Nevada Brian

We decided to detect the high country with the idea that we would be out of the smoke from the Trailhead fire that was burning near Foresthill.  We arrived at our destination with clean air and blue skies, yahoo!  I   started the day hunting the trashy areas with my discriminator.  After a few hours and only digging bullets, I was getting a little worried about the possibility of a skunk.  Next, I brought out the GMT.  This is my anti-skunk machine!  I detected an area that I knew had an abundant of small gold.  Again, after a few hours, nothing but hot rocks and one bird shot.  Wow, not looking good and now the smoke is beginning to fill the valleys.  I really don’t enjoy the two hour drive home when I don’t have any gold in the poke.  Finally I decided to finish the day with my 5000 and the Sadie coil.  Normally I like to hunt with a large coil, but I had left that coil in my car which was parked in Truckee.  So I detected my way down the mountain finding two nails and half a bullet, about 6" deep.  It was now 4:00pm, and time to head back up the hill when I came across an area with a lot of small quartz rocks.  I thought to myself this area looks really good.  So I began detecting the quartz and immediately I got a huge signal by a tree.  I thought to myself, must be a nail since it’s so loud.  I scraped the ground with my boot and the target moved, so I knew it should be an easy recovery and probably trash.  Well, after an embarrassing recovery that took way to long, I had a 6.9dwt quartz and gold nugget in my hand.  The nugget was basically on the surface and had two friends below it. I detected the area only to find one square nail, but I think there is definitely more gold there.  The hike up the canyon is never fun but the drive home was great and the wifee was super happy.

I whinked the gold for three days and now the nugget weights 6.3dwt, but it’s much prettier now.

Very interesting!

I have a lot of money invested in my 5000 from the initial cost to aftermarket coils.  So anything new Whites has to offer in the PI field, has to be really great for me to bite.  Although, fingers crossed X

Thanks for the information Steve.

Brian.

Ok, I'm hooked, cant wait until the sequel comes out!

I think your very close, Great finds!

I do prefer Where's Waldo, but this is fun to.  My guess is the guy at 1 minute who recovered the coin.

My suggestion, go with a Minelab GPX series as previously mentioned.  For a lot less money you can get a VLF in the 40+KHZ range and still find gold. 

However,

$1500.00 may or may not be a lot of money to spend on a hobby you have never done before.

Brian.

For me, I'm very happy with my Minelab product.  I have owned my 5000 for over 5 years with no issues and I have even taken some good falls with it.  I hunt almost every weekend and still using the stock battery for a full day of detecting.  From my experience, Minelab has built me a solid product that finds me gold, nails, bullets, wire oh wait, its a metal detector.  hahaha

If I had one complaint to mention, I wish the aftermarket coils were more durable!  I have spent a lot of money on those round plastic things.

Brian.

Fantastic, way to go

Congratulations, sounds like there could be some deep nuggets in that wash, time to dig!!

Sure looks very similar, awesome find.

Nice looking gold Chris.  It appears you found 8 nuggets, and when you tell your story its 8 nuggets and that sounds pretty good to me regardless of size.

Apex all the way for me.  I use the Badger model  for searching and the Extreme model for digging.  Pricey, but worth the $$$.  If your in Grass Valley, check with Heather at Pioneer Mining in Auburn.  I know Black Sheep Mining in Sac sells Apex, that's where I buy mine.

I have only been as far as Pigeon Point Camp Ground, near Weaverville.  Fantastic gold in those canyons with a ton of claims and some private property.  We detected on open land and did very well and that was just a month ago.

12 hours ago, sjmpainter said:

Chris, that's good cause that is where I plan to put you and the misses when you get here.

That one is from the upper claim that has been snowed in till recently. Looks like we will find descent gold there and the access is easy compared to the lower claim. We can drive rite to this one.

Busy getting ready for the Homer trip this weekend. Hope you folks like Halibut and Rockfish.

Be safe on the drive and take a lot of pictures for the forum. It really is an awesome adventure up the Alcan.

Great gold and you can drive to it.  Dream come true! 

Very pretty gold, congratulations.

I highly recommend not over looking the creek bottoms.  Hunting in places others wont, can be very rewarding.

Brian

Hi AuWanderer, I clean all my gold including specimens with a product called Whink.  Most hardware stores and even WalMart carry this product.  It is 1-2% Hydrofluoric Acid.  In just a few days my gold is clean, but not polished clean.  Removes the iron staining, some host rock and the black, which I was told is Manganese.  I have even noticed, that on the more brittle quartz and gold pieces, after a few days, the quartz will begin to release.  I'm very possessive of my gold, so I do everything in house :)

You might also try looking through the ICMJ magazine.

Brian.

Hi Scott, What is the best machine to use in that area, PI or VLF?

Thanks,

Brian.

Au_Solitude, are you able to post any pictures from your trip without giving the location away?

Just south of Lovelock along a dusty road is the Lovelock Caves.  I thought it was neat to see.

Your quite the pioneer!  I enjoyed reading your story, too bad you didn't find any gold.  Once I made the mistake of hiking the Green Valley Trail out of Foresthill, and that was just a little bit over 2000 vertical feet and that kicked my butt.  One of these trips will pay off big for you.  Keep exploring :)

We had over an inch of rain in Reno yesterday at my house, and it was pouring this morning.  The way I see it is no one else can get out either, so the gold will still be waiting for you :)

Wow!

I agree, wireless is the way to go.  I use the Avantree Low Latency with my 5000 and GMT and it works great.  I won't go back to corded headphones with any detector.  Its great to see manufactures are seeing the demand for this technology and including it on their products.

23 minutes ago, deathray said:

Deus and f19 has iron volume too. Dont know how soon you are planning on buying, but Scott Jocoy was telling me to join him on a Saturday hunt soon. Thinking I may go in 2 weeks. If your there, you can try the Deus and f19 (improved gb pro). Im in love with the Deus myself...run it in full tones, zero disc...noisy as hell, but dont feel like I miss much. Its like a  fast minelab set like that, you can even hear 2 targets under the coil...like low conductor with a high conductor...gives that wierd, mixed tone.

You should join us Ray.  I would like to check out the Deus, thanks.