Lanny

Nicely done Simon. Glad to see you're getting some of that sweet gold. All the best, Lanny

Always fun to watch someone getting some gold! Thanks for the video, and all the best, Lanny

Did not know that, thanks for the clarification. All the best, Lanny

Beautiful, amazing find! Nicely done, and all the best, Lanny

(A field note from Sept. 6, 2011) Found some more gold: detected some more nuggets; panned some nuggets and flake gold; dredged some chunky, sassy gold; met a couple of legends in this region of the prospecting world; saw a bear, a moose, and a huge bull elk, all this weekend; came across a mystery wreck deep in the mountains; got to see stars I've never seen before because the night sky was perfectly clear and unpolluted by light or any man-made substance; had to throw rocks at a bear and shout and yell to keep him from coming into camp; found an outcropping with beautiful peacock pyrite; detected a small-caliber pistol ball from the mid-1800's; saw mountain valleys and peaks I've never seen before; breathed untold gallons of pure, undefiled mountain air--it was quite the time. All the best, Lanny

A very enlightening and educational thread, thanks. All the best, Lanny

A little tip about chasing gold signals in the dirt. Because gold is so heavy, when you're trying to chase a nugget in a pile of loose ground on bedrock or packed clay (with a scoop or by hand), as soon as you disturb the soil, the target drops quickly or hugs the bottom as it slides around. When you're moving the dirt trying to pinpoint the target (with a pin-pointer or coil), any searching movement, and the target slides around, hugging the ground. You can reproduce similar results by getting chunks of lead (flattened BB's or spent 22 caliber lead) and get a very close result as you try to capture the lead targets in loose soil. Iron or steel pieces and other lighter metals, by comparison, seem to "ride higher" in the dirt, making them easier to capture. They won't have that sluggish slow slide along the bottom that gold does. I don't know how many times I've experienced this peculiar to gold and heavy metals quirk, it's happened a lot, but I just thought I'd share it, as for me, when I get a sluggish target in the dirt, it can be a good sign. All the best, and hope you get some nice gold, Lanny

I used to love dredging, glad to see someone still gets a chance to get some. All the best, Lanny

I should add that I've found that hemostats work great for reaching into hard to get to places to clamp onto flakes and flat nuggets to clamp on to get them out (vs. tweezers) and not have them drop back deeper into crevices or have them shoot off with the current in fast water. I have various lengths and sizes depending on the depth of cracks I'm working. Simon's suggestion for using automotive hooks is something I've done as well. All the best, Lanny

Ghost Miner, I just assumed it was a rhetorical question, lots of writer's use them for effect. All the best, Lanny

It's a rush to find gold underwater while fanning with the hand and recovering it with some sort of suction device/gold sucker bottle. I've found some nice nuggets that way, and I've also used a waterproof detector while at it which has helped me find nuggets as well that I'd have missed by hand-fanning, ones deeper in cracks and crevices. (I spent several seasons dredging as well, but that's a different story.) Sweet little video of some nice gold recovery through underwater sniping (thanks for posting), and if you decide to try it, know the temperature of the water you'll be hunting in and make sure to have a thick enough wetsuit and hood especially if the water is cold, no point in being miserable or getting hypothermia. (Our streams are so cold you get brain-freeze without a thick hood, and warm gloves are also necessary along with warm neoprene boots.) Oh, and get a proper sniping/crevicing tool as well, a screwdriver works in a pinch, but it can't root out the gold like a made-to-purpose sniping tool. All the best, Lanny

If I only had to hunt nuggets on relatively flat ground, I probably wouldn't mind the weight as much, but going up and down mountains all day long, not a fan of the weight at all. Switched a long time ago to external, light-weight battery packs to try to help, but still zero fun while working mountain sides and steep gulches/canyons. So, the main issue of weight that started this thread (that really applies to my situation) and why PI's have to be so heavy, I'll be all over a nice, lighter reliable PI/Hybrid when it comes out. All the best, Lanny

This is a very informative thread, and thanks to those that have contributed. Moreover, Simon, you've outdone yourself in explaining things, nicely done! Heavy PI's/hybrids is one of my main beefs with the technology, not a fan of a heavy detector, though I still swing my 5000 but only when I'm in nasty ground or need to punch super deep. The newer dedicated gold VLF's are better at dealing with mineralization than the old ones, so that lets me operate (even if sometimes with a noisy detector) where I couldn't before. Someone has to figure it out, the weight issue, and be able to provide a variety of good coils as well, so here's to hoping it happens sooner than later. All the best, Lanny

Truly enjoyed catching up on the story and its accompanying adventures. Times were still wild and wooly during the 30's it seems, must not have been many civil suits filed for roughing people up or for gunplay, neither must there have been much police activity regarding assaults/people willing to file charges, quite a bit like the Wild West up in those mountains at that time. Having said that, I've had encounters with some pretty rough types in gold country in the late 20th Century (had a gun swung in my direction as a warning as well, even when we were in no way encroaching on anyone's territory, just posturing and outright intimidation by the offender. There were also sluice box robbers around so the boxes had to be completely cleaned every evening), and it seems like the farther unscrupulous people are away from law enforcement, the more risks they're willing to take. So, not all of the rough stuff has been tamed yet in modern times in the wilds of the goldfields. Thanks for taking the time to keep entertainment coming, and all the best, Lanny Post script: If there's gold that's been shifted around in the area you're testing, you should be able to find anything near the surface with a good gold dedicated VLF, so it would be worth it to have one around, plus they're light enough you can scamper around on hillsides/mountainsides much easier while detecting. But, as has been pointed out, if you're trying to find deeper gold, you'll need a PI or one of the newer hybrids. (I always have a one-two punch when I'm out nugget shooting, a good deep-seeker, and a light VLF as they are both invaluable in their specific roles.) Having said that, as regards nugget shooting, it takes time to learn how to find gold with any detector, so you'll need to get swinging one as soon as you can, and whichever model you buy, get watching some YouTube videos/read some good articles/online posts so you'll know what to do and what to expect (ground balance, hot rocks, EMI, etc.). All the best, and thanks for your efforts, Lanny

Yes, I hardly ever fish lakes, but I've gone back to edit my original post to clear things up. Thanks for noticing, and all the best, Lanny

I'd like to add, that enough times to keep me looking, while I've been stream fishing, I've spotted some great panning/sluicing spots, as fish and gold like to drop out of the current in similar places. The fish of course do it to get out of the fast current to allow them to ambush food as it zips by and to conserve their energy in the quiet water as they wait for the next opportunity to ambush a snack. Great quote, thanks for posting it, and all the best, Lanny

"There is very little large rock to move and the river channel is evident. " Love this quote, as I have seen intact channel many times, and once you've seen it, you never forget it. Moreover, it makes it easier to trace the course of the gold because of it. This story has more twists and turns than a rattler tossed into a frying pan! Really enjoying the read, thanks for posting the entries. All the best, Lanny

That's great gold Chris, congratulations, and thanks for the pictures and the write-up! All the best, Lanny

Ghostminer--hope you don't mind me jumping in here: Jim, in the mountains, it often helps to see a fault by looking at the mountain peak or mountain side to see if there's an obvious sign of slippage, where one part of the mountain dropped slightly or drastically below an adjacent section. As well, there will usually be an area of different (perhaps softer or distorted) rock that assembles between the two sections. Sometimes this can be seen from far away, other times you have to get closer. It also depends on forestation or lack thereof as to how easy or difficult it is to see. If the area has been covered by deep clay deposits left by glaciation, then that's where geological reports would come in handy delineating lengthy, hidden trends as you're not going to see them with the naked eye. I've been lucky to be around geologists in the field to point some of these things out, if not, I'd be at a total loss as well. All the best buddy, Lanny

Your journal writer may not have been an author in the true sense, but his entries have all the hallmarks used to hold an audience's attention and generate suspense. Thanks for posting, and all the best, Lanny

Such a sweet find! Always great to find a patch. Nicely done, and all the best, Lanny

Where I detect, the sharks would have to climb the mountains to get me, so I guess I'm double safe (detector frequency protection and the shark non-mountain status). This thread is an informative and fun read, thanks. All the best, Lanny

Many thanks Jeff, thanks for letting me know. All the best, Lanny

Rookie Bedrock Gold Looking back at some earlier writing, I came across a note about a Greenie panning session one day. It illustrates how too many people don't respect bedrock's ability to hold gold. I was helping a rookie one day who wanted to learn to chase the gold. He'd studied up on the basics of panning. He'd read a lot of books and articles on the subject. He'd seen some videos on techniques and practices, and he was ready to tear up the hills to get some gold. He really ripped up the dirt. He dug holes on slopes packed with river-run, dug holes on the downstream side of boulders, dug holes in gravel bars, and he dug holes in the stream-bed as well. But, he only got little specks. He was one discouraged greenhorn. All of his book learning and knowledge, and all of his sweat equity produced almost no gold. I took him back to a spot on the river I’d shown him earlier in the day, right before he set off to light the panning world on fire. While he was gone, I had stayed in that one spot. It was a place where the river had shifted course that spring, and in doing so it had exposed some nice bedrock. The bedrock was now a foot or so above the water. It didn't look like much, as there was no gravel covering it, and that's why he'd left. He wanted to run a whack of dirt, so he did. But now his back was sore, along with lots of muscles he never knew he had. As I was panning, he peeked over my shoulder, and I showed him about three tablespoons of material in my gold pan. I’d freed it all from cracks and crevices in the bedrock. I told him how It had taken patience and time to get that tiny pile of material. Still, I could tell by looking at his face he was unimpressed with my small sample of pay-dirt. After all he'd read, listened to, and watched about prospecting, his head was filled with the grand idea that a good spot had to be a place where you could dig, sort, screen, work and wash volume to find gold. So, I asked him if wanted to wait while I panned my little bit of pay-dirt. And, with a pessimistic shrug, he waited. It took hardly any time before things, beautiful golden things, started peeking through the black sand. And what do you know, lots of fines, nice flake gold and pickers to boot! In fairness to him, I knew what to look for. This wasn't ordinary bedrock. It had been under the water for ten years at least (the river channel had shifted). However, just being under water wasn't what made it so sweet. Its structure was engineered with hundreds of perpendicular plates, from two to three inches high, bedded on top of more solid bedrock. I knew that these little plates had been sluicing and holding heavies for many years. All I did was clean those riffles out. There was no movement of volume to get gold that day, just patience, past knowledge, and the understanding to recognize a likely spot. So, guess what the rookie did the rest of the day? He staked his spot then and there on the bedrock and worked until the sun went to bed. When he stumbled back to camp that night, he had a nice catch of sassy gold, and his very first picker! You'd have thought he'd found the Hand of Faith nugget the way he carried on around the fire, and I was proud of him for what he’d learned and earned. The lesson in this tale is with bedrock, rookies don't give it the respect it’s due. Most prospecting books don't give it due respect either. Yet, it's one of the most productive places to check to catch a nice little pile of gold, and often enough, a nugget or two. Too many rookies head off to dig holes, move big rocks, strain muscles, sweat and swear to find a speck or two of gold. But, for a solid shot at getting nice gold in a small area with a small amount of volume, good bedrock can’t be beat. All the best, Lanny

Glad you were able to relate, and thanks for your feedback, much appreciated. All the best, Lanny