mn90403

This is a 'rambling thread' which is a way of saying I don't know what is off topic! I just thought a general discussion thread about some of our mining terms like a club claim deserved a bit of discussion. When I was in Victoria it was obvious on the areas I went to the lengths the old timers went to to dig down to the gold and pay streaks. The detectorists obviously followed these holes and went to the edges and the reefs to find other gold. In the western United States a similar type of detecting took place. A man that I met (he passed away last year) who often times spoke at clubs was a man by the name of Jim Straight. He was the author of several book but one of them had the title of 'Follow The Drywashers' which suggested to the modern miner and detectorist that there was still gold where the drywashers had been. Of course he was right.

Dave, I wondered about that fossicking word when I was there. I didn't come to an adequate definition. If I came to WA with the Miner's Right (good for 10 years) that I got before I went to Victoria is it good where you are or does each state have a Right? There is State Land in Arizona that people must get a yearly permit to be legally camped. You don't get a right to mine with that permit but it has not been rigorously enforced in the past and large mining operations can get a permit. You are given a ticket now for camping on State Land if you do not display your $20 per year permit. Most mining claims are in the western United States. They are allowed because of the General Mining Act of 1872. This act has been altered over the years and there are many court battles over it and many more in this age of environmentalism and activism. Here is a quick link to the law from Wikipedia. (Take Wikipedia with a grain of salt. Some people find it highly inaccurate based upon their own experience!) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Mining_Act_of_1872

The total amount of club claims on public land is very small. It is significant tho for the hobby. It has encouraged detecting. It should be understood that any claim here is just for the mineral rights. There can be no restrictions put on the surface rights if it is an individual or club claim. Anyone can camp on a club or private claim. What happened in the United States in many areas was that every other mile according to the public land survey system the odd numbered parcels were 'given' to the railroads and the even numbers remained public. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Checkerboarding_(land) This exists in Gold Basin as an example. The government (BLM) manages one square mile and next to it will be a private square mile that was sold by the railroad to pay for layings its tracks. Jason has land that was on one of those square miles. I belong to a club that one of the members owns 160 acres of private land near the GPAA claims. Some prospectors have acted like his land and Jason's land was public property and detected it without permission. We are told as detectorists that we should know we are on 'open' land before we swing and especially before we take any nuggets. Not all do this and not all property owners enforce their rights. The same situation exists with the checkerboarding in Rye Patch. Some public (even numbers) and some private (odd numbers) by law but exchanges have been made for better management purposes. This is another subject that could occupy a law library. I hope Clay chimes in. One example that I know of was that the southern and western part of what is now the Southern Highlands in Las Vegas was once on public land. It was traded for other land so that Las Vegas/Clark County could expand the area.

Several of us on this forum belong to clubs. Some of us hunt those claims in addition to others. The thought has occurred to me recently that when we talking about hunting on club claims here that someone in Australia and even New Zealand might not know what we are talking about. When I was in Australia I had a map of the public forests and some were open for detecting and some were not. You could get State information about likely gold spots in addition to previously mined spots. There are thousands and thousands of open acres. If you could hook up with a tour or trainer they could give you the pointy finger about where to go. I was mostly on my own and it showed! haha Just because you don't find gold it is not because it has been over hunted. I'd have to say that most of my time in Victoria I was detecting in spots where there was no dig holes. Bendigo was an exception. My point is that someone can go to open land without being a 'club' member. That can be good and bad in reality. I'm not going to attempt to name all clubs (there are dozens now down from hundreds I think) and how long they have been in existence (Some since the 60s) but it would 'level the playing ground' when we talk about missed nuggets on a club claim vs open land. The largest club in the United States is the Gold Prospectors Association of America. Members pay an annual fee and they are given a directory of club claims. https://www.goldprospectors.org/testpage/GPAAClaimDirectory This is the history: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gold_Prospectors_Association_of_America There is still gold on the GPAA claims. Some claims are not as old as others and some just have missed gold still on them. Some are severely depleted from dry washing and detecting for all of these years. Some of us use the claims as a jumping off spot to look for other gold. My point in bringing it up is to show how much real pressure and detecting there can be on certain spots that once had gold. There are three different clubs claiming land in Gold Basin. Sometimes these club claims bring detectorists together for just a weekend and other times it can be for most of a winter season. Day trippers are frequent. It would be very difficult to estimate the number of detectorists over the years that have swung on any particular patch of club claim. Let's say hundreds on a conservative estimate and thousands on the high end. Fortunately for Gold Basin there has been a lot of gold and also a lot of land to look for it. Each time a new detector comes out then the patch has become a bit more lively again as what has happened with the Z. I've found more nuggets with my Z in Gold Basin than I did with my GPX but many people before me dry washed, sluiced and detected big nuggets with beginning detectors. Club members have been generally good over the years about sharing information. Membership enforcement is spotty so there are 'jumpers' added to the numbers even tho dues are generally under $50 per year. There are many other groups and clubs other than GPAA. Perhaps we should have a thread or a forum that gives some sort of description of different clubs. Maybe one already exists. The clubs exist for the most part on public land. They stake a claim based upon a member knowing and wanting to share that location with others. Otherwise it would be a private claim or private land (like Jason's) just as they have in most of the US, Australia and New Zealand I imagine. There is some discussion now if a 'club claim' is legal under the mining laws. Generally claims are limited in size and number of people or entities. Many club locations are a lease to make access legal. All of this is designed to get as many people as possible to join. Many are non-profit groups. Many club members have abused the land with open dig holes, destroyed access roads and being generally trashy. Some clean up. Each of the clubs have key people who have recently gotten very old and clubs are getting smaller. Oldtimer knowledge is leaving as the numbers dwindle. Many of them have never posted a letter on an internet forum like this one. They were private people. They would never show their gold here. That brings up another idea. Someone should or may go to some of these miners and write a story about each of them. It is kinda like doing stories about the veterans of the wars. Well, this is the beginning ramble. I hope that many of you who have a hankering to ramble about clubs and people tell those stories in this thread to keep their memories alive. This will help us to know who the miners and detectorists were that came before us.

I'll get out to more of the unknown to me. For many years others have been going west and north but they didn't take me with them. I've hunted up towards the tank and to the south of it through those hills and back over to the State property. This last trip when I saw you we went driving around I saw the new helicopter pad at the storage area and all the large mining operations that would be north of Dolan Springs. It looks like more commercial is going in around there and it says there will be dust and reclamation until 2030. The roads were very busy and new ones were being cut. It doesn't seem quite so isolated but you can get in a few pictures that makes it look cool. JP doesn't quite get how close GB is now to the Big City of Las Vegas and West Rim Grand Canyon. They have resold all of the once abandoned lots which has brought in more people. I just wonder about the farms that went bankrupt on the way to Kingman. There is that new gas station and they bulldozed all the Joshua Trees to make the nut tree farms at the turnoff. https://grandcanyonwest.com/explore/west-rim/

Jason, It helps to have good notes and prior finds. I've gone back to my prior finds and spots too often expecting more results it seems. I need more spots. You've explained your method of searching here which is similar to mine when it comes to swing stopper responses but I don't have any geology knowledge to go along with it. My hope has been to cover a lot of ground and 'happen upon' undiscovered patches. I've come upon this 'method' as the result of running in the mountains for many years and also running marathons. I had never really detected for nuggets until 2010. I started largely because I had injured my back and could no longer run and train for marathons. I've completed 21 marathons and hundreds of Santa Monica Mountain runs over the years until then. It is appreciated that you would point out some of the gold bearing features in Gold Basin as you go through your descriptions. I've looked for contact zones, green/red in areas west of the GPAA claims many times. I've heard it said that you find a big wash and you will find big nuggets. My largest GB nugget is 5 grams found at the bottom of a wash. I was 'taught' to go to the bottoms. Then people told me the bottoms were over hunted and go to the tops, that was the pattern. Then people said the tops had been detected and now it is go to the washes and detect the middles at least two or three swings above the bottom. Doing this has gotten me little new because I lack the geological knowledge and I'm just playing battleship. It would have been nice to see what you think of my coil but I doubt we'll be able to meet up before you go back but I'm sure I would learn more than you. Mitchel

If you want to look at some of its past go here: https://web.archive.org/web/2019*/gpex.ca

I never used the site. What was it about? I had been on a site posting for my first years detecting and then most of the data was dumped which included several years of my almost daily beach finds. Recently I looked at the site and a few selective threads remain but it is not a site I go to any more or a dealer I'll buy from. It leaves a hole in you if you have been a contributor because you can't 're-live' the threads. I'm hoping that the content on DP will last.

Thank you for this description of THAT! I can't find the time to detect that way either. The Arizona gold I've found talked my language and I keep looking for more talkers. I did write down JPs 'try these settings' and will try them when I go back again.

Hey, hey ... what did you say? I didn't know there was a feature to turn off ALL sound on the detectorprospector.com or any other website. Now I know. I can even hear JPs recordings through this little cheap speaker but early this morning about 5 AM it sounded great on the headphones I use when detecting. As they say in several different ways ... I didn't know what I was missing or now I know what I was missing, etc.

When you were swinging over the ferrite I noticed that the ferrite ring itself is not flat. Do you try to position it the way you have it attached to the pole?

I don't know if it is just my Chromebook but most of the time I can't hear the YouTube when played through this website. If I go to YouTube I can hear it fine. Now I see there is a setting on the web address line that says mute or play that I had not seen before.

I have a large specimen that I believe got trapped in the rubble and cobbles because it is smooth on one side and rough on the other. I've come to learn as you suggested that my specimen didn't move as much as all the material that moved over it. I'm glad to know I'm reading some of the clues right. Now that audio stuff ... haha I hear it but don't know what I'm hearing it seems. Between the two threads I'll be a better detectorist. Thanks for the efforts on posting. Mitchel

JP, You have just described hunting for iron meteorites in Franconia, Arizona. The tiny little pieces are loud and hard to pinpoint and they are near the surface. There is no gold in the area where these are found. Now I know why they are 'easy' if you know the area. It does take a bit of coil control on the small ones. In some areas where I detect for gold there is a tiny wire that we hear. It is loud and hard to pinpoint also. All of this time I thought it was because of size but now you have explained it. Unfortunately in some of these areas there are some hot rocks of varying size that will be loud also and I have wanted the gold sound to be as 'bright' as those but now you have explained a difference which may improve my gold recovery. Mitchel

Let me just say Reg that you told me that you are now not very keen on detecting the public forests and goldfields of Victoria so you probably don't compare them to a tank any more. I think you have some private tanks! I would say using your terminology that the beach has certainly been my tank for many years.

I'll have a beach post tomorrow. Just an odd thing I found in the dry sand. Nothing much is being brought up with lack of wave energy. I'm in a holding pattern on gold hunting. There is a slight chance I could go out this Friday and swing for a couple of hours for nuggets.

Reg, when I was there I hunted at least 3 days in each area I went to. Some days I drove back to Bendigo to stay because my hotels were there but I got out early enough to be detecting within an hour of sunrise. The last days I was with Adam I followed his schedule and it was not much different than mine had been until we met up. You may not know but I went back one day with that map you made for me and spent that day detecting there even tho I spent the night in Maryborough. That first day you dropped me off it was wet and I was still jet lagged. It was a beautiful day when I went back. I avoided a couple of other detectorists while there. Where I should have gone was above the parking area rather than below as you told me on my exit trip.

Well, as the results of events and circumstances mostly out of my control and seeing my young 2 year old son throw some tantrums just because I won't follow him to his room I've come to the conclusion that impatience may be my biggest liability when it comes to nugget hunting. I'm going to make a sincere effort in the future to patiently hunt a location for a couple of hours and if I don't like it then patiently go hunt another location! haha I think it is possible to detect with patience and not spend all day in one bad spot. The attitude of patience can be used cruising or gridding if I'm not anxious.

Johnathon Campbell got it started according to the articles ... https://www.abc.net.au/news/rural/2018-10-26/pilbara-gold-rush-started-by-man-seeking-stray-cattle/10420380 https://www.perthnow.com.au/news/wa/pilbara-gold-rush-wa-man-who-found-gold-strikes-deal-of-a-lifetime-ng-711d10e05d715d67e2798b5ac0f68991

Here is a chart that I have found that gives 'just the facts' about different sizes and speeds so you can make more informed choices about what you want in that regard. http://www.wu.ece.ufl.edu/links/dataRate/DataMeasurementChart.html The reason I was looking at this was because I was in a Costco (like many of us) and saw a 5TB external hard drive for sale for $89! I can remember when I was in the IBM memory business and 2MB of ram was over $100. What could they be doing with this and our detectors now?

JP, Thank you for your detailed impressions and style in telling it. It really seems to be where the detector meets the target but the Z is without any digital screen help so you have to describe a sound as best you can. That is a difficult task for all of us. What is a murmur? A slight break in threshold? An iffy response? My previous trainings have not included trainer audio. One training session (Gerry's) included a hookup so the trainer could listen to my ground. Mostly I've been given setting and put on my way for the most part. It sure would be helpful to have a audio of yours or other detectorists to hear their catches. Is there a way to hook up the second WM 12 and record audio? If we could 'hear' what makes you stop when it is subtle or faint I'm sure I could know how you 'brake for gold!' Going on to the 'missed gold' from above, I've tried to be keen on 'missed' vs 'unseen.' Missed to me would be not getting the coil over the target or not hearing or not knowing it was a target but the detector 'saw' it. Unseen to me would be no matter how much coil control you have with a particular setting then the target was not 'seen' because of its depth, size, texture, etc. Going over the same target with different settings or different detectors or coils would 'see' the target. This might be a 2300 that is reputed to see gold that other PIs miss, especially on the mollock piles, right? My last day in Bendigo I found a tiny little nugget that was not very deep but I got it from a pointy finger from Northeast's friend. I was able to capture it because he told me he had found gold there with his 4500. Mitchel

Maybe I didn't see everything but I don't think Parker found any big nuggets. He was 'shown' big nuggets in Victoria on the first episode. Now they're off for places North or West. He looked very uncomfortable around a metal detector.

The linked article is a geology lesson for sure.

Some of us should have taken our money and put into these stocks! https://stockhead.com.au/resources/the-small-caps-with-prime-real-estate-in-the-eastern-goldfields-one-of-the-worlds-best-gold-districts/

Well stated from all.