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

24 minutes ago, Chet said:

Over the years I have repaired several coils with dried out masking tape and a couple of dried out carbon sponges.

I will relate on of my experiences with one coil while detecting in a new undisturbed gully. Detected and dug a few square nails then the detector goes crazy making all kinds of noise.

 With more than 60 years of electronics experience I know how to fix most problems. Turn it off and back on; several cycles later go to plan B; tap it gently; after banging it into rocks and trees; give up and have lunch on a big flat rock.

Since we car pool going home early isn’t an option. From the previous scientific diagnostic testing (remember the banging of the coil test) it was determined that the problem was inside of the coil. Probably getting revenge for allowing myself and it to slide and crash into a gully the previous week. And there is no spare coil available; it’s time for another plan.

A Pulse Induction Mono coil is a simple three wire circuit inside of a sealed waterproof plastic shell. So simple even that MacGyver TV guy could handle this. Have you ever seen someone whetstone their prize Buck Knife until they can shave with it. Well it’s that time to put it to work.

 Working on my leg-top workbench I peeled off the tape that holds the skid plate to the coil housing. Then with my razor sharp Buck Knife cut and pried through the sealed plastic seam around the perimeter of the coil. Spliced the broken shield wire and secured it with a piece of the skid plate tape. Closed it up and secured it with the remaining tape. At this point I realized that I hadn’t stabbed my leg or cut a single finger!

Now for the test; turned it on and it purred like a kitten; went about 10ft and got a soft nice sounding target. Dug down about 10” and came up with a beautiful 13.8 dwt / 21.5 grams nugget! Some days it's just written in the stars.
 

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!

21 minutes ago, okara gold said:

Nice assortment of finds! Looks like you covered a lot of the bases. Ever find any old bottles?

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👍

6 hours ago, Valens Legacy said:

Great finds and wish you more luck in the future.

I know that you have also been looking for gold, have you cleaned up on that item also?

Good luck and stay safe out there

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!

9 minutes ago, Doc Bach said:

All very nice finds Peg....It's good to see that you have developed your eye and the Native American Artifacts are coming your way.I do have to say though that I am a little disappointed that the much celebrated and highly coveted piddle point (your first?) isn't the star of the show?😩

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!

15 minutes ago, Doc Bach said:

So is that your 1st point Peg? It's a beauty and congrats! Good work on your identification Research, and welcome to the fabulous hobby of artifact hunting, and collecting. You are now an official member of the club, and more will surely follow. Happy hunting and good luck!

Doc

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😊

4 hours ago, RickUK said:

That is a total thing of beauty,very well done,how old roughly would that be ?? we find occasionally similar arrow heads here in the UK but they are 1000s of years old but not sure how that would relate to across the pond.

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.

On 7/18/2023 at 9:37 AM, delnorter said:

The last information I received as of yesterday on Jim’s condition. The bypass surgery went very well. However, Jim has still not awakened after the operation. It appears a stroke(s) occurred during surgery.

Keep my old friend Jim in your thoughts,

Mike

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!

5 minutes ago, Doc Bach said:

Hey Peg. In light of your recent photo which gives the mystery item a bit of an asian flavor I'm starting to lean towards Chucks opinion about it possibly being a smoking pipe with a removable bowl.Opium pipes in particular and hash pipes in more recent times had removable bowls so that they could be cleaned and to collect the squeezins only to be enjoyed again.Frankly I'm surprised that some of the more knowledgeable relic guys and researchers on this forum haven't pinned it down by now.If you do not get a solid identification on it you might consider contacting Butch and Anita Holcombe at American Digger Magazine.Send the photos and they will post it for you in an upcoming issue.

 

 

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 😄