His last name is Walker ...

https://elkodaily.com/mining/nevada-gold-mines-director-joint-venture-is-good-for-nevada/article_3f4160c0-42e6-5e91-819e-a1b945209fe8.html

Well, during today's beach hunt my thoughts were of 'the game' and how to play it.  Thoughts of all sports came to mind as I was listening to the smooth, mostly uninterrupted threshold of the beach sand.  We've had a storm but not many targets came with it.  I know this because places where I normally hunt had few targets and others detectorists didn't find them also.  There is something confidence building about seeing a few un-refilled dig holes about.  If there are not many then the guy before you didn't get much and he would have missed me asking him "What is good about leaving an open hole?"

Anyway, I know what many targets can be and what few targets can be.

A theme running through my mind today was 'how do I be competitive' with either the ground or a fellow detectorist?  This can help with the concentration if done properly.  While I was detecting I started to rank the areas we hunt or the settings which are somewhat like Steve's categories in the forums except I rank it according to WHERE the hunt takes place.  Let me rank (easy to hard) them in order of difficulty for me:

1. Blanket Line Dry Sand

2. Parks and Playgrounds

3. Wet Sand Beach

4. Old Relic Fields and UK Sites (I haven't done this yet but maybe?)

5. Nugget Hunting 

I can't resist comparing this to something I do several times a week which is play billiards.  This is also a skill and luck 'sport or hobby' as you might put it.  (Andy's brother is a professional and we have compared the concentration in pool to nugget hunting.)  How would I compare those games to detecting?

1. 8 Ball (easy)

2. 9 Ball

3. 10 Ball

4. 3 Cushion Billiards

5. One Pocket (the most difficult game on a pool table)

For those of you not familiar with one pocket, it is a game where you and your opponent each has only one corner pocket at the bottom of the table where you can score points.  The other 5 pockets on the table are not used and any ball that drops in those pockets (except your opponents corner pocket) are replaced on the table.

Without going into all of the details and strategies of offense and defense in each game, I've tried to rank then in order of difficulty for semi-pro types of players.  One pocket is the king.  Nugget hunting is the king.  All of your skills and equipment are needed to succeed at both them.

This now comes to the point of comparison.  One pocket players learn by watching and doing in much the same way that detectorists learn from each other.  But there are some players that just have the 'magic' and no matter how much you watch and learn you still need them to open up to you.  They have subtle moves and techniques that they don't share with everyone and especially to their tournament rivals.

Metal detecting and pool playing at the highest levels requires good fundamentals.  I sometimes find myself playing pool and wanting a good smooth stroke (you have to hit within a .5 mm spot sometimes) and follow through like JP's coil control teachings.  Hitting a shot with extreme 3:00 English on it as opposed to centerball is like JW finding tiny nuggets in cracks on bedrock with maximum sensitivity.  Using an X-Coil is like using a low deflection, carbon fibre shaft.  You just learn how to get the most out of what you have and you try for more.

We all have limitations.  These limitations can be frustrating and irritating sometimes.  I keep expecting a 'break out' that improves my technique which in turn leads to more consistency which translates into more wins and more nuggets.

Wes has touched upon the greatest truth of the matter.  I need more practice.  I need to live closer to gold like both JP and JW and many of the rest of you not to mention Walker and Lunk who live the life of a detectorist for more than half of the year.  And then there are Klunkers who have to think about detecting for half a year before they can get out and do it.

If I sound and say I'm irritated, I am.  But it is not at any of you as much as it is myself.  I've probably had more lessons about nugget hunting than any person alive and I still haven't found any 'magic' I can teach.  I have no seeming command of my nugget finding.  I can tell people a lot of what others have told me but that doesn't put anything in the poke most of the time.

I hope I stop this search for the holy grail sometime soon and just take it one day, one hour, one swing at a time.  Results are or aren't in my control.  As Steve and Fred say, just slow down and play more battleship.

He said inspirational ... I'm feeling jealous of you both!

WTG 

Walker

By the way, there is someone by the name of Walker who heads up the Newmont partnerships now.  Any relationship to you?  

You have to keep the dealers happy with the price.  There are few NF dealers in United States.

They say:

New for 2020 - Z Search Coils

  Our new Z-Search range has been developed specifically for the Minelab GPZ7000.  Manufactured to a High Standard from Quality Materials these coils will offer both the Professional and amateur Prospector a Lightweight, High Quality option for the GPZ7000

   At this stage we expect to have at least one small size available by mid 2020 with larger options to follow.

I'll come back!  haha  How long will you be there?

Here is an Aussie product for boosting.  Anyone down there use them?

https://www.nuheara.com/usa/products/iqbuds-boost/

I did find the thread.

I also took some new tests.  My hearing has not gotten better.  Maybe I'll over amp the next time out.  Years ago I used noise cancelling headphones with a volume control.  Now may be time to make sure all exterior and internal noise is away from me when detecting.  It can't hurt.  The big and loud targets take care of themselves.  It is those subtle sounds I don't react to.

You heard a variety of soft sounds but had some difficulty when there was background noise.

I've had a hearing test a couple of years ago at Costco.  Of course they wanted to sell me a hearing aid but I didn't go that route.

My hearing is limited.  It is worst on the high frequencies.  I've also confirmed this with some of the online hearing tests.  I had a thread about that a few years back.  Let me see if I can find it and take the test again.

Mitchel

Well done.  More time needed.  😁

Mitchel

14 hours ago, Dig It said:

I've had to fly home a couple times this winter, each time it was absolutely Beautiful !!!!!! But I have to admit besides the desert beating me up detecting, you just have to love temps in the 70's...……..

What do you mean beating you up?

4 minutes ago, flakmagnet said:

Don't be irritated. That's why I included the story of that gent just randomly sticking his detector into a bush and hitting a big one…there is so damned much luck involved. Refining technique is only so we can take advantage when luck provides an opportunty - in my opinion.

I think most everyone says the gold is getting smaller at these patches.  There would also be less trash.

Can't we have some suggestion of how much more subtle the targets get?  Maybe I can't hear some of them but I think my volume controls and SP01 should put me on to those sounds if I'm listening for the right thing.

I've heard Bill Southern and Kevin Hoagland at the GPAA shows talk about that bee of a threshold for a long time.  They use that to their advantage.  Then the Monster came out without a threshold.  I've spent days out in patches with my 800/6 only and someone else had a Whites and we found lots of bbs but no nuggets on that trip.

Maybe it is just time.  Most of the time all of us are not finding gold either.  We are in between digs.  How long does it take to dig 3 or 4 tiny nuggets in a day?

It doesn't take me that long to dig targets on the beach lately!

There are some parts of this that get irritating.  It is more than just me and MY STYLE.

How many times do I have to go back to the same patches and not find anything and I know others have been back to that same patch and they don't find anything either?

Steve's point is well taken. Get over every spot in a patch and use careful coil control.  He finds missed nuggets in known patches.  My 'holy grail' will be when someone is on a swing with me and they say "Didn't you hear that?"  And I'll either say what or yeah and they will say ... "That could be a nugget, investigate it!"

Screamers I hear, even SOME faint ones ... subtle small and deep breaks are not stopping me.  JP is starting to chat about those sounds on his thread.

Ok, ok ... I didn't know the beach would bring out the best in your gold detectorists!  Very good responses I'd say from just a 'throw out' subject.  haha

I think I can hear the threshold breaks and iffys easier on the beach than on the other surfaces I hunt.  All of the really small targets have been ground down to fines so only scoop size targets remain ... sometimes at depth. 

It must be the mineralization I can't handle.  I don't tune the threshold to a similar fine edge of natural nugget vs ground noise except the obvious and shallow ones.  The equipment I'm using can find tiny stuff as you've seen from little wires, lead and bullet flakes but the tiny nugget bump is something that often escapes me.

Perhaps I just need to realize that a nugget location has too many signals (mineralizations) for most coils and detectors to handle because it varies so much.  Gravel that holds gold is certainly not beach sand.

Most of us don't have a geology degree but it would probably help when we are out detecting and doing research.  Geology has a language laced with time periods that I've never taken the time to learn so this is going to be a ramble.

This is a chart which can help us to know history and geology and place the events which formed our detecting areas into the puzzle.  We can then use plate tectonics to help us know how our region got to where it is today and understand the mountains and folds in the earth's crust.

How do we tell the difference between geologic ages?

http://www.stratigraphy.org/index.php/ics-chart-timescale

One article I read said: On Earth, gold finally reached us some 200 million years after the formation of the planet when meteorites packed with gold and other metals bombarded its surface. During the formation of Earth, molten iron sank to its centre to make the core. This took with it the vast majority of the planet’s precious metals — such as gold and platinum. In fact, there are enough precious metals in the core to cover the entire surface of Earth with a four-metre thick layer.

https://www.zmescience.com/science/how-gold-is-made-science-064654/

And then came the plates!

Tectonic Plates’ Patterns Revealed

https://www.livescience.com/38819-plate-tectonics-patterns.html

Can someone that knows this stuff make it more simple?  haha  I mean where did the gold in Arizona, Nevada, California, Australia and New Zealand come from in a geological time frame (the beginning we know from the star or stars) and then the weathering has come into play.  I guess every local Mining College has people working on that so that professional miners are more successful than the rest of us.

Clay, are you reading this?   The topic is too big so old timers learned from each other and passed along their knowledge of specific deposits and veins.  The USGS and satellite imagery are probably now the tools in use and maybe we as detectorists could get a drone?

Mitchel

The United States has a deal with Australia about rare earths.  It is a source outside of China.

https://www.australianmining.com.au/features/australia-us-alliance-key-to-creating-critical-minerals-hub/

As many of you know, I live at the beach, Santa Monica to be exact.  I detect the beach often.  I oftentimes hear faint signals and dig deep holes for coins, trash and jewelry.  I can dig much deeper for targets on a beach than I do in the desert.  I can read a beach, slow down and grid it and find stuff others miss with an 800, 3030 or even my 5000.

I've trained with several detectorists over the years in order to improve my efficiency in the nugget game but I'd have to say I don't have the confidence after all of these years that I'm doing it right.  The recent JP thread once again emphasizes coil control and settings as a way to hear the little nuggets and deep ones.  It is still a technique I'm unable to master.  Are the signals just that much more subtle in the nugget game?

I've found hundreds of nuggets over the last 10 years and a couple of big ones but I'm far from efficient.  Let me put it this way, if you were to take me and a group of other detectorists out to a nugget patch and make teams (I would be picked near last) or let everyone take a shot at a location and then you would follow, I would be picked nearly first (expecting I would miss more than others)!  

Each time I'm in the desert I enjoy it even when I don't get nuggets but I have to do a better job of putting myself where the gold and the coil meet.  No doubt a better understanding of geology would help but I can't make myself look at topography or geology maps.

Is that it?

Mitchel

Deep lead in ... (JPs words)

You knew more could be there so you found what you had missed.

How 'often' do you find gold over 6-7" deep?  I mean are there places in Arizona/Nevada where gold can be anywhere from surface down to several feet?

Now thinking about what I just said ... perhaps there are places like that where the dry washers have gone down to the pay and then detected it.  There were holes like that all over Australia with several feet of goldless ground about the pay.  It probably depends on how far up the sides a channel you go.  Seems obvious now ...

Mitchel

These are the things I miss when detecting the desert.  The 'lead in' as you say is the fringe detecting that draws the moth to the flame.  My lead ins are muddled because in many cases I still 'beach detect' the desert.  I'm seeking a larger, noiser target (relative to ground) and I'm not hearing the little warble.

I did achieve on my last trip a level of 'one with the threshold' for periods of time that let me know if a target was there I was going to hear it.  I buried a test nugget and listened and found out that I can't hear little gold (.2 g nugget) when it is over 4 inches or so.  As Lunk has said if you know there are some deep targets in an area then you can adapt or go back with a different timing.

I'm getting better at digging deep trash!  haha

Thanks JP.

Mitchel

Will all the snow help in getting more nuggets in Alaska this summer?  It seems a good thing that Dig It was in Arizona this winter.

2020 Iditarod: Most Alaska Snowfall in 21 Years Could Make for Sloshy Sled Dog Race

https://www.onlinegambling.com/news/2020-iditarod-alaska-sled-dog-race-aliy-zirkle/

I should add that I was with someone and we enjoyed the exploring for reasons of future hunts.  You have to get off the beaten path once in a while also.

Yes, there is gold out there for me if I get to the right places.  The coil has performed well in my book.  I have no problems with it.

As I 'reflect' on this trip again I didn't stick with my plan.  I hunted one spot for about 2 hours and also tried new spots for about 4 hours and then meteorites but too much time was spent exploring (driving).  That is what I would do differently if I had the trip to do over again.

Day trips are my real future for a while.

Mitchel

There are two sites where gold will soon be produced near Elko, Nevada.  I think everything is on go with the possible exception of The Green New Deal!

https://www.reviewjournal.com/business/2-new-major-finds-may-extend-nevadas-gold-boom-for-years-1972010/

I've skimmed some of the geology (it is very detailed to me) and looked at lots of pictures and read a couple of the detecting chapters and I'll have to say it is like having a new detecting partner.

Reece's wordings and style and when he talks about the 'pre-gridding' routine are words that would focus a detectorist like me.  I'm mostly a solo detectorist so I'm apt to repeat my mistakes and not see what I need to see or detect where I should be detecting.  This book will help me to look at my spots with a different light even tho I'm not in Montana.

As a bonus there are many pictures of Chris Gholson in Australia and a Rob Allison big nugget.

I forget how much I paid for it last June but it is worth it.  It may even pay for itself.

Mitchel

I have the book!  It was there and they couldn't find it.

Reece sent me the tracking number and I forced them to look again.  I wasn't taking any excuses.

I'm impressed.  Now I have to read it.

Mitchel