AU_Solitude

Thanks! Very interesting.

4 hours ago, Rick Watkins said:

Woody did you try shutting off 2300 then re balancing? Maybe try another detector, good luck on the mystery hole.

I did do this as well - no luck.

@NVChris - this could be the case.

3 minutes ago, WesD said:

 Also when hammering into bedrock, Ive lost quite a few targets due to them flying out of the hole and landing up to 10 feet away.

 

This may have happened - I did scan the area but I was in some thick manzanita so it could have gone anywhere if I knocked it out. 

By the way, I spent about 45 minutes digging 13" under some thick manzanita roots yesterday only to find two square nails. How they ended up this far down under a large manzanita baffles me.

3 minutes ago, vanursepaul said:

Maybe hot ground... i have dug many holes that the signal disappears---

 

either that or you have something stuck on the magnet on your pick---

that's always a fun one to realize after you are about to have a heart attack from digging in the heat!!!! lolol

Nothing on the magnet unfortunately - I was in some pretty mild ground so unless it was a random spot of hot ground I'm still convinced there must have been a target in there somewhere. That said, I only have about thirty hours on the SDC so it could be attributed to inexperience with the unit.

I got out into the field yesterday for my first nugget hunt of the year. About an hour into the hunt I got a very nice repeatable breach in the SDC's threshold; I raked away some overburden with the pick and scanned again - same thing with the signal a little stronger. After removing about 3 inches of overburden I was already in bedrock.

I would chip away a few handfuls of bedrock and scan the tailings and bedrock and repeat. This went on for some time, probably about 30 minutes and I was probably 8" into the fractured bedrock and went to rescan the hole and nothing - not even a quiver in the threshold. What happened? I kept going back to this spot hoping my signal would magically re appear to no avail.

Very nice - I was skunked yesterday...lots of lead nuggets.

Hi Woody

  It looks good but if you can't get out alive it don't look as good anymore. When you step across that line from the USA into another country you lose control. One may be to have a gun to protect yourself. Another is you work finding the gold with others watching and waiting to take it away from you. You could wake up dead.You really don't wake up.

  I've looked at other gold  and I think about it but I just like me too much. What won't kill will eat you are both.Ha

  You go ahead and go Woody but post here when can.

    Chicken Little no Chicken a Lot

              Chuck

I imagine the dangers would be significant and never said I planned on going - even getting into an area and finding gold in unfamiliar geography/geology would be challenging enough but then I imagine getting out of the country would probably be next to impossible, or, at the very least too arduous of a process to even consider.

I just think its amazing to see someone pulling nuggets out of the ground in such significant quantities, that hasn't happened here since the 1850's.

Didn't know there was gold in Malaysia in such significant quantities...check this guys Instagram out.

http://webgram.co/gold_jungle_cheap_station

Sack O' Potatoes 

That is in phenomenal shape - congrats! 

I don't modify minelabs I swear 

Nice nugget!

That's the male doing his courting dance. He looks pretty good during the mating season.

 

I showed the female - not so pretty but good eating.

And yes, they do taste like chicken. 

I grew up shooting those things - pretty sure they don't need to be protected. There is thousands of these things on my parents land back in Wyoming. I can't begin to understand this - I guess these people have nothing better to do and want to feel like they are doing something significant? 

Looks like Nevada really gets the stick on this one. 

There is a product that we all swear by called Oral Ivy.  You can usually get it at a health food store or online.  Those of us who hunt in that nasty stuff start taking it in the spring and continue all through the fall.  If you hunt year round in it, then take it year round.  A couple of drops in your morning coffee or any juice will do it, it's practically tasteless.  It builds up an immunity in your body so you don't get it, or at least it will minimal.

 

Now, if you already are infected, it is supposed to relieve the symptoms within a few days after you start taking it.  Give it a try, you've really got nothing to lose and it's a lot cheaper than a doctor visit.

 

Boericke & Tafel - Oral Ivy, 1 oz liquid

 

Digger Bob

First I have heard of this - It's just an alcohol tincture containing poison ivy    It makes sense, the vaccines that used to exist operated on the same principle. A lot of positive buzz on the web about this so I'm going to make the investment. 

Thanks DiggerB! 

I grew up in Wyoming and there was Poison Ivy in some places, never bothered me, I didn't encounter poison Oak until I moved to California 6 years ago. There are some people that are essentially immune to it, however, repeated exposures for anyone will result in increasingly worse responses/breakouts as your immune system reacts to the Urishiol (Seemingly counter intuitive, you would think that repeated exposures would build a tolerance - it does not.) 

Dawn dish soap - nuff' said. Don't get the offbrand, luke warm shower water so your pores don't open - scrub and let sit and repeat. This will help it heal much faster. 

I deal with this stuff all the time.

Good reading, thanks! 

Great video. 

Very nice, great little pieces, I too thought they were bigger than what the scale reads.

Note to self: keep beeping near pick tips.

Unbelievable - congratulations!   

Keen Targhee's are awesome, I cross rivers mud etc and usually just hose them down and toss them on the porch to dry when I get home. 

If terrain permits, and if my feet are feeling up to it, I also wear Vibram Trail Gloves. You really have to watch your footing because you'll feel every pointy rock you step on as they have a very thin sole. They are very light though and make long hikes a breeze and are flexible enough to tackle light climbing if you need to as well.

Prospecting and poison oak in Ca go hand in hand. I always wear a dust mask when digging placer spots and carry extra cloths in truck for drive home(bagging up trail cloths and using rubber gloves when in doubt) Soap up with dish washing liquid BEFORE getting hands/arms wet as the oils bind much better to the soap from your pours. Washing cloths in Simple Green works well for me. I also wear snake chaps over my BDU's and two layers of lite weight long sleeve shirts and leather gloves when diggin. Yeh i sweat like a pig but it beats having rash all over my body. When I get home i go into the shower with a bottle of dish soap and lather up from head to toe THEN turn on the water. If I have any doubts about it being on my detector or tools I'll wipe them down with a rag and rubbing alcohol. I always take my boots and chaps off/on with rubber gloves. Fun..Fun...Fun

Good tips! I'll be packing dust masks for sure, thought about that and one of those disposable painters suits for the next time I work this coyote hole. I hadn't thought about soaping up with Dawn before, that seems like a really good idea.

Thought I'd breach the subject as I know I am not the only one who deals with this; What do you do when detecting in areas that are thick with poison oak? Do you take any precautions with your detector, yourself, your other gear? Personally I use and carry Dawn dish soap which is probably one of the most well known preventative/treatments.

Some of the better areas I detect in are thick with this and I recently had a very bad bout with it after cleaning out a coyote hole, the entrance of which was covered with decomposing leaves (some of them poison oak - face, legs, and lungs all affected.)

I believe the biggest sleeping dog in detectors is the whole issue of quality control both in the detectors and especially in the coils. Substandard units are very common and account for some of the widely varying opinions on detectors. There are many less knowledgable people using detectors or coils that are performing poorly and they do not even know it. It seems the problem has been getting worse bit I can't tell if that is true or simply a side effect of the Internet and better cross checking and reporting by users. All the major manufacturers have made major fumbles in recent years on new detector releases so none can really be singled out. In general the more machines a company sells the more issues arise just from sheer numbers sold.

I disagree with the concept that rare hot units are making all the rest look bad. The member of this and many other forums are people buying top end "flagship" detectors and each and every one should be performing to top specifications. If not they should not be getting out the door. Or is it they are slapping together cheap low quality components and it is just a crapshoot getting a top performing unit? Sorry, that is what we expect from cheap detectors, not ones costing $1000 and more.

It really is so bad these days that in general I would advise a newbie to simply not buy a new model detector for a minimum of about 6 months after release just to let the bugs shake out. The problem of course is the "early adopter" being a guinea pig for the manufacturers and becoming in effect the last ten feet of the production line.

Re-reading my post I guess I did, however, it was not my intent to convey there were "super units." You did a better job of stating what I was trying to.

I can't say it is the case for any/every detector company as I never have worked for one, but I know a lot of electrical components, chipsets, etc are often sourced from overseas to save money these days. It's not always to save a buck either, rather, a lot of things cannot be found domestically (at least in the case of the US.) Certain things are simply not produced here anymore. I know the quality is really hit or miss in import components, often far greater than the often stated +/- 1%. How many less than perfect components on a detectors PCB is enough to create these fluctuations in performance? Not many.