IdahoPeg

My partner introduced me to dredging here in Idaho last summer and we did pretty well for our 1st season. Hopefully I’ll get to man the hose this season once in a while, and he can be the “Dredge Wench” lol

Great story Chet!

They did awesome! Congrats to your customer👍

Holy crap! You were a slow learner on that detector, but wow have you kicked butt once you figured it out! Congratulations on your success!

Thanks! Most bottles are broken where I hunt, as placer mining has turned ground over several times. My partner did find this intact old Worcestershire bottle with stopper, and I found some nice pieces of old porcelain I could research. Just love the history of it all!😊

What an awesome adventure with some really nice well earned gold too!

Wow, awesome gold! Congrats👍

Thanks for asking😊 No, I didn’t get out Nugget shooting as much as I usually do! I found some dinks with the Gold Monster, and from sluicing bench material up near my cabin. Only hit northern Nv once this season when I met up with Chet& the guys, and got a few grams using the 6000. Main gold was found dredging a couple times w partner, who plucked some beauties out of bedrock cracks. Think we’ll do more dredging next year😄. Good luck to you too!

You mean this little ol’ thing? You’re right, it definitely deserves top billing!

Well this year’s hunting is about done, and I had a great time searching for all kinds of good stuff from the past. Picked out some photos of my favorites to share. First is that thing we couldn’t figure out if it were piece of a pipe, or gas lamp fixture…likely the latter, but still cool. Here’s some coins and an old gold scale weight, as well as an arrowhead found up near my cabin. Look how nice the dime cleaned up. A trip to Lemhi Valley a few hours from me had amazing pictographs and gave up some wonderful artifacts from the past inhabitants. My oldest coin find was 1861…a British penny. Found it near some old porcelain from England that dated late 1800s . Ended the season with some really beautiful points! I always thank the Spirits for sharing their gifts with me. My hunting partner made these really awesome pendants for us….we found the arrowheads and gold while hunting together, and he found the blue Native Americans trade beads years ago. Pretty cool. I’ll be heading to Arizona next week for 2-3 months…looking forward to nugget detecting, rock hounding, relic&artifact hunting and exploring new areas…maybe meet up with some Arizona forum members.😊

Welcome👋

Wow, that’s fantastic! Congratulations on a great hunt!

First whole one found by myself! I found a couple partials while hunting with an experienced friend. This one is special….I’m really enjoying this new hobby😊

I researched it and narrowed I.D. down to either Elko Corner Notched vs Hells Canyon Corner Notched…size leans towards Elko, location leans towards Hells Canyon which were 200-1200yrs ago. Elko are much older, 1500-4500yrs ago!

I’ve been stomping the hills detecting or hiking for years now up by my cabin and always hoped I’d find an arrowhead, but never did. Recently that changed. I went to a site to hunt for coins & relics with my Equinox, but before gearing up realized nature was calling. So just as I squatted to tinkle, looky what I saw bright & shiny right in front me! The Piddle Point!😆 It’s a beauty! Love the obsidian points😊

This past year I’ve been venturing out doing different things since nugget detecting is getting tougher, with all the known patches hammered to death and new ground so hard to come by. So I’ve enjoyed sluicing, relic & coin hunting, as well as artifact/arrowhead hunting lately. This past week my partner Jeff and I went dredging…he’d done it years ago, but this year upgraded his equipment, got our permit & off we went! Here’s a view of where we’re working and the big hole he made by moving lots of rocks…. The water is too crazy to venture out in the middle. Here’s Jeff moving one of the many boulders….mother nature’s gym! My job is to clear jams in the suction hose, keep black sands from filling the riffles…tons of black sand, and to keep an eye on his safety. I periodically run a big magnet over the riffles & tap it under the water flow to dislodge any gold possibly trapped before it’s discarded…works good. Otherwise the black sands would completely fill the sluice & gold would tumble over, that’s how much sand there is! Much easier job than Jeff’s😄 The pups supervised us closely 😊 Here’s the totals after about 8 hours runtime…he got into an awesome spot following a bedrock crack. The chunkies…. And the fines… What a great way to spend a gorgeous day on the river! Next season I’ll get me a thick wetsuit…my florida diving suits won’t cut it here. Then I can get in the water and play too!😊

Great finds!

Cool stuff and great write up!

Wow, awesome finds and great post! Thanks for sharing.

Any updates on your friend? Hope he’s awake & doing better.

Any updates on your friend? Hope he’s awake & recovering from the strokes.

What a cool trip & interesting article!

The thing that stumps me are the English letters that I can’t make out…thought it was Chinese pipe at first till I saw them. Thanks for the tip re American Digger, I think I’ll do that.

Greetings! I spent 6 winters in Melbourne Beach…finally found my 1/2 Reale after 3 seasons of detecting. A December storm had hit & there were 6-8’ cuts on the beach where I found it near the base of cut. After weather events like that, all of us detectorists are out driving feverishly up & down A1A checking all the “spots” looking for the right place to detect! And I was competing with the great Terry Shannon & his buddies…if you don’t know him, check out his YouTube videos & google him, wrote some cool books too. Heck of a nice guy…maybe you’ll run into him someday. Good luck!

Pretty cool finds! Yep that Spanish coin replica would’ve got my heart thumping! Here’s my 1715 Fleet 1/2 Reale I found in FL Dec’19. After pounding the sand for 3 seasons in storms etc, I’m proudly wearing in 2nd pic 😄