mn90403

Next time I get on gold maybe ... several weeks away in all likelihood! I've been out with Chet and he carries his Nox over his shoulder while swinging the Zed just for this purpose. I mean he uses the Nox as his pinpointer so he avoids digging everything. Maybe he can tell us already what he thinks of the speed question.

Lunk, that is some information I was after. When you speed up the Nox the good and the bad targets disappear faster and give separation. I know the mellow sound of gold and would like it not to be 'masked' by a hot rock or other. What would you say the speed of the Zed is on the Nox scale? What would it be with Locate Patch On?

Today I took a short beach swing and didn't find much but it was good to just get out in a sea breeze if you know what I mean. I used the Equinox 800. About midway through my 2+ hours I checked my settings and noticed I had recovery speed on 5. I changed it to 6 and then the thought came to my mind, "What would I do or could I do with the Zed to immulate changing the recovery speed?" I've used the 800 in many different settings so far but mostly the beach. I've seen the videos of nails next to good targets. How do YOU tease the good targets out of trash like the 800?

Just Fred ... closing the parking lots because of no parking places. Of course it was because of TOO MANY PEOPLE. haha They said it was ok for people to go to the beach and then EVERYONE went at the same time. I saw the traffic jams. You couldn't even get under the tunnel in Santa Monica.

Not everyone catches my sense of humor!

We see JW put the pedal to the metal and found a nice piece. I've been looking at the weather in our deserts and the wind is over 15 mph for the next few days. They've closed the beaches, parks and trails because no one could find a parking place!

Can you post a link to the Christie's site?

Well done Chris. Is it good hunting weather? Mitchel

In the first link are great pictures and great prices from an auction last year. I can't see the auction this year because the NY Times blocks me as I'm not a subscriber. I searched for a March 14 auction but could not see it on their site. Is there another link? I know there is a very large private collection that Ruben Garcia is helping to liquidate.

Gerry, I didn't show all my beach trash.

Flak, Thanks for the post. This might be the only game (little nuggets) close to town for a few weeks. I'm going to try and make a day trip or two also. I've already copied down some of the setting from the 'faint gold signal' threads to use. Even with those settings I may still choose the wrong spots to hunt but I hope I can see some of those ancient (10+ year) dig holes to motivate me. Saturday and Sunday I was out at the beach and that was barely social distancing. Mitchel

Keep your social distance Norvic! I don't want you on my patch. That would be anywhere in the northern hemisphere. 😁

We do need to know where we can detect. Sometimes it is how you say things and inform others. If you can't get around right now because of international flights, interstate travel and have stay at home rules are in effect then I think it can be stated. This is a ramble and ramble back. I can't guarantee that all posts will remain especially if someone insists on poking the bear. When that happens we all have to run. 🤫

That leaves all the gold for you fellas that are on it! How do they stop you at the state lines? Have the freeways been closed? I was giving some thought for a day trip to our desert one day this week. Are businesses are closed except for those that are essential. I know I could get gas at my truck stop and not have to stop anywhere that people would be.

Yesterday I managed to get out to the beach and keep my social distance from the others and most of the targets. There has not been much sand movement except to deposit and sand in my Southern California beaches. I was at the black sand line and got a 15 and hoped it would be better than just the couple of pennies I had found and it was. It is like a thin silver wire ring. I haven't gotten one quite like it before. I was pretty much done with the beach soon after that find and on my way out I detected near a lifeguard station. The station had been place up on a mound and a dozer had been used to scrape up the sand. That made the surface I was detecting about 1 ft below normal. I got a dime signal with the Nox 800 and I kept digging and digging until I was down a foot. Out pops this silver band that weighs just 1.86g. The other items are just a collection of recent finds and still some others are just to show unsorted containers from trips in the most recent past. The hand is there to give it scale! haha

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.