1515Art

I got permission to hunt some private property on the Nevada Utah border from a guy that owns 60 acres down in the bottom of a ravine, I think the area may also have flowing water. The area has gold mining history with a hard rock mine nearby although I know very little about the area except some deposits were discovered as late as the 1980’s and the gold reports I’ve found are very incomplete of numbers as the activity seems to have been limited. it’s a long drive, but I think I have 4x4 access into his property and may just have to drive up and put boots on the ground and look around. From google earth the area is very volcanic as is most of the desert and other minerals have been mined as well from what I’ve read, zink, copper, silver other than gold. I’ve been researching the diggins , land matters and my n Nevada mines guide, Anyone have a any idea about the detectable nature of gold from that part of N Nevada?

Nice indicator in the middle?.

I hunted all the amra claims a couple of years ago with my detector and had exactly the same results as you, I covered as much ground as possible trying to understand the terrain and the gold indicators. Same thing with the other two clubs I belong to and the areas I explored off on my own. 6 months into nugget hunting I managed to score my first nugget a one 1/2g rye patch beauty wandering with that same style. Luckily a friend gave me a little help confirming an area I’d previously been skunked on several times was an old hunted patch and my confidence in the area changed, as did my approach. I slowed down and stayed put and eventually found another little piece, then another. Wandering will hit the random nugget, but it’s tough because most of the easy spots have been hit so hard and so much depends on which foot to follow, the easy ones are gone. Trash is good if you can have confidence that detectable gold was found in the area you are hunting, If I went back out to any of the AMRA claims I’d grid a small spot clean it out and move over to the next grid until I started to skip targets then take a break until I could go back and dig all targets and think I’d have a higher chance of success really slowing down and finding confidence in one spot.

Rick, will do and thank you for offering I’d love to hook up for a little hunt next time out.

Rick, I was out at rye patch only on Friday and hunted the usual haunts, I didn’t want to accidentally get off into someone’s claim, so the pickings were slim. I was just going really slow and careful, been watching ol two toes grid on his desert spot watching his tube channel an tried as best to slow myself down and really search, trouble is I’ve the attention span of a chimp on a free roll at “toys-r-us,” no disrespect to chimpanzee intended. I did manage to find some really small old deep trash and I’m sure something I wanted was probably near...just should have followed the other foot I guess? My desert rock has now transformed into a Scholars Stone, all I need to do now is sell it to pay for my next trip out?

Believe me, I spent a great amount of my time thinking to myself “where would Rick go?” instead I went to everyplace Rick has been, lol. Sunday was real windy and the place I finally scored my little trophies had the hottest rocks in town, all black and sparkles inside to use the technical terms I think? Anyway it was tough and I’m sure a couple awaite if I can crack the code and hit on the right conditions and right settings. as far as the rock stuff and I’m very much the beginner, struggling to make any connection to the geology as it relates to my quest, cinnabar I think (complete idiots guess) based on the color and pictures although I didn’t find any free mercury my friend google says you do and you don’t, so I collect rocks to bring home cause if I was finding gold I’d have better things to do, don’t I wish (insert wishful smiley face here). Here’s two other small not gold (sad) rocks the shinny one actually looks more like a jasper?

...back in the early beepin days, sure wish I’d had the bug back then. Returned yesterday from wandering the sage and gravel of northern Nevada and happy to come home with wonderful memories and just a few hard fought little pieces of sunshine found the last two day of hunting. First 3 days hunted the usual spots with only tiny bits of rust and lead, some faint deep signals I thought sure were gold only to disappoint me. Finally near the end of the 4th day of hunting I drove off looking for some old small workings off the beaten path and after stopping to check and interesting spot was rewarded with a few small pieces for a total of a little over 2 grams. Also stumbled on some cinnabar float and some of it had tiny blood red clear crystals on the surface, eventually found what looks to be the outcrop it came from and dug around it a little just to see if any crystals might be obvious in the surrounding soil. Didn’t see any and not really sure what I’d be looking for or where crystals would tend to form within the structure? Found another interesting piece in a completely different location and kept it for yard art, according to everything I can find about cinnabar it should not be a toxic hazard as long as hands are washed before eating food if the material has been reciently handled?

Everything here is on topic, relevant and helpful, so not to worry I’m thankful for all comments as I am trying to figure things out myself and this post is question as much as comment and all are welcome.

This trip my settings were; sen - 6 to 8 vol 6 highyeild difficult audio smoothing off ground balance semi auto find patch threashold 26 anything seem off kilter? On the sP01 I was in stereo using my Bose ear buds, mostly filter (mode) 1 and filter 2 And i also tried filter 3 it felt a bit muffled in the sound quality for my hearing so I didn’t use it very much, could be I didn’t need that setting in the soil I was hunting. I started low on the sP01 volume but pushed it up around 3/4 volume and felt that was tolerable, by the end of the trip I dropped the volume down a little.

I don’t have any idea the magic, could have been any number of reasons this trip I didn’t dig any ghost signals every hole produced a target. One time I thought the signal was disappearing mineralization, but spotted a thin short strand of rusted wire adhering to the magnet on the end of my pick. I did wonder if I was missing anything but never hunted this time without the sP01 and can’t offer any comparison with/without however I was finding every bit I expected so I rationalized I should trust the equipment? The area I was hunting has been hit hard and I picked up small bits of old trash in spots where the junk is gone, hard to know much about what you don’t find? I did only use mine for 4 days and am not comparing the equipment to any other because I can’t, but so far I really liked using it with my GPZ and am looking forward to getting up into northern Nevada soon and try it out on the salty ground of the desert.

Yes I do, I’ve never used any type of booster before but a couple of things changed my mind. First was a post by Scott about buying his and that got me thinking and put the thing on my radar, second my youngest got me playing a little “Pubg” on Xbox an increadibly immersive battle royal not for the faint of heart and I upgraded my ear buds to a boosted audio enhanced gaming headset looking for some advantage against my opponent and the difference in the gameplay was profound over using the Bose earbuds, so I thought hmmm perhaps I should reconsider with the 7000. I was a preorder with the gpz and never swung the gpx and have become comfortable with the chatty zed, that and the fact I paid an ungodly sum for that piece of kit (lol yes, kit... I like my zed) and kind of felt it should have pretty darn good audio on its own, that and it has no trouble finding tiny tiny trash and gold so I’ve resisted. I am a convert and now realize my folly and regret not getting a signal booster years ago as it made a difference for me. Battery life was also good, I started day one with fully charged batteries in the 7000 and the sP01 and halfway into the second day my battery indicator on the gpz changed color with one bar so I quit for lunch. I put the batteries on chargers, the sP01 was full charge hooked to a small old iPhone usb charger in under 45 minutes, I’m guessing in the day and a half I used less than half the available battery life. Rained the day before my trip and conditions in the gold fields were less than ideal with the soil spotty damp going down a couple of inches and an abundance of hot rocks as well. I’d read the links you posted and kept my settings conservative on the advice of others, the tips were right on and my detector was as stable as it has ever run filtering the chatter and tightening targets so I spent less time going back and forth scraping the ground and kicking hot rocks. The end result it was nice to get a little bit of color, but really the big advantage for me was in the increased ground I covered and not being as fatigued mentally filtering by ear, physically was another story... a lot of those little rusted chunks I was hitting were fairly deep the cramps in my arms a painful reminder I’d befrinded my prospecting pick far too long. No, you’ve too much gold now, lol. Really, I doubt you’ll regret, I waited for a lot of reasons that turned out not to be issues.

I haven’t been able to get away and hunt very much this year due to various reasons and last week I finally found a little free time so I headed to the hills for a few days of hanging out with Zed. In anticipation of getting away for a hunt I called Rob and had him send me one of those new SteelPHASE enhancer/filter’s and wow fastest shipping I’ve ever experienced, Rob must have jumped on a plane and stuffed it in my mail box, or could have just been overnight shipping anyway it was really fast. Gold was very scarce nails, tiny bits of rust, tacks and bird shot were a plenty the tiny piece of gold weighing in at a whopping 1.95 grains I did find this trip gave a clear indication down under around 3” of forrest mulch and soil, this is the smallest bit of gold I’ve found with the 7000 to date. I’d attribute finding this piece to the sP01 it made the zed a little more stable and tightened up the target response it was easier to tell the difference between ground noise and targets and I was digging some deep small bits of rusty nail and other itsy bits of trash. The sP01 was comfortable to carry too, I was a little concerned about adding another gadget to the mix with more cables to get in the way and after getting my enhancer I was thinking the cable used for connecting to the wm12 might be a little long. Wrong, everything was perfect and if not for the fact my detector was running great I could forget anything was different in my setup. With the sP01 clipped to my zed harness on the head phone shoulder side and the wm12 on the other shoulder the cable ran perfectly over the wm12 shoulder around my back and under the arm on the sP01 side. Once plugged in the cable never hung up or got in my way was comfortable, really great product engineering. I also bought a SpotX satellite device, so many (most) of the remote areas we go into alone have no cell service and help is a long way off. In short it’s good, but not great an evolving technology. In a nutshell it works although on its own schedule at least with non-emergency texts, most of mine were sent, some did not and I think there are limitations on how soon one text can be sent after another I’m still figuring the little quirks out something with traffic limitations and the system needing to reset...but, don’t ask cause I don’t know. The service has nine different rates based on 3 different plans, a basic, advanced and an unlimited service ranging from around $14 a month to $40 a month for the unlimited flex plan. The basic plan monthly payments gets you 12 texts a month, the advanced plan get you 100 texts a month plus more frequent satalite access and unlimited is well... the three tiers are repeated except when you pay the year up front you get all your available text limit for the year and they all are good for the entire year plus it’s a couple bucks cheaper, the three levels are again repeated as flex, this has slightly higher rates and no one year commitment you can start/stop as it fits all the plans come with an $100 activation fee. I chose the advanced with 1200 texts for the year. I also added rescue insurance, roadside assistance and replacement insurance for an additional $85, the rescue insurance provides $100K/$50K per occurrence, roadside 50miles towing free, off road ok and winching service available at the push of a button that also sends the tow service your gps and a map with your location pinpointed, you can also send the gps data and map with a text. All in all The device, tax, fee and service for the year set me back roughly $750, cheap insurance I think. There are also other tracking and social networking features, it’s actually a great device and gave me some comfort knowing if I needed I could get help and also it was great being able to send my wife a note and let her know everything was good.

Ahhh, very good you have only been on break working on other things and life finds you well, been a definite void here as I don’t think I’ve found any gold since your last post. And I do enjoy reading your insightful commentary, welcome back.

I remember reading someplace while out of boredom following the worm hole of google that Worms, the first factor you note like soil with certain surrounding foliage and hate others, I think they noted oaks result in acidic soil and have less worm activity and therefore slower sink rates. Up in the poor soil of the high Sierra I don't dig many worms, same thing out in the desert and man made objects seem on average to stay shallow with the exception of man made activity burying them and the occasional localized geologic event.

Realisticly, it's not wich one you are going to get... its wich one you are going to get first? The addiction, Oh the addiction.

Wait, didn't I see that picture on a fashion billboard somewhere? You may have some royalties due. Chuck, you are just a little ahead of the fashion curve in your neighborhood the wife will come around, Pretty sure trends across Europe and Asia adopted the style months ago we will be too, taking New York by storm right now, know I saw Johnny Depp in almost the exact pair.

This is one link with some places to begin looking for gold, as you read the history of these places there are lots of stories about the mining camps that sprung up and people who lived there. I didn't get to do any hunting, but I think the mineral belt starts in the area of central city/Blackhawk where the Casinos are and runs through Breckinridge to snow bird. Google searches about gold prospecting and ghost towns will get you a wealth of info on hunt areas. http://raregoldnuggets.com/?p=5077

All of the detectors you are looking at are great and I believe once you narrow it down based on the best fit you will be happy as you become one with your new toy. I was doing a tiny bit of research preparing to visit my son in Denver and You have lots of areas with interesting history to hunt and at least a few places open to the public with good history for nugget shooting detectable gold up into the mineral belt areas. My primary nugget hunting detector (I'm still new at this also) is the gpz and dig it all can be a impossible in trashy areas, where i can dig it all the feeling that I'm not missing much with pi/gpz is reassuring. Also have the Deus with 11" lf and 9" hf coils. For me another consideration for the Deus was the promised two box cache coil that's now become something of a mystery, someday. For gold I've run my Deus alongside the gm1000 both in difficult ground running similar frequencies and my impression testing side by side was they seemed very similar. Another time I coin hunted against another gm1000 swinging my 11" lf and the Deus in my novice opinion had a clear advantage. I've not had a chance to play with the nox800, seems pretty amazing for the money, I guess it really boils down to the fine points and how much they matter where you want to hunt. pretty sure you are going to love whatever you get

If gold nuggets were my objective I'd consider a good lightly used sdc2300 over something like the Deus for around the same money.

Could it be part of a merchant set for weighing coins to see if they've been tampered with?

Steve and everyone thank you, botryoidal carnelian chalcedony, some great pictures on that link.

Jim, thank you and DDancer thank you for the detailed information, agate/chalcedony features except for the crystalline structure and looking at it I'm certain you are correct about the banding in the ummm, protrusions, be a shame to cut or polish and much better as a natural specimen so I'll probably keep it as is and let it work for tips?. im still a little confused, so a silicate of some sort are the insect looking intrusions into the backside any clue, or typical features in these minerals.

Question for those that fantasize about geology, don't know what this is, some kind of agete, or petrified amber? Interesting formation anyway, came from someplace in China, a friend of my wife had it and gave it to her because she liked it.

Rick, about two years ago I drove my old Mercedes ml into a snow drift up a dirt road in the Sierra on purpose and got stuck. First I tried just a straight pull with the 4K winch, but the car didn't hardly budge (flat ground) I have a recovery snatch block that doubled the pull to 8k and that pulled me from the snow no issue although I have no real way to measure how much pull I'm getting from the little jump starter. The 9k winch on the front of the jeep is a whole different league compaired to the atv winch. A set of jumper cables will power the winch off the car battery also I've done that too. But the ability to take the little winch with the portable power on a hike is useful. One day I pulled two big rotten trees and a big boulder out of a giant hole the old timers left behind and still had power to use it farther up the hill to expose new ground under a couple of down trees, however your charger may be different capacity, good luck with however it works.

I've been carrying a unit from Walmart for a few years now it has light, air pump, USB and jump start, the thing was about 50 bucks and has worked great and I've saved a few people grief out on the road including myself. It will also give me quite a few pulls with the 4K portable winch, comes in handy moving tree trunks and rocks as well as a back-up to the winch on the front of my jeep.