mn90403

Every 3rd Friday of the month the metal detecting club I belong to allows us to display our 'finds of the month' as a competition. The categories are listed on the white board below my display. This month my display number was 19. I had an entry for each category this month. All of the items were found with the 800 using the 11" coil. (You can see the club info and pictures of past finds here: http://prospectorsclub.org/ ) I've put in a few hours over the last week because conditions were good. What I didn't show were the coins that I found which was about $50. So I dug a lot of holes when you add in the trash! About 3 nights ago I went out on a low tide and was not finding much on my first beach. I was getting ready to go and I found a piece of micro jewelry. I didn't really want to leave so I began a SLOW grid of the area. Just about every target started out as a negative number. I kept gridding and found another micro piece as one of the studs, nothing very exciting but a target. I locked into the slow pattern at the 'bottom of the hill' which is the end of the steep part of a beach slant. I ended up with 5-6 small pieces and was satisfied with that. Sometimes after I grid I look at the holes I've dug and consider the depth of the targets and extend that line or cross over where I've been before. One of these times I extended the grid and came back to the pattern and I heard a 17. Well, the Nox does 13, 20,21,30,31 and 15s quite often so 17 was a digger in all metal. I took my normal couple of scoops and the target was still there. This was the deepest target in the grid. I looked in the scoop after about 9 inches and a 10k 6g ring was shinning at me in the moonlight. This was a shock. It was out of place and it didn't sound like that type of target. The ring is pretty solid. I could not tell from the sound. One of my criticisms of the 800 is that it doesn't make heavier, more massive items louder. Larger items like aluminium cans detect over a much larger area but I don't get a sense of 'density' from the audio target signal. So, I guess the 17 is because the gold has more copper or silver to make it the 10k. It is a nice class ring. I'm still trying to find the owner. The other items in the picture all have a story too including the two silver dimes and two silver chains. I'll try to remember them if you ask me. Mitchel

Here is another WA nugget! http://www.foxnews.com/world/2018/09/21/massive-80g-gold-nugget-discovered-in-australia-by-retired-man-whos-been-searching-area-for-years.html Mitchel

Chris, You better get up there before it is all gone. Mitchel

Your little trip exceeds all the gold I've found in Nevada! Good looking 'rig' for staying out there. Mitchel

Where did you get that dime? Nice gold around it too. That means lots of holes had nuggets in them. Mitchel

One day or one half-day at a time for you now ... mate! Any one of us who had that long or half that long for our entire journey would be of an excited mind set and not already sad. I've got a feeling you'll be back ... but who will take you next? Mitchel

More gold pictures! https://stockhead.com.au/resources/pilbara-explorer-artemis-shows-off-big-gold-nugget-package-to-inspire-investors/

When I first got my 7000 I went out in the desert to Quartzsite. There is a Saguaro cactus there which is the classic cactus of the desert southwestern United States. I found myself digging around the bottom of one of those on my first or second day using the 7000. I decided I didn't want to kill it or have it's 15 feet of height or over a ton of mass come down on me in the gully. I found out later it was just the roots! Mitchel

I bought my first detector in 86. It was a White's. I still have it and it has a stand for the metal box. I'm glad to see something new from Sweet Home. I would not get this White's unless I had a cover for it and then I would still prefer to have a stand get those batteries up off the ground. Mitchel

Helicopter supported research for 254g! https://smallcaps.com.au/kairos-minerals-significant-nugget-find-croydon-gold-project/ The picture hardly looks like real gold.

Since we are comparing the 6" to the 11" for me 11" -- 5 nuggets (one nice specimen), 6" --- 0. I've learned how to pinpoint with the edge of the 11". Mitchel

Ok everyone, today I got a chance to go out to hunt for nuggets! It was a cool day and I took the 7000, Nox and 2300 as we were going to hit a couple of old places and one new one. I started just after daylight with the 7000 and a head full of suggestions from this thread. I was going to listen to the ground by golly. I was going to set up the 7000 so it was smooth. I was going to listen and hear those faint sounds by turning up the booster. I did all of those things and it sounded great! I was one with the ground and the location and my detector. You know what came to mind first? I set this up as a hearing 'problem' or a 'sound' problem of sorts. The first thing that came to mind that this is really a WRITING PROBLEM! (What?) I mean, all I have to do is cross my t's and dot my i's. The sounds will take care of themselves. haha The mind is a funny thing. I had a great day out. I heard and listened to a lot of ground and even tho I didn't find any nuggets I left the gold fields satisfied that if I got over a nugget I would have heard it. Mitchel

My suggestion is ... take a breath! ? As others have said, don't have too much going on between the ears when swinging a coil. I have more in a separate post after I went out today. Mitchel

RDD, Thanks again for the info. Refining has to be the way of it to pay the bills and split the take. Good you saved some for jewelry also. You mentioned you had found some undetected areas that did produce. The thought of that for me causes a bit of quandary. How much time do I spend on this spot with all the other spots I still have on the list? Do you speed up hunting an area like that or slow down? Would there be more surface gold or would you seek out the deeper, larger bits in that type of area? Mitchel

And now I read this: https://www.news.com.au/national/wa-driller-uncovers-behemoth-gold-nugget-possibly-biggest-in-recorded-history/news-story/b9555d15c165b792408b9813976bfc64

I think a 'case' could be made for this being the largest discovery ever! The case would be built around the idea that a blast broke up the mass into 'small' pieces! Mitchel

When reading some parts of this thread again I am reminded of some things my mother said to me about the time she needed a hearing aid. She told me on several occasions that she could hear but could not understand. Her reference was to specific words and their meanings to get a clear idea of a conversation. I suspect a lot of us hear with the help of body language and reading lips. If we don't have these clues then sometimes we can't understand. I've had a hearing test and I do have hearing loss. This IS a factor no doubt. I'm using JP's booster with my 3030 and 7000. I can make sounds louder but as JW has said ... maybe some of us hear but don't understand nuggets. I thought I did for a while but just about all of those nuggets were shallow. I need to understand the more subtle sounds it seems. Mitchel

RDD, My wife and I looked at this a few hours ago when you posted it. What a nice trip. She loves specimens. Many of those will clean up very nicely but alas they may already be crushed. Here is to your next trip. Mitchel

Fred, Thanks. It is a conceptual sort of approach to the nugget finding conundrum. The chicken and egg argument reduced to a detector and a coil. Maybe if I focus more on the ground and less on the target it will help me. You reminded me of a post I made on Arizona Outback (Chris Gholson's site) years ago when I first started detecting. I was asking the question back then of 'what do you think about' when swinging' and 'stinking thinking' if I remember correctly. That was back in the days when I posted my beach finds and nugget finds (less than 10 certainly) every day until he took down a lot of the history from his forums. There was a lot of good information over there. I wonder if any of it ever got put back up or made available. JP posted there often. Mitchel

I just came back from a beach hunt with my 3030. There was not much there (a 2g silver ring) and a few coins. Most of the 3 hours I was out I was thinking about another thread that has brought up in my mind the difference between hearing targets or ground listening for targets. The 3030 gives you choices of Low Trash, High Trash, Ferrous Coin and Ground Coin as examples of how you want to separate the sounds. This would have to be a bit of a speed control choice. The Nox has different settings of course. I've found gold with both detectors. I'm a fair beach hunter and reader of a beach with the 3030, SE Pro, Equinox, 5000, etc. I swing for target sounds and dig'em. I pretty much ignore the ground and the salt water. Often times I go to our local gold fields and I'm not as successful as others. I don't seem to get some of the little nuggets or the deep ones. Most of the time I've described my nugget style as beach hunting for nuggets. The bottom line is I want more nuggets. I just read Steve's tips on setting up the Nox in a way that will allow it to identify nuggets. I've got a 7000, 800 and a 2300 and some other detectors (GB Pro) that can also hear nuggets but maybe this is not what I should be doing for nugget hunting. Maybe what I should be doing is listening to the ground! Let me give a couple of definitions: listen to give attention with the ear; attend closely for the purpose of hearing; give ear. to pay attention; heed; obey (often followed by to?Children don't always listen to their parents. to wait attentively for a sound (usually followed by for?to listen for sounds of their return. hear to perceive by the ear:Didn't you hear the doorbell? to learn by the ear or by being told; be informed of:to hear news. to listen to; give or pay attention to:They refused to hear our side of the argument. The reason for these definitions is to show myself that hearing is not listening unless I concentrate. Most of the good nugget hunters that post here talk about getting a smooth threshold. They learned their techniques back in the day when ground balance was much more difficult than it is now. I think those guys intuitively listen to the ground even with this new technology. I've always wanted to hear targets. (Is this too find a difference?) So, I could go on and on but the question becomes: Do you listen to the ground or concentrate on target sounds? Mitchel

Oh Norvic ... you cruel man showing them this ... showing ME this. Minelab has some work to do to get a detector with that kind of depth! Mitchel

Simon, You made two observations there that are true for me. Sometimes there is no gold where I am prospecting. Often times I am with a detectorist who is better at finding nuggets than I am. Mitchel

Simon, I remember when JW told you that. I have been told the same thing. Funny thing about this is I know how to slow down and grid on my beaches when I find something but it is a bit different when searching gold. When I grid at the beach I get slower and make sure I get my coil over all of the area where targets might have been deposited. I don't want to miss a target because I failed to get over that target or near enough to it for the 'off coil' targets. This type of hunting for nuggets is a bit incomplete. Steve has just described to us setting up the Nox and other nugget detectors to make the ground become as silent as possible and with proper coil control we will find more nuggets. There is one aspect I don't think was directly mentioned although following the Minelab sweeping directions does take this into effect. You mentioned jumping around like a pong ball. When we do this we are constantly jumping to NEW ground under the coil. The ground in gold areas varies much greater than my ground at the beach. When I grid there I can keep targets more in mind that ground variations. I and perhaps you need to do as Steve, JW, JP, Lunk, Swifty, Micro Nugget, Bill and all other good nugget hunters and listen to the ground and not just the targets! (Is this really the secret?) The overlapping swing technique lets the detector stay smooth and just sample a little bit of new ground and we are supposed to take that new swing and find the subtle signal variation and turn it into a target. All metal detectors can only process so much information from the ground (a Swifty quote of sorts). So, maybe this thread just helped me to make up my own quote to find more nuggets. Nugget hunting is about the ground ... not the targets. Dig everything that doesn't sound like the ground! Mitchel

Now that we have an update I've been out on the beach a couple of times but beach 'conditions' are much more important than updates. I don't know if that could be said for finding gold nuggets. Has anyone been out nugget shooting with the update installed? Mitchel

I have been told more than once that my largest find (find of a lifetime as Fred puts it) was a matter of 'luck' and 'not knowing any better' because the target was relatively close to several camps in the area and was on the National Trails Highway in Arizona. The reason I would have enjoyed such luck with my 5000 and 18" NF was I was hunting in an area that had deep 50 cal bullets and shells and it had a lot of surface meteorites. My signal was big and deep so ... maybe someone had ignored it down in the bottom of that little swail thinking they knew it was trash. It turned out to be a very nice specimen with 8ozt of gold in it. Mitchel