Featherdfishead

Good go of it russ! Thanks for shareing - looks like desert gold huh AjR

Sjmpainter - Look at ebay or criagslist of used bounty hunters or look for new ones cheep. I took a cheep BH Lonestar and modded it for my 5 yr old son when he was only 4. Cut down the shaft and shortened arm rest. Attached control box to belt. It discs great i notch out everything but clad and quarters and it does amazingly well. Doesn't go deep but its accurate and has enough depth to find allot of coins. But the new Minelab Go's look Sweet. Love teachn kids to detect - adults too

Thanks Guys! I forgot to mention i'm going to cook the nugget off tomorrow to make sure its not mercury on it. AjR

Just got home from an amazing day. I haven't been out since i found the big flake in my short hour hunt back on march 23rd. I've been dealing with my grandmother being on her death bed and kids sick with the flu. I have been needing a day like today to put a big smile on my face and a happy memory in my book of life. I covered allot of ground today. I started the morning early high on a ridge fallowing an old ground sluice to it up most workings. After digging a handful of nails and afew pieces of lead, and random pieces of wire and bits of old can and boot tacks I had covered the area thoroughly without finding a single piece of gold. The uppermost workings were originally fed by a series of small ponds stepping down from the saddle of the ridge, one feeding the other with the final one feeding the placer workings below. These were all sedimented in and dry but were very cool to look at. (On a typical year i'd have been under 10 ft of snow were i stood). Reaching these upper limits i headed higher to the saddle and spotted workings all along the ridge. The ridge saddle was all serpentine that was crisscrossed by rhiolite veins. The old timers hadnt left a single vein un-dug. Many were small holes afew feet wide and 6 to 10 feet long while others were good sized pits 10 to 15 feet deep and three times as long. Scanning the pits and tailings i dug afew more nails and five or six small fragments of lead. Then i got a strong signal in one of the piles next to a small pit working. Must be a piece of jack i thought not having found nails or trash thus far. 9 inches or so down i found an old tobacco tin. Cleaned up nice enough to ID. its an Edgeworth Extra High Grade "Ready-Rubbed" Smoking Tobacco produced by Larus and Brother Company, Inc. in Richmond, Virginia between 1910 and 1926. I rarely keep junk but liked this peace. After putting the tin in my pack i headed to the highest point on the ridge to eat some lunch and detect the last destroyed outcropping before circling back down hill to a different old placer workings in the very head waters of a nearby stream. I had taken three bites of my sandwich when my German Shepard/Bull Mastiff Mix dog Dragen (Dutch for Bear) began barking crazy like. Hmm not likely a person, maybe a bear by how shes barking i think. The ridge was very open with only a few old growth Jeffrey Pines an there young attempting to reclaim some ground. I took a few steps to my right while scanning ahead when a juvenile Cougar detached from the shade of a tree about 40 yards off and silently moved across the ridge and down the hill to my left in the direction i had just come. Keeping the dog close i quickly finished my sandwich and set off to see if i could get another view of the cat. Nope it was gone and my dog was hyped up and sniffing all around the tree the cat had been under. Awesome! The first Cougar id seen in a few years, I have been lucky enough to see many in my life and have never had any trouble. I rarely pack but nearly always have a dog or two with me. Very excited about seeing the cat and glad i had explored this new area i circled back around the ridge and headed down twords the placer workings in the headwaters of the stream below. I had found gold in the headwater workings last spring but by digging not detecting. That day i dug a few pickers while a buddy of mine detected a penny weight piece down stream from me. He later cleaned this area for a solid 6 dwt, while i dug around and found afew penny weight but was unable to detect a piece. The area was very hard on my GB Pro so i would usually detect awhile and then not finding anything pan awhile to bring home some color. Talking with a fellow local miners i know a 1/2 oz,1/3 oz and many penny weight pieces have been found in the area panning but not so many detecting. I have always believed more gold is waiting for a coil here but until today just couldnt hit on it. Little did i know it was going to be such a unique and beautiful piece. I headed down stream as to work my way upstream and out as the day proceeded to afternoon. I began detecting above the area my buddy had creamed and slowly worked up river. The stream even hear in its head waters is only a very small trickle. To pan youd need to build yourself a small damn. I reached a nice pinch with a steep hill slope on the right and high bed rock covered by tailings diving into the stream on the left. the trickle of water slowly snaked through the four feet of substrate that separated the bedrock and the hill slope. Just were the tailings on the bedrock dove into the trickle i got a faint whisper. Being directly on bed rock and not seeing anything i broke up the serpentine a little and scanned again. Not deaper but in the bank more, under the tightly pack tailing. After digging out a few softball sized cobbles that were very wedged i scanned again and got a screamer. Scooped the little bit of gravels from were the rocks had been and to my surprise a Beautiful Piece of White Gold? or Silver? I knew the historic placer claim records had reported placer silver nuggets in its finds but this piece was so heavy and very lightly yellow i wasn't sure. I cleaned the entire area with the remaining time i had but found only one other small flake of gold. Once home i hit it with my GB Pro and it hits at 60 - Gold for Sure in my opinion. The lightest colored piece i've ever found. A Find of My Life and just the type of day id been needn. The White Gold piece weighed in at 1.9 dwt. You'll notice the darker areas on the one side - they are very dark red to copper colored. Some of the other gold found here in the past has been red, green and black - and now white. SDC warbled along. Had to learn the look of some of the cold rocks but they were easy to see and hear once i got used to them. Thanks for sharing my Adventure Happy Hunting and Good Luck! AjR

Nice Gold Lucky!

I'd go FORS Gold because the pro package is the best deal around on a gold vlf right now. An old pro in my area has been doing very well with his. I love my gold bug pro though and you may be able to get a used one for a steal on ebay. If you do buy a Nel Coil - they are the best coils for the GB pro by far, epoxy filled and warrantied for 2 yrs. AjR

Go Gett'm!

Nice pic Strick and love the railroad token. I've also hunted and fished my entire life, and birded many years to, but the hunt for the gold is just as intense and exciting for me. Seems to be a driving force in life now adays. Good luck!

WTG! Lucky! Theirs some Lundy's here in Scott Valley - you related?

My Gold Bug Pro loves its Ziploc bag rubber-banded on. LOL

Rick - I have also noticed that if i hear a faint target and then sweep it more slow and precisely it hits louder. Also have noticed that the left side of the coil seems more sensitive than the right most of the time but on some targets the right sounds off better. I find myself scanning everything with both sides of the coil and the tip also. I've only got about 15 hrs on the machine, been to busy lately at home, but did notice on one of the small peaces i found that it was barely audible when i poked the right side of the coil down the crevasse, not audible at all on the tip and the best on the left side. The bedrock was very angled and the crevasse hard to poke into but i definitely could have missed the signal if i hadn't worked all sides of the coil in and around the crevasse. Do love this machine and am looking forward to Saturday to swing her again. Easter Sunday going to mother in laws, but theirs an old 50's trailer court on her property that i'm going to hit with the GB Pro and my 5.5 yr old with his modded bounty hunter lone-star. I look forward to sharing our experiences with this great little machine. Good Luck Keep her swinging Azavsfan and she'll bring in the gold - Good Luck

Thanks for the pics Rick - love the porous desert gold! Nice display of other finds also. LOL. I sure love my SDC - glad i got an adapter to use my grey ghosts - with the koss the machine is far to quit.

As all of us, i hope for the Big Nuggets but look more for undiscovered and undetected patches then just hunting the big one. Unlike most people, i'll hit a new place and find some color and then i'll start creaming her uptill i'm feeling there's still a little left and then i'll head of to new grounds. If the place is very hard to reach and without signs of any modern mining i'll even just take those few first pieces and then hunt another new area for a few days and if unable to find another patch i'll return to the previous place and clean it out. I aim to spend the majority of my detecting time on new grounds. I previously estimated that this was a 50/50 split but shall move to 30/70 split this year with my new SDC. I have a few spots that i'm planning to hit that i doubt many detectors if any have ever been. Of course i love finding gold, and compared to the few gold detectorists up here stay very positive and hopeful. The golden Karat that i dangle drives me along. Steve has mentioned before not detecting with people that aren't positive and i completely agree. I only hunt with one other guy sometimes but last year he was gettn pretty negative about detecting, he usually only hunts for the big nuggets and went back to panning and sluicing most of his gold. I love the guy and we've mined together many years but i will not be detecting that much with him this year. Hopefulness and a positive attitude, i believe are the keys to success. "Negative energy clouds ones mind, warping perception and hindering clarity of thought and action." AjR Biggest nugget i've found was only 1/4 oz but small gold aplenty.

Way to go Rick. I love my SDC. love to see some pics of your desert gold, its so rough compared to the were i am. Thanks for shareing

Thanks Lunk! I enjoy your gold post also

Hello All, Had a dentist appointment today and got home just as it started to rain at 5 o'clock. Looked at the wife and she said you better get going because it'll be getting dark soon. Off i went to a new spot that was a quarter mile below were id previously found some color. Rain lightly falling i fired up the trusty SDC and slowly worked way up river along a small bedrock shelf. Not a thing. Circling around a scree slope that had previously slid into the river i spotted another little bedrock shelf. After scanning for a minute or two, woo-woo, i hear a little something, after digging a little gravels and fanning a little i see a large flake, its like gold foil. Not skunked and gold all 4 days i've had my new machine. Awesome. Wait a minute i think as i reach around to were my pack should be to get my gold bottle. No pack i was in such a hurry i forgot my pack, LOL. An i didn't notice for a good half hr plus. Addicted is the only fitting word. As it was getting darker and raining more heavily i got another signal and fanned out a crack and saw two flakes about half the size of the last. With no tweezers i tried hard to get them but had to leave them for another time. Not much gold - it wouldn't measure on my scale but allot of fun for sure. AjR

Thanks Ken, i thought so but wanted to be sure - the old do not remove tag on beds huh.

Good lookn color - thanks for sharing

I'm sure this has been asked but do the serial # stickers really need to stay on the coil and detector and the ant fraud silver sticker on the bottom? I'll cover them with something if need be but it seems they'd soon be destroyed if not covered. I noticed i took a good nick out of the silver one on the bottom today and scratched the one on the coil already yesterday. good reason to get the aussi cover i guess. AjR

Thanks for the tip Rumblefish. I actually did that today but didn't find anything else in these spots.

Thanks everyone i've sure been enjoying this machine. Rumblefish i was useing sens. at 3 today. I cranked her up to 5 after cleaning up what i found at each location but didn't find anything else. I've been keeping it were it runs the smoothest until i really get to know the minelab threshold but will experiment more and more with the higher setting because i'm taking to the machine good. Also forgot to mention that when retrieving the bigger peace i put my minelab hat and glasses on the shore only to get knocked in to the river by my dog when i wasn't looking. Didnt notice until after recovering the nugget and was pissed. I found my glasses thank god but the new minelab hat was gone. Hopeing i can search it out down river another day but was bumbed.

I go for the CTX myself never used either but they seem pretty bad ass. If and when i strike a good patch i'll likley buy one to use as my all round VLF. As for the ring - it can easily sink over a foot at the beach. The habitat the coin or ring is in effects how fast and deep it will sink. Part of the fun of detecting is learning at what depth items from different eras lay at in different locations. Target ID can only be the computers best guess and disc. can mask small rings,earrings, chains. i'm sure you'll enjoy either machine.

love to hear about it and goes to show what hard work can get ya.

Pretty damn cool Richard. Some corporate guys copying your idea right now. LOL

Good looking gold Russ and another kudos for loosing 15 lbs! Thanks for sharing