Idaho said:

Nice finds, Clark! Love that nugget!

Jim

thanks Jim, I’m hoping for little patch one of these days and one of those multi ounce fatties, gotta dream in the mean time this will keep me 😃.

2 hours ago, DolanDave said:

Now thats a great day 1515Art... congrats...  That last pic with a little piece thats shiny, what is that, meteorite ?? , hard to tell from pic. Did it respond to detector and magnet different that the other meteorites???

Thanks,

Dave

Dave it sounded like a soft little repeatable high/low about a deep boot scrape down up on top of a small ridge near some brush, took a few try’s to get it in the scoop and I only dropped it in my nugget jar because it was so little, but it had a definite good dig me signal. Until I got home I thought it was from a 22 snake shot, then I saw a little matrix stuck around part of the blob and the fat side had a bluish patina the small side more rusted and strangely the small side prefers the magnet. I can’t weigh it on the gram scale I’ll have to find the one that does cts to know how much but it’s amazingly small to have hit so well I think. I had a really hard time getting clear pictures with my crap phone and tablet but this is a little better, it could be anything I guess, but sure seems to look like a bit of oxidized nickel and iron with a bit of matrix and possibly a little thumbprint on the bigger blob... you have to use a little imagination here I guess.

Thanks I appreciate all your help, my guess from more poking scraping and straining the heck out of my eyes the silvery spots at the surface anyway are soft and crumbly and with tweezers I could pull off a tiny mica like silvery flake that seemed brittle? Had a little Dusting of glitter on my desk when I got done I don’t know if dunking it in CLR had any affect? One by one hopefully collecting, smashing and scratching my head eventually leads to more nuggets, 😃.

22 minutes ago, GB_Amateur said:

Here's a picture of two pieces of calaverite I bought from a Cripple Creek, Colorado miner at a gem and mineral show in Denver.  The one that shows gold has been roasted.  The Minelab Equinox 800 at 40 kHz single frequency in gold (aka 'prospecting') mode with the 11" coil and gain maxed at 25 gives a decent signal if I basically rub the bottom of the coil over each piece.  That is, both pieces sound off independently without noticeable difference.  However, even at half an inch the signal pretty much disappears.  I should have included something in the picture to show the scale.  The smaller piece (non-roasted one) can be almost hidden with a modern USA penny with just the extreme corners showing.

Big difference after roasting, the pre roast sample could be similar to my piece if the silvery spec in the lower left bottom piece I’m seeing is just that my sample is covered in those tiny bits as well as the clusters and feathery formations on the surface and throughout. How did you go about roasting? I have a small electric ceramic kiln that fires off a computer controller with a firing chamber roughly 18”H x 13”W that will fire up to 2350F I just need to install an electric connection in my garage to fire it.

In looking at more pictures it resembles Sylvanite or possibly calverite but I don’t detect any tinges of yellow in the silvery crystals, it also didn’t hit on the 7000 it was a sun baker I collected this visually. The total weight is 970 grams how much is matrix vs metal telluride although I’m unsure if it’s even a telluride?

58 minutes ago, GB_Amateur said:

The color of the metallic luster material doesn't show the yellow tinge of pyrite.  Is your photo true color, or does pyrite sometimes not appear yellow?

 

 

The color is accurate, I was just going on other pictures found on google and there were pictures of silvery deposits on white matrix they called hydrothermal shock pyrite so without knowing I guessed the pyrite I Have no idea? 

The what I thought was a conglomerate doing more research I’m thinking now is probably iron ore, a typical cut off saw blade won’t touch it, nor will my belt sander. A diamond cut off wheel cuts fairly easily spitting small fragments as it cuts, smashing it with a 3# hammer  on an anvil chipped off small pieces but so far it’s resistant to breaking I’m going to need a bigger hammer if I want to put the effort into pulverizing and panning? Couple pics under the skin and one of the broken crusty oxidized surface?

Steve recently posted his opinion on one of the new Bounty Hunters, if your goal is just to have another detector for a friend without getting another for yourself with different capabilities then I’d read Steve’s thread if you haven’t already and sorry for posting this if you’ve seen this and already ruled it out.

Spent another day out in isolation in Gold Basin, it was warm at sunup but thankfully never got unbearably hot. I picked up a few more meteorites including one so tiny I didn’t realize what it was until getting home and seeing it under high magnification there I could see a tiny and tinier nickel sphere fused together with a small bit of the brown matrix circling the seam where they joined. At the end of the day frustrated with no gold to show I went exploring for someplace new to hunt and just a few minutes before sunset hit a nice signal in a wash under the edge of a small bush and roughly 12” down out popped a bright yellow chunk weighing 2.7 grams to chase the skunk away.