Condor

I "horseshoed" out for no discrimination, yet the machine silenced the hot rocks.  My assumption is the Iron Bias accounted for that, but that's a guess.

Holy Cow Rick,

You are the god of Rye Patch.  Bravo Zulu as always. 

I tested the 11" coil last winter with some test nuggets and a couple undug targets I located with the Z7000.  They were in the .5 gram range and rang up consistently in the +8 to +10 range.  As you may recall the bump sensitivity of the 11" drove me batsh__t crazy so I really didn't use it much after that.  I did test a .5 grammer this morning with the 6" coil.  I laid it on some fairly hot ground, but still was not much more than an air test.  It screamed loud and clear, consistently showing +8 VID at about 6" above the target.  I should be able to get out for a couple hrs over the next few days.  I'll try to find a good target with the Z then follow up with the NOX. 

55 minutes ago, Ridge Runner said:

Condor

I had one sometime back and I ran it with both wheels on the ground. With that engine you may want to add wings.

Remember it’s not the fall that kills you it’s that sudden stop.

Chuck

I generally fill that front wheel tank with water to keep from catching air on steep climbs.  That extra 40 lbs out front really helps keep her on the ground.  The gearing is so low that even if you had 25hp your top end wouldn't change much.  I've been doing the break-in  on the irrigation canal roads around my house.  The low end acceleration and torque are really improved.  I'm looking forward to be back out in the hills. 

I ran 2 Ozt of my -50 mesh, black sand concentrate through the Blue Bowl.  It came out to .5 gram.  This was 2 oz dry concentrate off the top of the container, I suspect the bottom my be richer after all the jarring around for the past 2 weeks.  I'll send the Blue Bowl tailings and about a couple lbs of concentrates to Rege in PA to see what his Miller Table can do.  If I could fill the back of my truck with this stuff it might be worth something, but as it stands not really a game changer.

Still waiting on Rokon parts, then back to Gold Country.  I've got a new plan, of course.  118 degrees here in Sunny Yuma tomorrow, but it's a dry heat.  Yeah great!

16 minutes ago, Rege-PA said:

Wow Steve! Looks like a good time on the river. I would like to try to liberate some of that concentrate on my Miller table. It could be the ticket to getting the gold out.

We`ll talk later......

No problem Rege,

I'd love to see what happens on the Miller Table.  Give me a call with the physical mailing address.  I might have the address for the Archery Shop.

Part III

Gold

As it turns out there is tiny -100 mesh gold just about anywhere you stick the shovel.  In any pan you're likely to see 3 or 4 tiny specs of gold and a lot of black sand.  The problem is as old as time, find a concentration and figure out a way to recover it.  What I discovered on the gravel bar was a thin flood layer about 4 inches thick under about 8 inches of overburden.  The layer was distinct because it contained mostly sharp cornered gravel rather than typical rounded river gravel and it contained a lot of mud/silt/clay binding the layer together.  Once you get a decent hole started you can chase the layer, pushing the overburden in behind you.  A typical pan of this material is likely to contain 30 to 50 colors, mostly -100 all the way down to -400.  I had a pocket magnifier and looked at this stuff under 100x magnification.  It's incredible, but you really have to get a lot of it to have any real weight.  It really looks impressive when you have to black sand to highlight it, but when you pan off the black sand this stuff will float right out of the pan.  

I had reconfigured my Gold Cube to be more of stacked sluice, capable of handling 1/4 inch material.  I added Deep V black matting to the top tray, one of the new esoteric "catch it all miracle" mats to the second tray and Deep V in the 3rd tray.  The top tray was catching 90 percent of the gold, so I only cleaned the bottom trays at the end of the day.  I would dig 2 buckets (4 half buckets for carrying ease) classified down to 1/4 inch then run it through the Cube.  Photo 1 is what typically I would get out of 2 buckets.  I would pan it down to the black sand and if there were any pickers I take them out and dump the concentrates into another bucket for later processing.   After a couple days it was clear that this type of gold production wasn't going to change my lifestyle much.  The most I ever ran was 10 buckets.  After a few days I panned off the +50 mesh gold for 2.87 grams.  Clearly I wasn't going to get rich on this project.  But, it was better than being home in Yuma at 118 degrees.  My girlfriend would occasionally get energetic and help shake the bucket classifier, but she was satisfied sitting in the shade reading.  I figure I was getting about 1 gram of gold per day, working a couple hrs, then swimming, fishing etc.  A more dedicated person with a sluice tuned for beach type gold could obviously do much better.

After she left, I started exploring and sampling in more remote areas.  A lot of hiking and the best I found was an area with all this riverside sedge grass growing right on the bedrock.  It involved a rigorous hike on a very narrow trail overgrown with poison oak.  I stuck to panning because I didn't want to haul much equipment in there.  An unbalanced pack on that steep trail might have been disastrous.  The roots of this sedge were like natural miner's moss.  They were so tough I chopped them with a hatchet them shredded them up in a bucket of water.  It might take an hr to get 1/4 bucket of this material, but it was so rich in fine gold.  In photo #2 is the gold I took out of one pan from a crack under the sedge roots.  Unfortunately, there just weren't many of those.  The weather had turned really hot, so I would sit on a ledge waist deep in the water and pan out my 1/4 bucket.  Again, I would pan down to the black sands then save it in a concentrate bucket.  After I got tired of panning I would have to waste time until the sun set enough for the long hike back to my Rokon. 

Again, if I had been serious with the right equipment, I could probably get 3 or 4 grams a day until I ran out of sedge grass. 

So, after 3 weeks I decided to go get some big gold at Rye Patch, and we know how that turned out. 

OK, I found my camera.  Regrettably, I don't take many pictures, but there's enough to get the overall picture.  I don't know how many I can load at one time, stick with me though.

#1 is the Rokon carrying my frame pack with gear to take down to the river.

#2 is our spike camp on the gravel bar

#3 is one of my holes on the gravel bar

#4 4X4 trying to get down my ATV trail

I'll do the rest when I finish the write up on the gold

For those who don't know me, I'm 64 yrs old, but don't feel a day over 63.  My girlfriend while younger, is not overly so. 

1 hour ago, Cal_Cobra said:

I've detected in Nevada (both northern and southern) during July and August and, it sucks. Damn near gave me heat stroke once.  Don't know why, but about every five years I have to give it another go, and surprise, surprise, it still sucks!! haha

 I spent 3 weeks out there last year in August.  It sucked alot, but a few thunderstorms would come through and make things interesting and it was a whole lot better than home in sunny Yuma at 118 degrees.  I saw Steve H out there and he had a small travel trailer with a portable generator and air conditioning.  That really is the answer for the heat of the day.  I may look into that for later this year.

Part II

Every year I devise some new scheme to get the gold out of that river.  One year I even set up a gravity dredge with 60' of 4'' hose.  It worked fine, but it really takes 2 people to manage it.  If you get a blockage it's an absolute bear to drag that hose out, shake out the blockage, then get it all back in the water and re-charge the suction. 

This year I decided to just concentrate on the flood gold and work less hard.  During the past winter I watched various You-Tube videos of the guys on the beaches trying to capture fly speck gold.  I figured I could find a decent inside bend of the river and dig the easy stuff off the banks.  My plan got a little further complicated when my girlfriend decided she would like to join me for 10 days on the river.  Mind you, this is rough, dry camping.  Since the BLM roadblock, the only camping space is an old helicopter landing area, over a mile from the river with no local water source, and certainly no toilet facilities. 

I traveled ahead by 4 days to set things up and she would fly into Sacramento.  I set up a decent camp, stand up room tent with an inflatable queen bed.  I had pre-positioned bear spray easily accessible under the awning and in the tent, just in case.  I set up a potty area with one of those toilet seats you put on a 5 gallon bucket.  I bought the potty bags that help keep the mess in order for later disposal.  I found a decent gravel bar with about a half mile walk from where I could park the Rokon,  cleared the trail of poison oak and set up a portable shade and a chair on the gravel bar.  The only real hazard was a steep section of trail with about a 50' drop, with the trail littered with dry oak leaves.  They can be like stepping on roller skates in that kind of terrain, but I did the best I could. 

She arrived and on the drive down the nasty washed out road she started to wonder what she had gotten herself into, but she was game and soldiered on. I pointed out the poison oak all around the camp and cautioned repeatedly, "don't leave the trail". 

So it was for the next 10 days.  We rode double on the Rokon and only crashed 4 times, all at low speed and generally into the blackberry bushes.  No major injuries, minor scrapes, bruises and stickers.  The hike proved to be a challenge, particularly the nasty 50' steep section.  She developed a pattern of places to stop and catch her breath and take a drink of water.  She likes to think she works out at the gym, but this was a bit different.  I kept telling her, "it's the cardio", you'll get used to it.  She didn't weigh 130 lbs soaking wet when we started, but managed to lose 7 lbs in the 10 days on the river.  In the river I had a net bag of beer, soda and water.  I carried fresh snacks down everyday so it really was paradise, kind of.  I would drive the Rokon down to the spring every evening and fill up a 5 gallon tote bag of water for bathing.  I'd heat up enough and fill a bucket with warm water.  We used a gatorade bottle with the top cut off as a scoop to pour water for our shower.  The bear only visited once.  I carelessly left the trash out and there he was.  I scared him off and didn't have to use the bear spray.   At the end of 10 days, my girlfriend had to fly home reluctantly. 

In Part III, I'll talk about the gold....

2 hours ago, fredmason said:

That is the trouble with machines...they break down.  Unfortunately, I have broke too...

I am glad to see your post as I was getting a little concerned that the Mexicans had kept you...

glad you made it back!

fred

Hey Fred,

My last 2 Mexico trips have not produced much gold.  It's getting hard to come by, everywhere.  Prior to the Rye Patch, I spent a couple weeks sluicing and panning on the N. Fork of the American River.  I was getting about a gram a day of flood gold, but you know me, I'll leave gold to find gold.  I'll start writing up that story on the Sluicing and Panning forum.  I'm trying to find my camera with some of the gold pics. 

Hey Steve,

Thanks for correcting my spelling as well.   I saw it after I posted, but as always, my computer skills are limited.

I really needed the Equinox on a collapsible shaft so that I can put it in my backpack or stow it on the Rokon for riding cross country.  I already had the Golden Mask shaft that I had modified for the Deus, so I started tinkering.  The original Equinox shaft has a smaller diameter than the Golden Mask, so the shaft mounts will not mate up directly.  I took the dremel tool and relieved the areas around the screw holes just enough to get the Nox handle brain/screen section to snug up to the Mask shaft.  I removed the original Mask handle and fitted the Nox in the same location.  (Mask handle is bolted and glued to the shaft, it takes some work to get them apart.)  I then used longer NOX sized metric bolts (shown below)  snugged them into the NOX handle around the Mask shaft.  Its a very tight fit so the bolts end up a little bent.  I then cut the heads off the bolts to make them more or less studs.  I cut and drilled a hose clamp band, fitted it over the studs, then pulled them down tight over the shaft with a nut and washer combination.  I added a little black paint and the whole thing is really stable.  I'll had a little black Duct tape to the whole mess so that it doesn't hang up on my shirt or pants. 

It collapses to 24 inches and fully extends to about 50 inches.  The Golden Mask shafts are all carbon fiber so corrosion, weight and shaft wobble are not a problem.  I gave it a test run this morning was quite impressed.  For whatever reason I can not explain, my bump falsing was cut by about half.  That was the first thing I noticed so I went through all the set up functions to make sure I hadn't accidentally changed something like Sens or Recovery.  Nope, all my same settings, but now a noticeable reduction in bump sensitivity.  I don't know how, but I'm liking it a whole lot better now.   

Summer has come early here in the Desert Southwest, Sunny Yuma.  Mid 90's today, approaching 100 through the week,  must be a climate change kind of thing.  I had time to spare this morning so I took the Equinox out to an area of old Dry Wash tailings I found recently.  I found a number of small pieces last week with the Z7000, so I wanted to see what the Z had missed.  I fired up the Equinox in Gold Prospecting 2, "made sure recovery speed reset to 6", Sens at 22, notched out -9 through -6 which covers most hot rocks down here.  I moved through the old coarse and fine throw-out tailings, low and slow.  I had to double check a number of hard black hot rocks that tried to blow through my notch.  They generally sound off in one direction only and are easily moved with a boot scrape.  I started finding these tiny nuggets about an inch or so down, resting on a layer of red clay.  The Equinox was  audibly sounding off with a classic "Gold Bug II" kind of Zip tone, though choppy and broken at low and slow.  Unfortunately, the Screen  VID could not keep up.  It was generally showing -8 of the red clay, but the audible target tone was breaking through no problem and was so crisp and clear that I knew I had to dig.  I'm using higher end EarBud earphones plugged directly into the machine. 

What I've learned so far:  1.  Higher recovery speed helps control bump falsing.  It's still there, but manageable.   2.  Don't rely on the VID to identify gold.  Even when these targets were out of the hole, the VID ranged from 1 through 9. 

3.  The 11" coil is plenty sensitive on small gold.  I don't see a 6" coil in my future.  A solid 5"X10", heck yes.  4.  The Equinox is as good as any VLF gold prospecting detector out there, if you take the time to know the machine and learn it's language.  As always it helps to get the coil over some gold to build confidence. 

Yep, break out the Dunce Cap.  I had messed with that Recovery Speed setting the very first day over test nuggets and liked the way it sounded on a setting of 4.  I never thought to change it back, the machine stores your last settings.  Little did I know how bumpy it would make that coil.  With the factory default of 6, the coil is much better behaved, but still falses occasionally, certainly no where near what I was experiencing before. 

Belay all my previous complaints. 

Forgot to mention I'm hunting with no Discrimination, digging all targets for practice.

I spent the past couple days playing around with the EQ on some undug targets, some that I detected with the GPZ, then went over with the EQ.  My observations in Moderately Mild ground of Sunny Yuma.  Dropping the Sens down to 18 or lower didn't improve the bump falsing, but the targets disappeared.  Raising the Recovery Speed to 5 or higher knocked out 75 percent of the bump falsing.    If you raise the Recovery speed, you need to raise the threshold for low and slow or you won't hear the targets.  At a recovery speed of 5, you need a pretty good swing speed to make the micro nuggets sing out.  The smallest I found was .04 gram, the biggest was .48 gram.  I can't be sure what I'm losing in depth with the higher recovery speed, most of these targets are 1 to 2 inches.  Just like any new detector, it takes some time on the ground to get to know the nuances.  For most of my ground, a Sens of 23, Threshold 8 to 10, Recovery Speed 5 or 6.  On the hotter red dirt, Sens of 20 held up pretty well.  Park 2 got the bigger nuggets just fine, Field 2 nothing.  Bear in mind I'm concentrating on micro nuggets simply because there are more of them and I'm having fun finding something for my day out in the sun.   I'm liking this detector more every day. 

One you electronic geniuses can tell us why the higher Recovery Speed setting knocks down the bump falsing. 

Many thanks JW for keeping everyone's Equinox expectations realistic as it relates to gold prospecting.  There is no sense hyping the attributes of this machine without talking about its potential disappointments.   Prospectors can be an unforgiving bunch.  I well imagine that Steve H is behind the scenes, working his keen powers of persuasion, encouraging Minelab to give us a gold prospecting coil.   I was out yesterday with a Gold Monster and only ran it for a few minutes at a time, so I really don't speak the Monster language, but I can honestly say that given my limited time with both machines, I would pick the EQ over the Monster for a small gold VLF.  The weight, balance and versatility just make the EQ a lot more value for the money.  I know JW and Steve H have said this, but let me reiterate, finding gold this small with an 11 inch coil is remarkable.  I will try and get the EQ over a faint, undug target today, and adjust the sensitivity down until I lose the target.  That should give us a better idea of how far we can go on Sensitivity to eliminate bump falsing.

Steve, you're spot on and we're on the same path here.  We have all seen the knee jerk negative reactions to Minelab's various detector releases in the past.  All or most of the negativity has fallen silent after general use by unbiased consumers.  My goal here was to get out in front of this weakness (for prospectors) and I raised it on the prospecting page rather than the Equinox fan club page.   The Equinox is an awesome detector given all that it accomplishes at this price point.   Minelab has certainly not touted this detector's gold field prowess, it seems an afterthought to their innovative technology, and may well become a major strength with a dedicated coil.  I am certainly looking forward to that day.  I applaud Minelab for not dumming down the detector and leaving the choice of adjusting to extreme sensitivity in my inartful hands.   Just because my mini-van's engine is capable of 120mph, doesn't mean I should drive it at those speeds, but the option is mine and I sacrifice any claims that my mini-van sucks because it won't corner at 110mph.  It simply wasn't designed for that and I am the first to admit it.  Power on Minelab, innovation is king.